Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Greenfield is a former member of the pathetic US Green party. The "former" part of that characterization initially sounds good; but unfortunately, he only left the party last month, so that he could enter the Democratic primary. In other words, he doesn't seem to have minded the Greens' feeble lie-down-and-die strategy of supporting Kerry back in '04.

Indeed, there is depressingly less to this gambit than meets the eye. The press have taken an interest in it, but running in a Democratic primary is a form of self-mutilation. Greenfield may see to it that she gets some embarrassing questions on the stump, but he won't take the nomination away from her, or deprive her of a minute's sleep.

What would be more fun, and more interesting, and more constructive, would be if he ran in the general election on a third-party anti-war ticket. Even if the war is over by then, people have a healthy respect for the idea of payback -- and there's a lot of payback Hillary is due for, dating back to the way she made us all vassals of the HMOs in her husband's first presidential term. A third party determined to punish a bloody-fanged war criminal like Hillary might just deprive her of her Senate seat, and even if it missed that laudable goal, it would give all the other sellout Democrats something to worry about next time. It's like Voltaire said about Admiral Byng: "il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral, pour encourager les autres" -- it's a good idea to shoot an admiral every now and then, in order to encourage the others. Voltaire, of course, was being ironical; but there's many a true word spoken in jest.

I'm trying to think of an analogy. Guy's getting beaten up by a gang of thugs. Says nothing, doesn't defend himself. After half an hour or so of bone-crunching kicks and punches, he starts to wonder -- just internally, mind you; he doesn't say anything -- whether perhaps if this goes on much longer, he might possibly consider complaining about it.

These poor souls at MoveOn and the like really are scared of their own shadow. The only thing that will get the War Democrats' attention is a third-party peace line in the general election. But the pwo-gwessives are as petrified of that idea as a little bird confronted by a cobra.

• Clinton Lieberman Schumer et al.: '06 will be year of transition.
• MoveOn: '06 should be year of exit.

In other news, "Democracy for America", chaired by Howard Dean's brother Jim (Christ, isn't one enough?), has a plan for dealing with Bloody Joe, the Genghis Khan of Greenwich. They're going to... send him a letter, which you can sign online if you feel like getting your name on a list. The document is almost miraculously feeble; it calls on Joe to start "questioning President Bush's foreign policy."

Reading this story, between my belly laughs, I had an image of old Hrothgar's men, huddled in the mead hall at Heorot, surrounded by the disjecta membra of former colleagues, composing a letter to Grendel. Dear Mr. Grendel, we urge you to consider a change in diet. Our best wishes to your Mom. Sincerely, the Progressive Thanes of Geatland.

I put up a precis of my last post here on Kos, and added a poll to it, asking whether, if the Democrats take control of either house of Congress in '06, it will be because they've deserved it, or a matter of sheer dumb luck. To my unspeakable delight, dumb luck won in a landslide -- 75/25 as I write, with votes still trickling in.

I can't tell you how much this cheers me up. It strongly suggests to me that even among the fairly regular readers of Kos, True Believers are a minority -- much outnumbered by people who recognize what a rotten outfit the Democrats are, but just don't see any other way of doing Left politics except within the Democratic Party.

Hmmm. Sounds like I need to get to work on Chapter Fifteen of Stop Me Before I Vote Again.

Democrats... stopped marching during the election season so that they could waste time & money electing murderers. Lyndon Johnson was the 1964 'lesser evil.' In 1968 they got "clean for Gene" McCarthy, or backed Bobby Kennedy. Unknown to them, Bobby wiretapped Martin Luther King. When McCarthy lost in the primaries & Kennedy was assassinated, they raced to the November polls to vote for Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's murderous VP. (McCarthy endorsed him & evolved into a 'Reagan Democrat.') These awesome minds fell for George McGovern In 1972 . After years of war he wasn't for immediate withdrawal. He would end the war within 90 days of taking office. But until then he would vote for war money so he couldn't be accused of betraying the boys in Vietnam.

...[M]ost Unite For Peace And Justice marchers past the 2004 Republican convention voted for Kerry.... He declared his intention to get out of Iraq by 2008, AKA committing 4 more years of murder. And the Democratic opera star never stopped singing about his political love for Ariel Sharon. When UFPJ didn't denounce Kerry, it didn't fulfill its first duty: Peace movements must expose candidates allied to war criminals.

Every so often there's a gem, though. Here, for example, a list of reasons why we should hope for a Democratic congress in '06. It's a sad thing -- not only does it fail to galvanize the poll-going muscles, it tends to the soporific. But see for yourself. I have added some commentary (with a small 'c').

Indeed not; but a Democratic victory would hardly be a departure from one-party rule. As my pop used to say, "style points count in figure skating, not hockey." Politics is hockey, or ought to be.

2. A Democratic congress would have acted as a check on President Bush

Nonsense. The bridge votes are always there to carry the big ones through. Check out what Reagan got past ole Tip's house in the early 80's.

3. Checks and balances are the oil that keep our Constitutional machine running smoothly

For sheer pathos, this is hard to beat. Our Constitutional machine? "Keep the machine running smoothly" -- there's a war cry for you.

4. Equal representation for the other 50 percent. Republicans in the majority say "we have the votes; we don't need you" to the Democrats in the minority.

Poor babies. I'm losing a lot of sleep thinking about how dissed the Congressional Dems are by those big bad Republican bullies. And how lean and pinched Democratic cheeks are becoming, with such restricted access to the hog-trough of K street -- which is the only thing that would change with a Democratic majority, as long as Rahm and Steny are pacing the quarterdeck.

5. It's time to end Republican-only rule, where all dissenting opinions are shut out

What dissenting opinions?

6. No more holding votes open for hours while they bribe congressmen to get the necessary votes, or running conference committees without Democrats

Well now we've really got a hot button issue here, haven't we?

Reminds me of Robert Frost's definition of a real liberal -- "he won't even take his own side in an argument." Time was, the donkey's balls were brassier -- consider the loci classici (all purest Dixie) Sam Rayburn, Dick Russell, Wilbur Mills.

7. An end to the politics of polarization in lawmaking. Replace Republican majority shenanigans with a bipartisan process.

Now there's a recipe for wall street mud pies if I ever saw one. What do these fools think the public has to expect from "bipartisanship," except getting raped through two orifices simultaneously?

8. Judicial and other appointments must be safeguarded against extremism

This is unspeakably comic. Quite apart from the spinsterish deployment of the term "extremism" -- as if any red-blooded American were frightened of that -- nothing could be less real than the notion that a Demo-controlled Senate will serve as Solomonic filtration system for appointed office holders. Check out the hanging judges on the supreme bench and axe-swinging cabinetmen of the tarnation right that have made it thru the Demo gauntlet since, say, Nixon. Oh yeah, sometimes they stop one -- only to let the next one through. Always, always, always, something diamond hard right handed and nasty manages to finally slide onto the bench. And oh, yeah, they fuss and squawk about it, but then at the end of the day they're back in the coop, heads tucked under their wings, waiting for tonmorrow's raid on their eggs and the neck-wringing of a nestmate.

. 9. Restore the power to initiate investigations, and bipartisan congressional oversight

By all means, let's have more inquiries into Oval Office blowjobs and the lingerie of White House interns. That was unquestionably the high point of the Clinton administration.

10. Stop invading countries under false information

But of course if your information is accurate, invade away? There's the peace wing of the Democratic Party for you.

Even if you accept these revolting terms of reference, though, the argument is transparently bogus. Review who voted us into the Iraq show. I count many fair large ears among 'em -- including a Senate controlled, at the time, by the Other War Party.

11. Stop the explosion of deficit spending

Whose issue is this? Who cares about deficit spending, other than Wall Street and its fair-haired boy, Bobby Rubin?

12. End the massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the very rich. We need budget and tax priorities that ensure fairness to the lower and middle classes, not windfalls and corporate giveaways to the wealthy

Fairness? How 'bout a real working man's tax cut, guys? Funny, they can't even say "working class", can they? It would wring their mouths like a half-ripe persimmon. In the Kos world, there's the "rich", the "middle class", and -- little maidenly moue of distaste here -- the "lower class."

And here again, even if we leave aside the pathetic intellectual poverty of the Kos conceptual world -- the facts cut the ground right out from under whatever lame claim they're trying to make. Clinton gave the "very rich" one of the biggest valentines of all time back in '97, with his infamous donor thank-you, re-election, profits-only tax cut.

13. We need a House that will enact real health care reform. Make plans for universal Health Care

What? Universal, thats a smudge word. Single payer only. Period. Full stop. And oh by the way, what name will be forever connected with the health-care Economy of Plunder that Americans now enjoy? I'll give you a hint: it starts with an H and ends with a Y and it's Hillary, HILLARY, damnable, lying, warmaking Hillary.

14. We would have a meaningful jobs program. A Democratic Congress will pursue policies that create jobs. Reward companies who keep jobs in the United States. Meaningful assistance to the unemployed and underemployed.

I cannot imagine a more open-hole corporate boondoggle. Talk about corporate welfare and giveaways to the "very rich". Oh, and the tender concern for the "unemployed" -- which amounts to an admission that the job-creation program won't work. Delightful.

Dear MoveOn member:

This year our top goal is breaking the right-wing Republican stranglehold on Congress....

It is also part of our work together to hold Democrats to their Party's highest values on issues like foreign policy, economic prosperity and good government.

That sometimes means grappling with specific right-wing Democrats who consistently side with big corporations and right-wing Republicans.

One approach is to support progressive primary challengers to right-wing Democrats...

...conservative Democrats we would challenge represent states or districts that are heavily Democratic -- so we're not imperiling a Democratic majority by doing this...

And who is their named name, for instance? None other than poor Hank Cuellar -- and not a Tom Lantos or Jane Harman or anybody of consequence.

We immediately MoveOn to the unavoidable conflation of a Democratic majority with a "progressive" majority. Watch the shells:

A Democratic majority will be a big step towards progressive reform... a progressive majority that will work towards bold reforms.

Given that this is MoveOn, the timid lameness of the whole thing comes as no surprise. The surprise is that MoveOn has obviously been frightened by discontent in the ranks, or they wouldn't have stuck their necks out even this far. Now that is encouraging.

• Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
• Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
• Rep Lois Capps (D-CA)
• Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO)
• Rep John Conyers (D-MI)
• Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA)
• Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
• Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA)
• Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
• Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
• Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
• Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
• Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA)
• Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
• Rep.Gwen Moore (D-WI)
• Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
• Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN)
• Rep. Major Owens (D-NY)
• Rep.Donald Payne (D-NJ)
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
• Rep.Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
• Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA)
• Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

• Xavier Becerra
• Madeleine Z. Bordallo
• Corrine Brown
• Sherrod Brown
• Michael Capuano
• Julia Carson
• Donna Christensen
• Emanuel Cleaver
• Elijah Cummings
• Danny Davis
• Peter DeFazio
• Rosa DeLauro
• Lane Evans
• Chaka Fattah
• Bob Filner
• Barney Frank
• Raul Grijalva
• Luis Gutierrez
• Jesse Jackson, Jr.
• Stephanie Tubbs Jones
• Marcy Kaptur
• Carolyn Kilpatrick
• Dennis Kucinich
• Tom Lantos
• James McGovern
• Ed Markey
• George Miller
• Eleanor Holmes-Norton
• John Olver
• Ed Pastor
• Bobby Rush
• Bernie Sanders
• Jose Serrano
• Louise Slaughter
• Hilda Solis
• Bennie Thompson
• John Tierney
• Tom Udall
• Diane Watson
• Mel Watt
• Henry Waxman

And Dennis Kucinich! Through the mystic gematria of alphabetic order, his name falls right next to that arch-vampire from the AIPAC crypt, the burning shame of the Bay Area, Tommy Lantos. Lantos is a "progressive"? Boy, if that doesn't blow the tent right off the whole tired, shabby carnival.

I could go on -- Sherrod Brown, for example, anointed by Schumer et al. as the Ohio Senate candidate over the bullet-riddled body of Kosnik heartthrob Paul Hackett. But enough for one day.

How would you respond to the rejoinder: "At least we're doing something"? Really, this is one of those central questions that I think inhibits a lot of people from rejecting the Democrats.

My answer: do both. Abstain and do good. Sorry for the cliche, but the option always exists to go local. If you need to be positive -- if the sheer joy of spoiling ain't your game -- then each state has its set of playing rules but movements for good stuff abound. We've even thrown in a few of our own favorites from time to time -- state minimum wage initiatives are one of my favorites.

At the same time I'll repeat our Johnny one-note main point -- whatever you do, and whether or not you do anything else positive, above all don't vote for your local Democrat. As another commenter pointed out, that only spoils 'em -- to reward betrayal is folly.

By the way, my guess is that many of these "donkey diehards" are pulling a lever and no more -- that's the only "something" they're doing, and I guess it gives 'em a warm glow, like going to church on Easter and playing golf every other Sunday.

Fine, I well understand it's done as a reward for past Demo achievements. The problem: Eleanor Roosevelt is dead -- the person you're rewarding is Joe Lieberman.

I've even heard 'em argue, "Well the Democratic party at least pretends to be pro social improvement... or at least amelioration... if not reformation...." Notice it trails off. These diehards aren't fools -- they're just suffering from nostalgia.

Voting donkey is indeed doing something, but we contend in the scheme of things it's doing something not just useless, but positively bad -- at the very least it blocks the full realization of what we call the Orthrian trap, and at worst it actually contributes to the disastrous downward spiral that the two-party dance has committed us to.

Maybe the problem is that people just don't want to recognize how badly off they really are -- how dire the situation really is. So the Prog-ish, decent people of America want to keep acting like they're getting a real choice by choosing the lesser head of the hound here -- the one with the Brie grin on its muzzle and the rounded-down canines.

Well... welcome to our site.

We want to make your skin crawl.

As we enter Ed's all wet-henned up over an attack on "merit" itself by Max Sawicky:

Max's invalid point is that anybody, especially "neo-liberal" Clintonites, who stresses these "human capital" assets as important to the future economic welfare of currently disadvantaged Americans is buying into a "meritocratic fallacy" that justifies inequality perpetually.

[Max] inelegantly calls [this] the theory of "bullshit human capital."

...it reinforces one of the most important conservative memes in American politics today: the idea that when it comes to economic policy, it really is a choice between "meritocratic" Republicans and "redistributive" Democrats.

Remember in this type of guy's mental universe -- where the "memes" hang out -- there's only room for two thought groups. Each party, in the best of all possible worlds, would retain exclusive rights to certain memes, and every meme would have its party, one or the other.

Big Ed's meme world application here: the merit party meme is really a donkey meme and here's why:

Democratic elected officials do almost universally believe that within the limits required by the need to provide a decent living for every single american, something like a "meritocracy" is desirable....

The main problem with Republican policies is that they thwart distribution of wealth by merit...

As to why redistribution is counter-progressive -- well I'll leave that for you to fill in.

1. Paul Krugman wrote a Times column in which he pointed out that the "skills differential" -- i.e. more education -- doesn't match up with the patterns of increase in inequality. He sees it as a political process, not a market process, in which a "narrow oligarchy" (his phrase) has found ways to enrich themselves at everybody else's expense, the skilled and the unskilled alike. No flies on ole Paul this time. He didn't use the word "meritocracy," for which we all owe him a vote of thanks.

2. Sawicki wrote a squib on TPMcafe, in which he used "meritocracy," and even more deplorably, "meme". Sawicki's contribution was to take a whack at Clinton's pandering to the "skills differential" theory exploded in Krug's column. Sawicki calls this the "bullshit human capital" (BHC) theory, a phrase I do like. Sawicki also pointed out that Clinton, while he used the BHC theory to explain inequality, didn't try to do anything about it -- by spending on education, say. Which is about as good a capsule definition of Clintonism as you could get: false even to their own falsehoods.

3. DLCer and 33d-degree Cllintonite Kilgore responded to Sawicki with a bizarrely illogical piece of carpet-chewing, ably dissected by JSP in his earlier post.

So what's the fuss about? I can't explain all the details of Kilgore's random rhetoric -- much of it, I imagine, results from what JSP calls "idees fixes" and the rest comes from the reflexive regurgitation of canned DLC talking points. But I think I know why he's pissed off. He doesn't want the BHC theory exploded, quite simply, because he wants wageniks in both blue collars and white to internalize the causes of their own slippage: he wants the victims to blame themselves. This works out beautifully for the Democrats if you can pull it off, because you can always blame the Republicans for not spending more on the schools.

That's why the notion of "redistribution" flew in Kilgore's window and landed on his nose. This particular neural pathway I think we can trace. Krug's (and Sawicki's) comments raised the specter of social class. Now the canned DLC response to any mention of "class" is to accuse the offender of advocating "redistribution." QED.

There's another angle to this "meritocracy" red herring, though: it appeals to the educated white-collar classes' amour-propre and sense of entitlement, which is quite appropriate for a party whose strategy is to reposition itself as the voice of the professional classes -- the small-time executives and "knowledge workers" who will soon be among the only people dumb enough to vote, along with rapturists and friends of the foetus.

Nice gesture, but you know, the punters aren't that into numbers. What you really need right now is a bill that cuts off Iraq funding on, say, Christmas Eve 2006. That would get some attention.

I hasten to add that I do NOT read Alterman (or anybody else) on MSNBC, but I do occasionally go slumming at the Huffington Post, where Alterman recently recycled one of his meanderings from the Bill Gates site. He's very angry that his "friend" Todd Gitlin was roughly handled in a review by Dan Lazare in The Nation (yes, The Nation):

The Nation published one of the worst pieces I have ever read in the magazine this week. Daniel Lazare’s “review” of my friend Todd Gitlin’s new book will offer Nation-haters ammunition for years to come. The review is simultaneously smarmy, dishonest, Stalinist, and sectarian in a fashion that dishonors everyone involved with it.

One of the amusing things about Alterman's piece is its roll call of heroes: Paul Berman, Michael Walzer, David Remnick, Mike Tomasky, Dissent magazine (subject of a famous Woody Allen joke*), "the late great Irving Howe," and "honest, honorable, liberal anti-Communists Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Daniel Bell." The corresponding roster of demons includes Josef Stalin, Noam Chomsky, and Alex Cockburn. What a wonderful muddle.

Lazare's piece at The Nation is (stupidly) available to subscribers only, but I was quite surprised, after reading Alterman's carpet-chewing, at its calm tone -- I was expecting a real Jeremiad, and certainly the flag-waving Gitlin deserves one. A few excerpts:

When Katha Pollitt published a column in [The Nation] saying she would not fly the flag because it "stands for jingoism and vengeance and war," [Gitlin] was incensed. He fired back with an article in Mother Jones accusing certain unnamed leftists of "smugness, acrimony, even schadenfreude"--an especially incendiary charge in those super-heated times, since it implied that Pollitt and her co-thinkers derived pleasure from the suffering around them. After finishing with them, Gitlin attacked Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said for statements he regarded as foolish or disloyal, and then rounded on Indian novelist Arundhati Roy for daring to suggest that Osama bin Laden was Bush's "dark doppelgänger" and that "the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable." Today, with postinvasion deaths in Iraq outnumbering those in Lower Manhattan by better than thirty to one, Roy's sentiments seem positively mild. Yet for Gitlin they were indicative of "a prejudice invulnerable to moral distinctions"....

"Democratic patriotism," Gitlin says, does not mean mindless genuflection but recognition that the United States is complex and multihued, continually washed over by powerful crosscurrents from both the left and the right. Instead of condemning American power in toto, he maintains that leftists should "acknowledge--and wrestle with--the dualities of America: the liberty and arrogance twinned, the bullying and tolerance, myopia and energy, standardization and variety, ignorance and inventiveness, the awful dark heart of darkness and the self-reforming zeal." One senses that Gitlin could go on in this pseudo-Whitmanesque fashion for pages at a time.

...Rather than calling for less veneration [of the United States], Gitlin is calling for more. This would seem to make no sense, but perhaps that is the point. As the title of his new book suggests, Gitlin aims his argument at American intellectuals, a group he never attempts to define although at times he seems to regard it as synonymous with the left. In seeking to advance a deliberately incoherent argument, perhaps he is seeking to de-intellectualize the intelligentsia, to somehow pressure it--and, by extension, Americans in general--into thinking less. This, after all, is what authoritarianism does: By inducing people to worship artificial totems, it encourages them to switch off their critical faculties. The result is greater compliance and less independent thought, a win-win situation for the right.

* From Annie Hall: "I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery."

"Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don't know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Let’s get off our butts and start building a progressive movement that can block the nomination of Hillary Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has “all the money sewed up.”...

We can raise our own money on the Internet, and we know it. Howard Dean raised $42 million, largely on the web, with a late start when he was running for President, and that ain’t chicken feed. If we double it, it gives us the lock on the nomination. So let’s go find a good candidate early and organize the shit out of our side.lets build a blocking movement

Let's run Bill Moyers, or Oprah, or some university president with ethics and charisma.

The sad fact - and I'm more willing to confront it at the age of 44 than I was at 19, if only because I have grown a quarter-century more dour about what can plausibly be accomplished in my lifetime - is that the United States is saddled with one of the "free" world's least democratic electoral systems.

The sorry fact remains that until we convene the Second Constitutional Convention ... we're stuck with a two-party system that will not dismantle itself.

ThIs fella ought to review how the actual dynamics have worked historically. Suffice it to say the first convention did not draft up two parties to be named later, one aristocrat, the other democratic, as the great Jeff called 'em circa 1796, nor one that would become dominated by the slave lords, as was the DP before 1860, or by the plutocrats like the RP after the Civil War. There has always been morphing, and the morphs are a necessity that starts with an external threat -- some movement gathering big mo that is outside both of the two parties.

That is not according to the law laid down at Philly in 1787 but it's a regularity observable in the American historical record ever thereafter.

Which brings us to Berube bear's Rx :

Please, if you're as disgusted with the Democrats as I am, join the party and move it to the left.

Calling for impeachment -- given... most everything we know about human nature and politics -- cannot escape the obvious slap-down: impeachment is a dream; it is so far-fetched a prospect that it raises questions about the sensibility and political judgment of anyone who suggests it be adopted as a real-life goal....

Bush's approval ratings are indeed in the tank. Yet is the public clamoring for impeachment--say, in the way it clamored for port terminals that are not owned by Arabs?

One need not champion impeachment to whack the president. Consider Senator Russell Feingold..... There is no chance that this resolution will be adopted by the Republican-controlled Senate But Feingold has taken a stand and provided a rallying point for those (in and out of the Senate) who share his belief that Bush trampled the Constitution by okaying warrantless wiretapping....

The Master gives us a little koan to ponder in this connection:

There's a realistic way to defy political realities and an unrealistic way to do so.

It's no sellout or surrender to recognize the difference.

So far, PDA has endorsed three folks running for seats not already their own: one is trying to take out Darrell Issa in Cal CD 49, another is working right next door, going after the CD 48 seat.

Now these are the two deepest repub seats in all of California -- both contain wooly mammoth-sized majorities with arch-reactionary, Sunbelt, turn-right-at-Nixon mindsets.

So what could this thrust be all about? are these Dem HQ orders: "Go ahead, run your St. Joans -- just stay out of real districts where the odds are close."

But then there's the third PDA-endorsed race, a real deal mentioned here more than once -- Illinois' 6th CD, where two demo contenders collide. One -- the PDA's and our favorite, the brave Christine Cegelis, who's facing a Rahm Emanuel figment, Tammy Duckworth, so gruesomely, cynically concocted that it would shame P.T. Barnum.

My thought -- focus on this race -- forget the other two -- or would that be stepping on toes?

In California, poet Kevin Hearle, an impeachment supporter, is challenging liberal Rep. Tom Lantos -- who opposes impeachment -- in the Democratic primary in June.

Now the major fraud, from the same article:

Impeachment is an outlet for anger and frustration, which I share, but politics ain't therapy,"

Bush would much rather debate impeachment than the disastrous war in Iraq.

As if this weren't triumph enough, the French students have also received a supreme accolade on The Nation magazine's blog:

Before I left for Paris, I asked whether or not these students should be considered progressive, and I've made up my mind: of course they should.

Representative Edward Markey... dean of the Massachusetts delegation, contributed the most -- $152,000 -- to the [Emanuel's Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], while 13-term Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, was close behind with a $150,000 donation."

I would have been more motivated to show up if the march had headed uptown rather than down from Union Square, toward Schumer's and Clinton's Manhattan offices, conveniently located a cozy block apart on Third Avenue, at 47th and 48th Streets respectively. But no, the peace movement, as usual, prefers to expend its strength against a target on which it can have no effect.

Press coverage, not surprisingly, was routine, and one can hardly blame the press -- there was basically no story, just the usual kvetching on a mass scale. If the march had gone uptown -- if a cadre of resisters had blocked Clinton's and Schumer's lobbies, or tossed blood on their doors -- I daresay that would have created more of a stir. If protesters had handed in signed letters saying that they would never, ever vote for Clinton or Schumer again, for any office whatsoever, that might have even gotten the Democratic Party's attention -- assuming, optimistically, that the capacity for attention still lies latent in that comatose creature's nervous system.

Oh well. A guy can dream. Wouldn't it be nice if we had an antiwar movement that really wanted to do something about the war -- a movement that would apply its strength against the weakest link rather than the strongest?

Check out the latest dove flutter last weekend, and contrast it to yesterday's Stage Two of what's becoming a vertitable nationwide Chicano uprising.

Ought we not hunt out these rubbery top-line folks, and skin 'em? Let's forget regrinding another pound of Rummy's insolent ass -- where's the chorus of high-profile Left tribunes baying for these rollover pelts?

... stand up to the South. Stop telling Southerners what you think they want to hear. Stop worrying about losing votes you probably aren’t going to get anyway. If Democrats can do that, they might just do better than they thought they would.

The samurai treatise Hagakure , written in the early 18th century, explained that the samurai considered himself to be already dead. Because he did not fear death, his courage in battle grew. Democrats need to apply this lesson to their situation, and consider the South lost to their presidential candidates.... Once Democrats no longer worry about winning the South’s electoral votes, they’ll find themselves liberated in ways that benefit them everywhere.

Our guy frames the problem in terms of a classic DLC Volvo-versus-pickup line, but re - packaged as a brave resolve to stand up for who you are, like Barry Goldwater did.

Standing tall as a yuppie elitist has its chest-puffing side -- imagine this refined, secular bicoastal shouting at the yahoo majority "I am what I am what I am," like the Peter Lorre character in M.

Well, if you're going to walk the plank, you might as well stride right out there. Only our fellow seems to be hoping to hover over the deep blue sea, halfway between a DLC yacht and a crowded, malodorous barge laden with the hooting millions, all lifetime members of the fellowship of shitty jobholders.

Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current. I don’t really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine.

These secular suprematists conjuring visions of Christian totalitarian mobs -- corporate dupes readying themselves for a lynching run, and prepared to see a poison cloud as a sign from god not just another corporate Bhopal -- overlook one important point: Blacks are far more likely to be "evangelical" than palefaces, and yet their politics are pure prog on the economic fundamentals. These faith styles of the non-rich and non-famous are just class tattoos -- no more no less. Wave 'em aside and get to the lunch box. This hysteria about armies of zombie cross freaks coming for... us -- it's pure dream work piping right out of the liberal's inner piffle-odium. As such, it would be merely funny if it didn't have an important, and damaging, consequence: it's one of the things that keeps liberals in the mental jailhouse of the Democratic Party. "Progressives" and folk with alternative life styles of various kinds all too often get scared enough of the Bibloids to buy the donk poop: We are your shield -- stay with us -- vote for us -- circle the Volvos with us -- only we can protect you from the the dark moonless night of Christian trite right white moron might.

Democrats are slowly but surely uniting around a plan for military withdrawal designed by the Center for American Progress, a think tank linked to Clinton-era Democrats and headed by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.

Not all the party leaders agree. Senator Hillary Clinton continues to posture as a military hawk. Senator Joe Biden wants to dilute and divide Iraq into three sectarian enclaves. Neither Senator Charles Schumer nor Representative Rahm Emanuel, who are charged with winning November's elections, have a coherent message on Iraq....

The core propositions of the CAP paper point to a nearly complete US withdrawal in the next eighteen months:

• Immediately reduce our troop presence at a rate of 9,000 per month to a total of 60,000 by the end of 2006, and to "virtually zero" by the end of 2007
• Bring home all National Guard units this year "

• Double the number of US troops in Afghanistan, place an Army division in Kuwait, an expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf and an additional 1,000 special forces in Africa and Asia

All disrespect aside, there is a significant acceptance of the peace movement's message buried in this centrist proposal.

The peace movement should also be planning now to make it virtually impossible for presidential candidates to campaign successfully in 2008 without committing to a speedy withdrawal from Iraq

What, oh WHAT, did Jane Fonda ever see in this guy?

She got one specific, real-world question about something she could do now, and she dodged it:

QUESTION: Regarding fuel economy standards, do you favor making SUVs follow the same CAFE standards as passenger cars? And do you support Congressman Boehlert's bill to raise the CAFE standards to 33 miles per gallon for all vehicles?

CLINTON: Well, I have the greatest respect for Congressman Boehlert. We're going to miss him when he retires at the end of this year. He has studied this issue, and he comes down sort of in the middle of where a lot of people are. Some want to go to a higher MPG; others not so ambitious.

I think we can stage this in a way that is not disruptive to the economy, and by giving the right incentives and support to the car companies, manage this over the next 10 to 15 years.

Pretty dreary stuff, for the most part. Occasionally, though, there are wonderful moments, like this contribution from "Hunter", entitled The Tao of Troll Rating. Hunter is apparently a member of the Kos inner circle, and his/her 2,650-word treatise bears all the marks of an ex cathedra pronouncement. So far it has attracted nearly a thousand comments.

It reminds me of Malleus Maleficarum, the fifteenth-century treatise on witch-finding: the same obsession with categorizing and sub-categorizing, the same elaboration of process and procedure.

"Hunter" gives six characteristics of trolls and distinguishes five main types. He (or she, of course; but somehow, I think it's a guy) provides seven guidelines for deciding what is a troll and what isn't. It's really quite an intellectual edifice. Not on the same scale as the Malleus, of course, but not bad for an evening's work by a blogger with no theological training. Here are the learned, long-dead friars:

...It first must be noted that there are, as was shown in the First Part of this treatise, three kinds of witches; namely, those who injure but cannot cure; those who cure but, through some strange pact with the devil, cannot injure; and those who both injure and cure. And among those who injure, one class in particular stands out, which can perform every sort of witchcraft and spell, comprehending all that all the others individually can do.... And this class is made up of those who, against every instinct of human or animal nature, are in the habit of eating and devouring the children of their own species.

The friars sure had their talking points worked out, didn't they? Here's Hunter:

... there's been an accepted practice of returning a retaliatory troll rating on someone in an argument who is very, very clearly abusing the ratings rules themselves. In that this is a nice Darwinian pressure that tends to remove overactive troll raters from the Trusted User pool themselves, I... can't see fit to argue with it. If the troll rater is quite clearly breaking the rules as laid out themselves, it is generally accepted practice.

Hey, nobody said this stuff was easy. Make a little effort, okay?

More interesting even than Hunter's Torah is the swarming Talmud of comments it has attracted. It's very difficult to do justice to these. Here's one, picked, I swear, absolutely at random -- I closed my eyes, jiggled the mouse, and clicked:

You've gone off topic again (4+ / 0-)

Are you doing that intentionally, or can you not control it, or do you not notice it?

Your point about a lack of redress is reasonable. You're wrong, in that one can simply post another comment saying "what the hell was that about?", as many do, but what I think you mean is that the person troll rated has no other means of retaliation.

Then you go off into Lieberman land. Can you do that in a separate diary? We're trying to have a discussion here.

I'm a veteran of Left sects -- fanatical little groupuscules who would call each other Nazis over some refined point of doctrine. But it gives me a strange, uncanny feeling to realize that the Democratic party, at least at the Kos level, is a sect too. Would have thought a sect needs to be about something -- but apparently not.

Being a fair-minded, judicious kind of guy, David notes that he has praised Hillary in the past. Presumably he wants to let Hillary know that he could go either way, and no doubt Hillary has taken due notice.

In an idle hour I followed the link to David's attagirl for St Hill. Pay dirt. It's old news now -- a speech Hillary gave in the Senate about the minimum wage, last October -- but our David calls it "terrific"and says, "on economic issues [she] is showing some fight." Here's a snippet of the speech, which David quotes, apparently with approval:

I'm all for rich people. Ever since my husband got out of office and got into the private sector, I think it's great.... I have nothing against rich people. That's part of the American dream. But with all due respect, it is not rich people who made America great. It is the vast American middle class. It is the upward mobility of people who thought they could do better than their parents...

Then one can't help wondering how it feels to be St Hill and say things, day after day, like the "middle class made America great" and what drives our civilization is the desire to "do better" than one's parents. Which would be worse -- that she's saying what she knows is not true, or that she really believes it?

I think she does really believe it. A peek into Hillary's mind -- it's like the gates of Hell open for just a moment and you see the demons dancing and the flames leaping. Doing better than your parents is the Philosopher's Stone of the professional-class striver's character. This crass, soulless, heartless, impious obsession with doing better than somebody else, particularly your own mother and father, and the conviction that this diseased mania is the bedrock of human virtue -- if ever there was a Miserific Vision, this has got to be it.

Hullo Michael,

Since my involvement with slime has until recently been pretty much limited to Hollywood film production, I've never been into anything really dirty such as energy trading, arms dealing or politics. So I'm a bit out of my depth when I run across inter-blog feuds like this one:

----------------------------

May 29, 2006 --Time to take the gloves are off with the agitprop purveyors at Daily Kos (in addition to that other phony "liberal" web site, some of the content of which could be called DUng). Yesterday, Daily Kos, which likes to regularly steal content from WMR and post it and then proceed to expound on it while trashing the original provider, did it again.

-----------------------------

The above references this kosniki "diary" thing:

Oh my! Cheney and Jefferson both tied to Nigerian bribery scandals

Which is a convoluted, rather poorly written piece about the Jefferson bribery scandal.

Personally, I can't make heads or tails out of it. But I couldn't resist passing it along to you, a much more sophisticated observer of political wingnuttery, with this question: Is there fire to go with all this smoke? Or is it a lot of hot bloggosphere air?

Kos and Co. seem to think Madsen is a "conspiracy theorist," and Madsen thinks Kos and Co.are "neocons." I don't know anything about Madsen, and while I think "neo-con" might be a bit over the top as applied to Kosreich today, give 'em a year or two. And "agitprop purveyor," of course, is far too complimentary.

I'm inclined to discount Kos' "conspiracy theory" accusation -- well, I'm inclined to discount anything from Kos, of course, but especially this. The idea of "conspiracy theory" is one of the great crackpot-realist intellectual defense mechanisms.

Too glib -- too smarmy for you? Do you feel both left out and left in as well as left over?

Well, Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute is throwing all his weight behind WITT. (EPI is a thriving inside-the-beltway outfit -- mission: build a better bigger lunch box.) Jared is rejecting "YOYO economics," which slips us all the corporate alibi

...for why we cannot shape our participation in the global economy to meet our own needs, or provide health coverage for the millions who lack that basic right, or raise the living standards of working families when the economy is growing.... WITT policies target these challenges head on....

These outcomes occur not through redistributionist Robin Hood schemes.

A few chin strokes later I figure it out -- no prole blandishments, no class war, no retake threats, no hefty 'high net worth' tax promises, like that Bolshie, Bobby Reich is proposing. No, instead we're talking about

... creating an economic architecture that reconnects our strong, flexible economy to the living standards of all, not just to the residents of the penthouse. As the pie grows, all the bakers get bigger slices.

restore some fiscal sanity and basic competence at all levels in national government....

So what light are we asked to see at the end of this tunnel?

There are actually a number of good, big ideas floating around to create precisely the architecture America needs.... There are doable plans for universal health coverage....

Here are a few more good big ideas:

...boosting retirement savings.... creating an ambitious partnership between business and government to seriously pursue energy independence... There are roadmaps for tapping the growth-enhancing benefits of globalization to replace the domestic labor demand it saps from our job market.... Put it all together, and we create the potential to reconnect the well-being of working families to the growing economy.... The YOYOs' chickens are coming home to roost, and many of us await with great hope the arrival of the much more optimistic, can-do, WITT agenda.... The only question: who has the vision to lead the way?

Answer One: Who doesn't, indeed? Either or both big parties can fuck us. Answer Two: I know one that doesn't -- Jared and his pals in the donkey jamboree.

Here's a thing of beauty, a very overheated Kosnik jeremiad:

In many ways why we fail to successfully oppose the republican illogic train is because we so utterly and completely fail to understand how it really works.

We counter their claims with logic and facts and are amazed when blank states are returned to us. We argue real world results, cause and effect, we bring up their claims from three or four years ago and show them how nothing they predicted came true, and they just stare, uncomprehending and blank. We speak with logic, and they hear nothing....

Why do they embrace failed policies so utterly and completely? Because failure/pain is better than the coldness of rational thought.....

Theirs is a mentality built on extreme emotion. Lurid intense passions that must constantly be stoked or they're left with that horrible and deflated feeling of everyday normalcy. Of cold rationality....

This is why republicans need to constantly scare themselves.... They define themselves exclusively by what they are against.

They define themselves by what they hate....

So whereas we continue to apply the logical approach of policy decisions that are "beneficial" and "not beneficial" we might as well be talking Greek to them. They see none of this logic or real world cause and effect....

We must argue from a place of emotional fervor, just as they have.... You can only out-emotion them into submission.... Facts, real world results, are all secondary.

Several things strike me about this reverie:

• Our guy has the usual merit-class contempt for the opposition -- "we" are the party of "cold rationality," the party of people who did really well on the SAT. "They" are the party of irrationality and emotion.
• "They define themselves by what they hate" -- this may be true of the Republicans, but it's certainly true, in spades, of Kosniks.
• The way to defeat them is to become just like them. We have met the enemy, and they are -- no, scratch that, we must be them.

I am tired of painting the netroots as extreame[sic] left wing liberal as if they are member of A.N.S.W.E.R., pacifist hippies, anarchists, socialist or communists. This has got to stop. Thus this poll to find out what kind of liberals are we.

What kind of liberals are we --
What do we think of Hil-la-ree...

What kind of Liberal are you?

I belong to A.N.S.W.E.R	0%
I am the 60's hippie type pictured in Forest Gump	1%
I am an anarchist	7%
I am a socialist/communist	20%
I am a pacifist and dont believe in war for any reason	3%
I am mainstream and the majority who just spoke out early on about Bush wrong policies.	60%
I am a pro-life Democrat but not a one issue voter	7%

If Hillary is the Democratic Presidential nominee in '08, I will:

Happily vote for her	5%
Reluctantly vote for her	57%
Vote for a third party candidate	31%
Stay home on Election Day	5%

Or even dwarves.

Daily Kos is getting to be more and more like the good old bad old Kremlin these days. The Great Kos-iet Encyclopedia, in particular, is undergoing a heavy airbrush treatment in the wake of Democratic white hope Francine Busby's defeat yesterday at the hands of Republican nonentity Brian Bilbray in a special election in California.

Here's Chairman Kos, speaking from atop Truman's tomb in Blue Square last week:

The Busby campaign is running this ad on wingnut radio:

Think lobbyist Brian Bilbray's a conservative when it comes to immigration? Think again. You see, even lobbyist Bilbray's conservative opponent stated that Bilbray "failed to pass any laws to stop illegal immigration during his 12 years as a career politician and lobbyist." ...You have a choice. Independent William Griffith is endorsed by the San Diego Minutemen and San Diego Border Alert because he opposes guest worker programs, amnesty and the hiring of illegal immigrants.

Pretty darn smart to offer up Griffith as an option to wingers in the district motivated by the immigration debate. This puppy will be so close that any Republican vote for Griffith is a vote for Busby.

That was then, this is now. Here's Kos today, insisting with the brazen assurance of a complete psychopath that he was right all along:

Well, it seems everything I've been saying for the last few months came to happen.... Democrats are not motivated to turn out. Sure, Busby exceeded Kerry's 43 percent he got in the district in 2004, but not by much.... Democrats have to be more aggressive. In tactics, in messaging, and, yes, even on the issues.

Hey, nobody ever said Kremlinology was easy.

I think the notion these sites are fraud packs, as several commenters have suggested here, prolly rates a full "yup", but more than that are we dealing with any plain vanilla cutouts here? Setups from scratch built by corporate Dems with intent to drain the radical prog vein?

I recall the SDS days when the "media" seemed forever flawlessly able to spot light the biggest, most movement-retarding sellout egomaniacs.

It's amazing what weird situations an excess of curiosity will land you in. Here I am, for example, wearing female clothing and a false beard, impersonating a Democrat at the yearly convention of Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com), which is being held in Las Vegas, of all places.

I had kind of hoped to get through life without ever being in Las Vegas. But it's not what I expected. On the flight out here, that line of Tacitus kept running through my head -- urbs quo cuncta undique atrocia confluunt, a city where all evils, from everywhere else, come and gather. But it isn't like that at all. It's oddly innocent and childlike, a kids' playground writ large. It's plastered all over with various insignia of naughtiness but it's really quite orderly and safe, and to tell the truth, it's a little bland. So it really is the perfect place for Yearly Kos, a gathering of insurgents demanding re-admittance to the sheepfold.

The other thing I had expected was that the Kosniks themselves would provide abundant material for ridicule. But they don't. They're much more engaging than their posts on the Daily Kos web site would lead you to expect -- and this really should have come as no surprise, since people notoriously show their worst side online.

No, the Kosniks are mostly not only sane, but obviously intelligent. A lot of them have pretty good haircuts. They're personable, kind, witty, self-deprecating, thoughtful, earnest, and generally likable.

Oh, there are a few exceptions -- a 300-pound doctor, who enjoyed telling us the witty things she says to her patients, and just would not shut up; a staffer from the Drum Major Institute (http://www.drummajorinstitute.org) in pink fishnet stockings and bat-wing spectacles who looked like an extra from Hairspray and thought term limits were a Really Good Thing; and a hyperkinetic "trainer" from Democracy For America (www.democracyforamerica.com) who had the stage manner of a contestant on American Idol, and would probably have won. He certainly had energy enough; he talked and gesticulated and paced for seven hours almost non-stop -- I checked in every half-hour or so -- and he was still enjoying the sound of his own voice when he practically had to be dragged out of the meeting room so the next scheduled event could begin.

Other not-entirely-attractive Kosniks included a staff guy fresh from beautiful defeat in Marcy Winograd's primary challenge to bloody-fanged War Democrat Jane Harman; this chap was treated with the tender deference due to a veteran with a war wound. And there was a ringlet-haired Democratic Party op from Gainesville, Florida, who apologized for his state's votes for Nader in 2000, and repeatedly referred to people like himself as "touchy-feely white guys." This phrase got a modest laugh the first time he said it. These two, interestingly, were among the most strident in insisting that the one goal of political activity is to win elections.

But most of the Kosniks weren't like that. Most of them seemed to be honest, sincere, good-hearted people, baffled and dismayed by what their country has become. What, I wondered, are nice folks like this doing in a cult like Daily Kos? So I was quite curious to see the cult leader, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, in action.

I'll pass along my impressions of Kos in a later post.

Moulitsas, known to his disciples as "Kos", spoke briefly to the troops at the end of the day, after we were all talked out -- well, not all; there were some brazen-lunged enthusiasts still going strong -- and mellowed out with a beer or two.

"Kos" is a small, trim, birdlike guy, given to quick, fluttery gestures. He has a distinctive, shoulder- and hip-swinging walk -- what you might call a sashay, actually. The play of expression on his face reminded me strangely of Louis Farrakhan, though I suppose this is the only point of resemblance between the two. He has that same slow, deliberate smile, held a little too long for comfort. There is something in his look that says he is confident of adulation, and pleased with his own success.

He read his text a little woodenly, and there wasn't much to it. His two great points of self-congratulation were 1) Howard Dean is now DNC chair and 2) Paul Hackett almost got somewhere in Ohio. (You haven't heard of Paul Hackett? Don't worry about it.) Kos confidently predicted that Joe Lieberman would lose to his anti-war primary challenger, Ned Lamont -- but then, last week Kos was saying that Francine Busby would pull an upset in San Diego. (You haven't heard of Francine Busby, either? See Paul Hackett, above.)

Neither Kos nor anybody else today talked much about what you might call the content of politics. The word "progressive" was frequently invoked, but either everybody agrees on just what that means or nobody wanted to get into it. The Iraq war was mentioned, in my hearing, twice, in the context of alluding to the death of Zarqawi. Both times the crowd applauded this victory in the war on terror -- applauded solidly but not thunderously; I couldn't help thinking, wishfully perhaps, that although the Kosniks are loyal adherents of the understudy War Party, at least some of these progressives are starting to have doubts about this particular war.

Nobody mentioned Israel, or Palestine, or the Israel lobby, or anything remotely connected with these topics, even once.

Speaking of war, the Maximum Leader put in another appearance a little later, at a reception for ex-general and presidential candidate Wesley Clark. (What the hell, there was free booze, which is more than I've ever gotten out of any other general, or presidential candidate either.)

At this event, my benign impression of the Kosniks started to fray a little. There he was, General Clark, pigeon-chested, lizard-faced, the former butcher of the Balkans, his chalky cheeks ghastly under the camera flashes -- as scary as anything I've ever seen outside an autopsy suite. And the Kosniks were loving him.

Kos made his slow ceremonious way over to Clark and the two of them exchanged courtly greetings, like the Doge of Venice unexpectedly meeting the Duke of Muscovy but remembering his manners -- the least you could expect of Doges and Dukes, surely. The Kosniks were in raptures: witnesses to history. A burly six-foot chap standing next to me -- a guy who could have tied the General in knots -- gushed girlishly, "Now this is People Power! I mean, who are WE?" I wanted to ask, "Who is HE?" but remembered my disguise before I spoke. The General's free booze had slowed me down a bit, fortunately.

Clark stood up, with a little help, on a table, and gave a smooth little speech. The burden of his song was, "send money."

And so to bed, as Mr. Pepys says. Tomorrow we get to meet senate minority leader Harry Reid and Virginia governor and presidential aspirant Mark Warner -- if they show. Nancy Pelosi has already stood us up. A bitter disappointment, but the General's free booze has softened the pain.

Well, the regular communicants of Daily Kos don't see it that way. I'm lurking, under deep, deep cover -- disguised as a security guard, actually -- at their "first-annual" convention in Las Vegas. It's Day Two (Day One was reported at yesterday.) and -- we've all been there -- Day Two has a slightly bleak, morning-after quality. (We'll get back to the CIA in a minute.)

Day One was undoubtedly exciting: all these folks who knew each other only under screen names finally meeting in the flesh -- fairly prepossessing flesh in some cases, less so in others. I hope there were at least a few hookups, though as a journalist, I personally would have declined embedding (not that it was offered, dammit).

Day Two has had the slightly tentative, halting air of a post-coital breakfast. Perhaps that's why the Kosniks turned from each other's now-known, and suddenly too-familiar faces, to the safer ground of celebrity-worship. The first celebrity made available for the purpose was Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame and whistle-blower on the Niger yellowcake story.

Wilson is a classic FSO type. He's well-spoken, he knows how to play gravitas in the left hand and levity in the right simultaneously, and he seems to be profoundly comfortable in his own skin, without a shred of Kos' conscious and showy arriviste self-assurance. Wilson's Paderewski coiffure says that he is a man of culture as well as a man of the world, and if ever I saw a coiffure that wasn't lying, it's Wilson's.

The Kosniks ate him up. Standing ovations, big belly laughs at every donnish little witticism -- he's the guy they'd all like to be. And when he dropped the tidbit that his Frau had the best score with an AK-47 on the CIA rifle range, I feel sure a lot of 'em crossed the line from wanting to be him to wanting to do him. Or her. I felt a little frisson myself, to tell the truth. (For her, of course. Ahem.)

Wilson repeatedly referred to the "national security" of the United States, and flirted with accusing the administration of treason -- an accusation made explicit by one of his fellow panelists, another ex-CIA guy, Larry Johnson, who has been breaking blogsphere lances left and right on Plame's behalf ever since she became a household name. Johnson was apparently a bud of Valerie's in the Agency, lucky dog.

Now "treason" and "national security," it seems to me, are expressions that ought to send any Lefty running for cover. But it didn't have that effect on the Kosniks. They loved it. They were delighted to be on the same side as this orotund, world-weary vieux-prepster Foreign Service dude, and the furious, carpet-chewing, traitor-hunting Johnson.

History notoriously repeats itself, and I couldn't help thinking that what the Kosniks are feeling today, as they are stroked by politicians and patricians, must have been a lot like what the chastened, newly anti-communist liberals of the late Forties felt -- the Hubert Humphries and the Sidney Hooks -- as they came in from the cold, damp and shivering, and were handed a cheering Martini by Dean Acheson. Of course the famous line, "first time as tragedy, second time as farce" comes irresistibly to mind.

Speaking of Martinis, they were laid on, abundantly, at a reception given by Virginia governor and presidential hopeful Mark Warner, which rounded out the day. Warner, or somebody, spent some serious money on this bash. It was held at the top of a Space Needlish tower, apparently something of a local attraction -- such an important structure that the blazer thugs put you through an airport search routine before they let you on the elevator. And I suppose in fact if Osama wanted to strike at the heart of America, he could do worse.

Warner's Martinis were handed around on little trays -- plastic glasses, though, a chintzy touch -- and there was a profusion and variety of food that outshone a Great Neck wedding. All in all, it made General Wesley Clark's little soiree the previous night look pretty shabby.

Warner worked the room with wolf-like intensity -- he even cornered me, while I was trying to get a picture of him, and gave my hand a manly pump, gazing deep into my eyes. I was still thinking about Valerie Plame, though, so Warner didn't make as much of an impression as he might have.

The Kosniks were in seventh heaven. You could tell by the excited voices, the drawn-up, self-important stances, the handshaking and backslapping. They thought they'd arrived. They thought they were in.

You can't grow up in a little Protestant church down South, like I did, without having the Scriptures come to mind occasionally. What came to my mind up in that Space Needle, as I looked down at the streetlights stretching out into desert darkness, and heard the giddy voices of the Kosniks raised in illusory triumph behind me, was a bit from Luke's gospel:

Watching him strut around like a midget Cab Calloway, one is almost reminded of Sancho and his island governorship -- almost, but not quite, because Sancho, of course, though equally fooled is not equally a fool.

Surely Kos, like his throatcutting showoff terrorist counterpart, will also find himself fingered for virtual destruction by his colleagues. I just hope our brave front line reporter Father Smiff is on the spot when it happens.

I've spent the last three days in Las Vegas, lurking incognito at the Daily Kos convention. (Previous days here and here and here.)

Today was definitely the worst of the three, probably because the discourse was dominated by actual Democratic politicians -- officials, ex-officials, and candidates -- the sorry varmints that Kosniks so badly want to elect.

I. Lost Eden

Howard Dean may not be the very worst way to start your day, but anything worse would have to involve physical injury. His speech -- greeted with great enthusiasm, of course -- was interesting chiefly as a little tour through the alternative thought universe inhabited by liberal Democrats. Howard kept talking about "taking back" the country, "taking back" the party, "taking us back" to the high ideals -- of John F. Kennedy, forsooth. He must have used this phrase "take back" a hundred times. He even said the upheavals of the 1960s were an exercise in "taking back" America. He said we want open and honest government --or no, he said we want it "back."

Now this is very bizarre, when you think about it. When did "we" ever have the Democratic Party, or the country? When did they get taken away? By whom? How did that happen? Open and honest government -- when did we ever have that? Never, you say? Then how can we get it "back"? When did we live in this Eden that Howard wants to restore?

If God did not exist, Candide observes, man would have to invent him. This imaginary former state of grace is a necessary invention too. The Kosniks know that sometime in the last half-century, the Republicans acquired a decisive upper hand, and they know the country is going to hell in a handbasket. So far so good; but then they make a false step. They start with a conclusion -- restoring the Democrats to power would make things better -- and for there they reason backwards to the necessary premise, namely that we once enjoyed all these things they quite rightly want, and we lost them when the Republicans took over.

That's how it works for the audience, I think. But it doesn't seem likely that Howard Dean himself, or his colleagues in the Party apparatus, are subtle enough to have crafted such an appeal on the basis of their deep psychological insight. No, this "take back" mantra, for them, is simply a kind of Freudian slip. The takeback they have in mind is simply to take back a place at the trough for their office-seeking snouts. So the wish-fulfilment dream of the troops, and the unconscious self-revelation of the pols, dovetail in one of those beautiful, overdetermined conjunctures that nobody could ever have designed.

II. The microscopic eye

The Kosniks strenuously insist that they're worlds apart, ideologically, from the squalid Morlocks of the Fromsphere -- the "centrist" triangulators who inhabit organizations like the Democratic Leadership Council, the Public Policy Institute, Third Way and so on. But in the scant hour devoted this morning to a panel -- a poorly-attended panel -- on "War, foreign policy, and activism," I'll be damned if I could tell you how the views we were hearing -- with one conspicuous exception, to which we'll return -- differed in any way from the tough-but-smart competent-interventionist hokum you can find by the gigabyte on the From-pods' web sites.

The program promised us Ari Melber, Lakshmi Chaudhry, and Alex Rossmiller. Rossmiller is a scowling, short-haired former military-intelligence guy, Melber a scowling former Kerry apparatchik in a suit who writes the odd column for the New York Post and The Nation, and Chaudhry -- oh, everybody knows her.

Melber (shown left, in a photo lifted from what appears to be a dating site) objected to the "global war on terror" because he felt it wasn't sharply enough focused on "jihadism," and approvingly cited Dick Holbrooke -- Dick Holbrooke! -- to this effect. We should concentrate on our "top targets," Melber thought.

Rossmiller seconded the focus on "militant Islamists"; he compared the current conflict against this sinister force with earlier struggles against "fascism and communism." He sternly warned us against "reactionary isolationism," and assured us that the Democrats don't need a program or a plan -- all they need to do is point out that the Republicans have "screwed it up."

Chaudhry, like a doctor with a dire diagnosis, broke the really bad news: as far as Iraq is concerned, "abandonment is not an option."

I dunno, these "gate-crashers" sound a lot like the guys on the inside to me. Maybe there's some tiny but very important difference that's eluding my crude senses; but then, as the poet says,

Why hath not Man a microscopick Eye?
For this plain Reason: Man is not a Flye.

III. A loose cannon

The panel included another participant, not listed in the program, a slinky dame with an exotic accent. She got up and started talking and a wild surmise crept over me. "Who's this?" I asked a kind-looking neighbor. He stared at me as if I were Rip van Winkle, and sniffed, "Arianna Huffington!"

Say what you will about Arianna, you can't deny she's self-determined, and since I was starting to feel surrounded by nice, gentle Pod People, Arianna came as a breath of fresh air.

She started off by saying that the party should not endorse, nor Democrats vote for, any candidate who doesn't have a "clear and unequivocal" position on withdrawal of the troops. This may not sound like much, but in the context of Melber and Rossmiller it reeked of sansculotterie.

"Bloggers vill be courted!" she warned. "Perhaps ve should open a twenty-four hour hotline. Ven Hillary Clinton calls and asks you to run her online campaign, don't take ze offer!"

She had harsh words for the "smart guys in Washington" who are running the party. "Busby listened to the smart guys who said concentrate on corruption, don't talk about ze war, and she lost. And I don't vant to hear she lost by only five points -- she lost!"

Her best line: " 'Together ve can do better' -- zat is ze lamest slogan ever!"

She got some applause, but it was a little nervous.

IV. Give 'em hurl Harry

Why is Harry Reid so popular with the Kosniks? True, they loved that stunt he pulled back in November. You remember, he shut down the Senate with a procedural maeuver, in an attempt, so far unavailing as it turns out, to force an investigation into the administration's prewar manipulation of intelligence (a key part of the War Democrats' "We wuz fooled" defense). In a movement very short on victories, small satisfactions like this need to go a long way.

Or perhaps the Kosniks love Harry just because he was a little ahead of the curve, among electeds, in recognizing the usefulness of the Kosniks and their kin, and in stroking them with flattering attention.

Anyway, love him they do. You'd have thought he was Huey Long when he showed up last night. The Kosniks were clapping rhythmically, waving signs -- thoughtfully pre-positioned at each chair -- and chanting Har-ree! Har-ree! Har-ree! Every applause line got a standing, stormy ovation -- it was like a State of the Union address, or a Soviet central-committee meeting when the cult of personality was at its height. If you really feel the need to enthuse, it doesn't much matter, apparently, that what you're given to enthuse about is pretty thin gruel.

Har-ree began with a deft and highly professional stroking session, though he didn't have much to work on. "It was you, the bloggers, who stood against the Swift Boating of John Kerry, who defended Valerie Plame-- an American spy! -- who helped us defeat the insidious 'nuclear option.' " (This last phrase refers, of course, to the Senatorial Democrats' retention of a shrunken, desiccated vestige of the once-mighty filibuster, a "progressive" institution if ever there was one.)

"For the past six years, we've been on the wrong course," he said, which might raise, in some ill-disposed minds, the question of what Har-ree thought we were doing for the previous eight -- or thirty. But hey, nobody likes a Grinch.

Three dollar gasoline -- very bad. (Mr. Gore, would you care to comment on that?) The Iraq war must... "change." Shouts at this point of "Bring 'em home! We've got your back!" Har-ree didn't respond, though he must have felt greatly reassured that the Kosniks "have his back."

V. Milites gloriosi

The low point of the day, though, was the Fighting Dems. This is a theme -- meme? dream? scream? -- very close to the Kosnik heart: former military types running for office as Democrats. The idea is that they're vaccinated, as it were, against the security-wuss charge.

We heard from two of these macho dudes: one was a buffoon, and the other was Uriah Heep.

The buffoon was Eric Massa, running for Congress in New York's 29th district. (Shown at left, sharing what appears to be a prayerful moment with Wesley Clark.)

Massa had put together an entertaining but amateurish schtick involving a certain amount of mild profanity and bar-stool pugnacity -- various people were going to get their "asses kicked" if Massa goes to Washington. At one point he whipped off his jacket to don a Mark Warner T-shirt, an infelicitous move on his part, since he is a rather small and tubby man. It was hard not to like him, actually, but impossible to take him seriously.

The Uriah Heep was Joe Sestak, running for Congress in Pennsylvania, and truly one of the creepiest public presences I have ever seen. (Sestak is shown at left, while still an admiral, welcoming Congressman Mike McIntyre on a junket somewhere east of Suez. McIntyre is the blond, Sestak the brunette. The guy in the background is not there by choice.)

Sestak leaned very close to the mike and spoke in a low, whispery, husky voice. Listening to him, one felt trapped in an unsought and unwelcome intimacy, like a frottage victim on the subway.

Sestak is a retired admiral, and he treated us to a lot of purple rhetoric about the "eternal bond" of those who have worn the uniform. He dwelt at great and rather lascivious length on the blossoming youth of the aircraft-carrier sailors formerly under his command, and told a complicated and obscurely-relevant story about one of these Billy Budd types unhooking the catapult cable from a fighter jet.

Well, that would have been bad enough; I'd've taken a shower afterwards if I hadn't already checked out of my room. But then, as I sat in the corridor outside the meeting room, typing up this report on my trusty laptop, a young, earnest Kosnik came and settled himself nearby. He pulled out a cellphone, or a Blackberry or something, speed-dialed, and told the whole story all over again, almost word for word.

He had no more idea than I what the point of the tale was; his unseen interlocutor was clearly trying to figure it out too, judging by my Kosnik's response to unheard questions. But my Kosnik was deeply moved. Hey, it worked for him, and I guess that was the point.

VI. Dust from my sandals

The Kosniks, as I found when I first arrived, are not bad people. On the contrary, they are smart, engaging, well-meaning, and energetic, and a good many of 'em are, well, attractive. But after three days, I'd had enough of them, and then some. Couldn't wait to get to the airport -- and in this day and age, that says something.

The Kosniks are cultists, and there is, ultimately, nothing more tiresome. They've invested so much, emotionally, in the Democratic Party that it's made them rather shallow and monotonous. All their thinking, all their energy, is bent toward getting people like Massa and Sestak -- and ultimately, Warner or Hillary Clinton -- into office. As the song says:

One, two, three, what're we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...

Good old C. Wright Mills said it all, half a century ago:

Crackpot realists are so rigidly focused on the next step that they become creatures of whatever the main drift -- the opportunist actions of innumerable men -- brings.

...In crackpot realism, a high-flying moral rhetoric is joined with an opportunist crawling among a great scatter of unfocused fears and demands. In fact, the main content of “politics” is now a struggle among men equally expert in practical next steps—which, in summary, make up the thrust toward war—and in great, round, hortatory principles.

... For they still believe that "winning" means something, although they never tell us what.

Congrats on your successful infiltration of the Yearly Ko$ festival! It's a huge hit around the blogs. Say was that you in the pic in the NY Times article? The caption read 'Mike Smith'.

Reading the comments on your blog, one of the things that jumped out at me was just how many people have been banned at The Daily Ko$. So many that I've been inspired to make a little graphic that people can put on their sites to advertise the fact. It's available at:

http://alansmithee.5u.com/banned/Banned.html.

"Oh, for god sakes Hunter, what is it this time?"

"Kos will build a real place, JS... "

"Yeah... so...?"

"One word... Jonestown...."

"What?!"

"Kool-ade, Paine... Remember... the Kool-ade...."

I heard super K Henry growl those words on the radio last night. It was in response to an audience question on 'Nam: "In light of what's happened since that war, Mr Kissinger, do you feel you have anything to apologize to the American people for?"

To Super K, that was not "a serious question a serious person would seriously ask ..."

The Christmas bombing of Hanoi, the summer bombing of Cambodia, were both serious acts of serious leaders of the seriously free world. Not to mention twenty-odd thousand dead corn-fed boys on his watch.

It made me think of Kos, in its regressively juvenile, octopus ink-like method of escape from a confrontation with first principles. According to these odd-couple realists, you just need to win a trick here and win a trick there, and pretty soon it starts to add up to a pretty swell pilgrim's progress.

Recently I've taken to drawing insulting parallels between today's Demo party blog klaverns (like TCBY Cafe, Call Me Elmo, and Adipose Express) and yesterday's sheeted klaverns.

The dems have long since lived down that earlier "sinister influence" as they have the slave owning planters, peckerwood injun cleaners, and sordid city machines. But here arises a new organized compact menace -- and why a menace?

Cause the donkery, even if not directly steered by job holders, needs to be steered for job holders, because it must be the party of job holders, if it wants to be anything more than a corporate tweedledee echo and once-a-generation crisis collision mat.

These demoblog communities with their ever-more-fondly held notion that winning is everything, only prove these are rugged merit-class resolutes -- issues be damned -- we don't need no stinking issues. And they're right in a sense. As far as these fellers go, the donk party just needs to win the Kulturkampf that started back in the 60's.

The other, older tradition -- a pre-cold war tradition associated with FDR, the CIO, and the hours and wages law -- that would require some long languishing principles to be resurrected, brought up to date, and put into law and practice.

For that, sheep must be parsed from goats -- and that's a task well beyond mere electioneering -- beyond putting in office a bigger ration of right-minded, soulful, soft-on-difference professional opportunists like Dean, Boxer, and Kennedy, who won't get anyone a flea hop closer to another New Deal for the jobbery.

All classes have their gathering pretexts, but if there's a generalization to be made, it's -- as with much else -- the old chestnut: a great dearth precedes any great new rage.

After years of X-er anomie, the communal activity spawned by the internet would indicate that at least for broad swaths of the merit class, the club dearth has ended.

Even as the Kos gig wrapped, the older Gutenberg set kicked off their own version, billed as "Take Back America 2006." Apparently they have one every year, which seems funny somehow. Come Back to Take Back. Should they get numbers, like Super Bowls? Take Back America XXXVII. The word "back" in this slogan is causing MJS to grit his teeth all over again, too.

The currently-running version has St Hill, the Kerry tree, Fly-back-fast Harry Reid, Robert Redford, Nancy Pelosi, Back-to-Barracks Obama, and many many more of that ilk -- all in all, a bigger better haul than Mickey Markos snared.

On the other hand, the Taker-Backers have the creak and crumble sound of a Glorious Leader statue ready to tumble -- it all seems very geriatric compared to Kos.

What is absolutely identical between the two is the windy, empty sloganeering of the pols and the progs:

• John Kerry: "Our one biggest idea, the one that makes us Democrats, is not to stand for selfishness but to stand for the common good."
• Nancy Pelosi: "...a new direction for all Americans, not just the privileged few."
• Hillary Clinton: "We believe in a government that empowers people to live their own dreams."
• Robert Redford: "...get back in touch with thinking big again."
• Harry Reid: "It's time to lead."
• Robert Borosage: "...the right has failed, because it is wrong."

I moved out of Mommy's house roughly twenty years ago. I figure I'm allowed to cultivate some imagination if I'm paying my own bills, even in political matters. :p For example, my Mom still thinks Humphrey was a great guy. I think he was a gullible, pandering sellout-- a dry run for the likes of Gore and Biden.

The finger-pointing at Greens and such as modern-day Hitler-enablers always dodges a crucial point: Why are the Communists in Germany held up for not wanting to work with the SD, and not the other way around ? Why must supposed extremism always crawl on its belly begging for an audience with supposed centrism --the latter having a superiority innate enough to be understood in these little historic parallels/tableaus-- that the former is not allowed, even once in awhile ?

The trouble with these parallels is that they excuse moderates who refuse to dirty themselves by dealing with the very same people they acuse of obsessive "purity"-- even as said moderates excuse themselves from any culpability for the downward spiral they're in, they stand tall and proud in their refusal to concede any point at all to the supposed extremists. Well, not those on their left, any way. Scratch the defiant surface of anti-Bush jokes or fuming at the hateful Bible thumpers, and it's all about the "strategy" of jettisoning various sub-groups of loyalists (gays, feminists, labor, blacks) in order to look godly enough to peel off a few swing voters in Peoria.

Well, if you ask me, both these things cannot be true at the same time. Either moderates need those on their Left to prevail, or they don't. If they do, they must address the concerns of those to their Left. If they don't, they ought to stop treating those on their Left as a wholly-owned subsidiary belonging to whichever DLC fuckwit they meekly help anoint in two years.

Which is it in Billmon-land, I wonder ? Has he decided, or is he just another liberal blogger determined to constantly re-enact that old joke about milking the cow and the goat at the same time, while peddling the results as ginger ale ?

(Smithee may recognize that last bit. A hint to any DP loyalists lurking about: It didn't originate with Mrs. Bush.)

"These demoblog communities with their ever-more-fondly held notion that winning is everything."

Yes, as opposed to pathetic fossils like you, to whom LOSING is everything - and always will be.

If I'm Elmo, then I guess that makes you Oscar the fucking grouch. Asshole.

Posted by: billmon | June 13, 2006 09:05 AM

    From: "J S Paine" <jsp@smithbowen.net> 
    Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 11:17 AM
    To: billmon@billmon.org
    Subject: stop me comment

    at our site stop me before i vote again
    we got a comment that purports to be from u 
    in part it reads...

    "If I'm Elmo, then I guess that makes you 
    Oscar the fucking grouch.

    Asshole."

    doubtless this is from a counterfeit billmon
    the real one would hardly have the time or inclination
    to express
    such a sentiment even if he felt it

    does this happen often??

Imagine JSP's surprise and dismay at receiving this response:

    From: "billmon" <billmon@billmon.org>
    Reply-To: <billmon@verizon.net>
    To: " J S Paine" <jsp@smithbowen.net>
    Subject: RE: stop me comment
    Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:43:13 -0400

    Guess again, shit for brains.

    Billmon

Tetchy folk, these progs. And with all respect to JSP, I've got dibs on Oscar the Grouch.

I just want to make one thing clear to some people who do not view MyDD as a place for thoughtful, strategic appreciation of the progressive movement: your days are numbered.

Do not consider MyDD a place to work out your frustrations that you cannot work out elsewhere.

Do not consider MyDD a place for random, open discussion of the latest news and current events.

Do not consider MyDD to be a message board for total progressive purity.

MyDD is, ultimately, a place for people who are serious about politics to congregate.

It is a place [for] serious discussion and debate on how to fix the horrifically dysfunctional progressive movement. While grassroots, MyDD is the blog for political progressives serious about political, progressive change to find one another, and to discuss how to make progressive change take place.

Here's the product of one act of careful self-identifcation by a chap named Matt from mydd.com. It was either made -- or as I suspect, more likely reinforced by -- his attendence at the recent Kos Vegas happening:

We have a culture of liberalism....

I know that sounds 'soft'...

...but the laughing liberally folk and the comedians at the event mixed perfectly with the bloggers...

.... we are a movement...

...Every significant political movement rests on cultural foundations....

But to be just, the man does deliver:

...and I think that the punk ethos and... the ironic collegiate comedy style of the 1970s has coalesced into a cultural base for what we're doing...

Matt keeps it all vague, like the Coke formula -- how to reverse engineer this belated 70's cocktail? You know the ratios? I hazard -- punk is like the vermouth?

But to get the real deal you go heavy, extra heavy, on the irony -- make that a double on the irony, with a cheer chaser. Not coarse practical jokes -- forks in the hand and such -- no animal-house hee-haws. No, this irony is high-proof 70's personal pain-swallowed raw-built irony.

What a battering ram, eh? They bring their rivals down by triumphing over self-laceration.

And it's not to be confused with the other brands of liberalism. It's a clear counter to the 'real America' faux-heartland schtick -- all that phoney blue-collar, let's get down to their level and take 'em back moves.

I gotta agree on that. Meritoids, be yourself. No shameless prole-pleb pandering.

But guess who else it's a clear counter to:

... the liberal NYT Hollywood elitists...

So yes, rightly he says, we are neither of them. Good move. Neither phoney Jethro nor glitter-lite.

We have mainstream cultural roots that are as powerful as our political ideas.

From: J S Paine ... 
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 2:56 PM
To: billmon
Subject: faux billmons

  still think you're a faux billmon

  my reason for pushing this another step
is to prevent a response
that is unwarranted or i should say misdirected
    because though a worthy crtique
its not from THE billmon legendary blogger

strikes me the "real" billmon
might well agree...more or less....
with the negative currency of the faux billmon 
 squib shotz
but
  why can't i free my mind
of the notion
the "real" would if anything
use an instrument less blunt

as a further source of unsettlement

i notice in my non geek benightedness
there
seems to be two billmon e mail addresses floating about

is that a clue to faux-ness ????

From: "billmon" ...
Reply-To: billmon@verizon.net
To: J S Paine... 
Subject: RE: faux billmons
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:21:51 -0400

Oh no, it's me all right -- and someone at your 
pathetic blog must believe it, since they've already 
posted our private email correspondence. As for
the "bluntness" of my response, that's usually how 
I react when assholes compare me to a KKK klavern 
leader:

"Recently I've taken to drawing insulting parallels 
between today's Demo party blog klaverns (like TCBY 
Cafe, Call Me Elmo, and Adipose Express) and
yesterday's sheeted klaverns."

I would cheerfully slice your pathetic little nuts off for 
that, you miserable piece of human excrement, but 
you wouldn't be worth the trouble.

Now go away and leave me alone, fucktard.

Billmon

TNR's defection to the Right is now complete

Anyway, read and grin -- broadly. If you enjoy a little Schadenfreude -- and who doesn't?

My take: merit folks are as herdable as the rest of us. Final result: un-leadissimo Mickey Kos becomes Il un-Duce, with an un-cult and an un-hierarchy and a un-center and so on.

Remember, our species is a lot closer to apes than cats. Imagine forming a bucket brigade out of cats.

As an independent red-green with a couple thousand better things to do than track the hyperreal follies of US electoral politics, until very recently (until stumbling across MJS' killer reporting on the Kosniks' confab, in fact) I remained studiously ignorant of this phenomenon.

Now that I have been clued in to this bizarre charade, I wanted to offer a few passing observations... nothing earth-shattering really, just "thinking out loud" and probably "playing to the crowd" as well.

1. I find utterly laughable the absolute lack of awareness that the only occasions upon which the Democratic Party has tacked to the “left” (Great Depression, 1960’s-early 1970’s, etc.) is when extra-parliamentary movements (the CIO, civil rights & black power, etc.) have resorted to extra-electoral means (sit-down strikes, civil disobedience, riots, etc.) forcing the Democratic Party to adopt the most milquetoast of reforms (reforms which social democratic sellouts in Western Europe put to shame!).

2. Equally gut-busting is the notion that somehow a mutual admiration society of geeks reading one another’s like-minded blogs translates into a “movement.”

3. Perhaps the most bourgeois of all conceits is to elevate form above content, or in this case to breathlessly assert and reassert the “revolutionary” bona fides of the “netroots” while continuously eschewing ANY substantial debate over the concrete program the said “revolution” is putatively advancing.

4. It is a sad commentary on how taken-for-granted “political technologism” has become that the centerpieces of conversation are focus groups, branding exercises, communications strategies, etc. – precisely among those who style themselves as (and are styled by the MSM as) “rebellious outsiders.”

I had pretty much given up on the postmodern cartoon that is the US prior to stumbling across this site… I’m afraid that my diagnosis has only been darkened.

More dim (hopefully not dimbulb) observations on the strange world of liberal blogs (and the comments sections of liberal media sites such as AlterNet) – or, if you prefer, ruminations on the theme of “the kids are not all right,” from a pre-“Generation Y” old fogy (37 years and counting – but aren’t we all counting).

It seems that the echo chamber at these blogs and sites is full of voices of young ‘uns who have to come to political consciousness (if it can be called that) in the age of George W. Bush.

Both the predominant rhetorical style and the implicit worldview are dead giveaways. As a package, the results are distressing enough to prompt a Frankfurt School partisan such as myself to suggest turning out the lights.

Your typical entry is sub-literate (redolent of communication skills honed through countless hours of text messaging), shot through with "transgressive" catch phrases (pick your favorite snarky nickname for the Commander-in-Chief), indulgent of conspiratorial fantasies (with Karl Rove as puppetmaster), mercilessly pillorying of the “enemy” – in the end, all in the service of defending the honor of the likes of Russ Feingold, who would have the US withdraw from Iraq in the name of more effectively prosecuting the (sic) war on terror. In other words, the package is eminently anti-bourgeois in form and utterly bourgeois in substance, the mirror image of Fox Network’s right-wing populist universe....

Class Struggle
by Brettnet

Numero uno:

There have always been two classes . Not the rich and the poor or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat or whites and others. The two classes have been .... the dreamers and the parasites.

Worker Ownership of corporations.

Allow entrepreneurs to accumulate $10 million of wealth, before corporate stock is phased into employee ownership.

Tax all wealth 2% annually, minus exemption on first $100,000.

Targeted amount for the Wealth Tax shall equal the amount of the Military Budget, plus the interest on the National Debt.

A $100 k floor sounds low -- make it a million and let the atuomatic esopers swap n% of their shares for a broader range of shares for diversity's sake, and I'll buy into it.

The guy bills himelf as Henry David. Seems at least a few fightin' fish still swim in them brackish Kos waters.

The glass isn't almost empty -- it's one-tenth full. That seems to be the cheery-beery outlook of whoever writes The Nation's editorials:

When House Republican leaders responded to bipartisan calls for an honest debate on the Iraq occupation with a resolution endorsing the Administration's failed strategies and rejecting a timeline for withdrawal from a war that had that very day cost the 2,500th American life, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi countered with something Rove wasn't expecting: outspoken opposition.

It gets better:

[Pelosi] led a huge majority of Democrats in voting against the resolution. Even members like minority whip Steny Hoyer and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm Emanuel, who have sided with the White House in the past, voted no.

Steny has come over! And Rahm! Ah, there is more rejoicing in Heaven over the one sheep that was lost and is found, than over the ninety and nine who were never lost.

Well, guess what. These particular black sheep are still not found, and never will be found. They didn't vote for a deadline -- they voted against being against a deadline.

Doesn't that doesn't just about sum up the modern Democrat's profile-in-courage? They're not quite brave enough to be for anything, but they're against people who are against it.

And the Nation sleeps tonight with a big triumphant smile on its collective happy-face.

Some people are surprised that I said that out-of-staters won't tell the local who to vote for in CT (or anywhere else, for that matter). But if that's the case, then what are bloggers like me doing?

We're supporting the efforts of local activists. That's what we're doing. I have no influence whatsoever on who locals vote for. But I can help generate the activism and money that's necessary for Ned Lamont to make his case to the people of his state. See the distinction?

Of course I said yes, and of course the poor girl has now been banned. I took the unusually promethean step of saving the post, and the dozens of furious comments it evoked, though.

What I didn't save -- and I'm sorry now, because I found it very interesting -- was a poll 'ladufarge' put up several days ago, asking Kosniks whether they approved or disapproved of Israel's actions in Lebanon. To my utter astonishment, the responses disapproved by a margin of three to one. The poll has now apparently been chucked into the Kosnik memory hole, alas. Interestingly, though the poll figures were overwhelmingly anti-Israel, the comments were nearly all hardline Dershowitz talking points. Dissenters will vote but they know better than to speak up. But votes must be tracked by user -- or you could vote twice. I wonder whether Kos has yet realized he could have a lucrative sideline selling the logs to the ADL.

Anyway, the comments to ladufarge's repost of my Dean thing were interesting, in a grim kind of way. The largest single component consisted of True Believers lauding Dean for his deep political cunning. The second largest component were suggestions that ladufarge was a "troll" -- to which my girl responded, rather wittily I thought, that if we could harness the energy Kosniks expend typing the word 'troll' millions of times, we could eliminate our dependence on imported oil. Third largest were the complaints that we should be concentrating on electing Democrats, and should never, never ask why. Then there were a few oddities: a couple of contributors who found the "off the meds" expression hurtful because they had mental illness in the family -- a claim I can well believe -- and one or two poor out-of-place souls who actually agreed with the post.

I hadn't read Kos for several weeks and I was shocked at how the site had degenerated in that short time. It was always a bit of a bore, but now it's a shrill, hysterical, paranoid, one-note bore. The cultish quality I sensed in the air when I infiltrated their Vegas conclave has become much more pronounced. Apparently nothing fails like success.

I liked this in particular, from the great muscular pharisee himself, "hunter" of trollology fame:

This site is for democrats. (0 / 0)
If you're "dedicated to the deconstruction of the Democratic Party", as the masthead of the site you linked to has it, this isn't the place for you.

I wish people who hated this site would have the basic willpower to keep the hell away from it. It really isn't too difficult.

by Hunter on Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 12:25:25 AM PDT"

A second hunter's point:

And I find it fascinating, (0 / 0)
just as a random aside of something I've seen over and over, that the sites that claim to be most leftist tend to quote places like Fox News and the Note with regularity. I think it tends to demonstrate that the primary dedication of many self-declared leftists is obstruction and contrarianism in the name of "purity", and they don't particularly care whose hands they shake or what actual ideals they espouse in service to that contrarianism....

All their energy is spent being purer than the next "liberal" guy....

... the actual conservatives and neocons that they keep saying they'll get around to helping to defeat, just as soon as they're done polishing their own... um... nobility.

I personally don't care much for perfection -- can't speak for anybody else, of course -- but yeah, I'm for building a machine out of real people parts. And my hunch is it wouldn't be all that better or worse then the Kos-borg. But i'd work out my mission statement first. And that might entail a split with all organized Orthrian goonery.

Yes, a split will suffice... for now. I'll save the"liquidation" of all wavering "middle forces" till I have state power firmly in my grasp.

Here's Kos Maximus:

The Dems aren't left enough for them [the greens-- ed.] so they go to the right...

More Kos, on the deadly peril of "helping Santorum win":

Logic right out of Stalin telling the German communists to not fight the Nazis because things would get so bad that the communists would eventually win....

Here's the deal: politics as temper tantrum suck.

Here's something worth a laugh --

People need sane people in office more than you need to feel right.

Future headline in history text: the Bush-Cheney insanity stopped by St Hill and the gang.

Now I don't necessarily prefer candidates that would rather be right then prez, but I do want to stop the inanity of voting for the lesser party, and force the system to produce a real alternative party, one way or another. Then I'd love to see it win.

Kos is right on when he sez amazing grace ain't all it's cooked up to be. We could use a few good works 'round here. But the prosecution would like to direct the jury to the Clinton years. Let's do this up brown like it deserves, and say no, I won't vote for four more years of that either.

All this Kos rhetoric is vintage high-school debate-team material. Take that variation on the old football, worse now leads to better later -- well, everybody knows what a stupid, discredited idea that is, right? Nobody is ever correct to forego a short-term gain, no matter how small, in favor of a long-term gain, no matter how great. We can all agree on that, surely.

But analogies like this are so empty of content, so schematic, it's just feudin' formalities. The task is to give the concrete situation, as concretely as it can be poured. Only then can we begin to determine if the correct formality is being applied.

After all, maybe once you decide the DLC must be neutered -- as it would seem the Kossbacks agree -- then maybe you need to know if the DLC's balls can be removed from the donkery, or whether, like some siamese-twin operations, both patients are doomed to die on the operating table.

I could give a shit about Bob Casey [the donk candidate -- ed.], but Santorum has to go. My lab partner is a monkey could do a better job than Santorum.

Of course, it's possible that Kos is onto something factually, in spite of his threadbare suite of ideas, with Santorum. Maybe Santorum is a key from the Keystone State. Knock him out, and not only does the Repugs' electoral majority crumble, but the Democrats hang the DLC and move so rapidly to the left that they hang Feingold on the way. But i doubt it. In this case, what's the value of the dime's diff a DLC fetus-freak donk can make, if our real task is to show the donk party hacks they can't win anywhere, till they run real alternatives -- on empire, on taxes, on wages and hours, on mother earth, on health payments, etc. In that war maybe you do have to pick some symbolic targets. For example, the brutal humiliating demise of nutmeg nutter Joe "talks to God" Lieberman, in the general election, might really crack open a few thick beltway skulls, if it elected some Repug chuckle head.

Dan DeWalt, a Newfane selectman and the activist behind the impeachment town meeting resolutions that passed in seven Vermont communities earlier this year.... continued his criticism of Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, who has refused to pursue impeachment, despite the Vermont town meeting resolutions and others passed by several county Democratic committees.

Immediately following the passage of the Town Meeting Day resolutions, Sanders issued a statement that said, “[P]eople who are outraged by the conduct of the Bush Administration, who want serious investigations of what they have done, and who want to see the United States move in a new direction, it’s my view that all of our energy must go into the November elections with the goal of ending Republican control of the House and Senate.”

To this day, Sanders insists there is no support in Congress to launch an impeachment investigation. On July 23, he told supporters in Putney that activists’ time would be better spent trying to elect him to the Senate and Democrat Peter Welch to the U.S. House, according to press reports.

... DeWalt shot back that Sanders “doesn’t care if we think the war in Iraq is wrong, that valuing our Constitution is right. All he cares about is where his contributions are coming from.”

“We think we have quality politicians in Vermont. We’re wrong. We have politics as usual in Vermont,” said DeWalt. “Our so-called independent congressman, Bernie Sanders, can’t get far enough away from impeachment. He was not even willing to vote for a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon … he voted for Iran Freedom Support Act. That’s our Bernie Sanders, independent.”

For example, this soulful sour moan from Steve Gilliard, thanks to a link provided by stalwart Stan de Joizy. In response to Der Billhuffer's "fuck the wet dream of electing a donk congress this November," Stevey G sez:

You know, if you have a good job and a nice house you can think this way... It's easy to sit back and say nothing will happen to Bush because nothing will happen to you..

...nice, middle class progressives [that we] forget that the fight isn't for us...

• if you're making minimum wage,
• if you want to be treated with stem cells,
• if you want to get an abortion.
• if you're fighting with the VA
• f your kid is in Iraq ...

Notice these little folks don't need to rise up and demand whats due 'em. Or go into the streets and fight for it. Nope. They just gotta join in a united front of decency and kindness made up of all of them po' types, plus all of us progs, and this fall vote in the donks. Then just sit back and wait for the relief wagon from Capitol Hill to arrive.

That's hs metaphor, not mine; the po' folks need to be "rescued," like the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Get a load of this:

When those Coast Guard pilots and rescue swimmers flew over New Orleans, they could have said, shit, too many wires, too many unknowns, let's get some boats for them. Instead, they jumped in the water and started saving people.

But in fact billymonk's reaction to the farce of the feckless but vain donkery team is precisely the reaction most of us had to the whole Katrina cock-up, including that telegenic icon stream of the damn rescue copters, like a few prehistoric dragonflies, hauling out folks trapped by the thousands with tie lines and lift chair by the oneses. Like bailing Noah's flood with a teaspoon.

Here's my choicest bit:

Those Wal-Mart workers need real health insurance, and the GOP isn't going to give it to them.

Lieberman Viciously Attacks Bernie Sanders; GOP Rewards Him With Cash

Connecticut's Manchester Journal Inquirer reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (De Facto R) today unleashed a vicious attack on Vermont Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders - a longtime progressive hero and the leading candidate to keep Vermont's U.S. Senate seat out of GOP hands. According to the newspaper, the Lieberman campaign sent out an official email attacking, among others, Sanders and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of DailyKos.

Q: What moral quality is commonly associated with an attack?
A: The quality of viciousness.
Q: Is a vicious attack ever released? Liberated? Let slip? Launched upon the long-suffering world?
A: It is not. Invariably it is unleashed.
Q: Very good. Here is a letter of introduction to Katrina van den Heuvel.

How could [Lamont] expect to convince "moderate Democrats, Republicans, and most importantly, unaffiliated voters" that he "would be anything other than a rigid partisan rubber stamp in the Senate," the Lieberman spokesman asked, "when the only proof of his independence he can show is that he is slightly to the right of socialist Bernie Sanders on fiscal policy?"

[Voice offstage] Cut it out, Smith. Just cut it out.

Okay, okay. Here's the best abuse Sirota can come up with for Lieberman:

From now on, I am going to be referring to Joe Lieberman as De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman and I urge everyone else covering this race to do so in the interest not of partisanship, but out of respect for objective accuracy.

Among other crypto-Republicans who fall into the abyss of Sirota's excommunication from the Democratic Party is Marty Peretz. Now there's a real question of "objective accuracy" here. You can say a lot of bad things about Lieberman and Peretz, and I will keep buying you Myles commemorative pints as long as you want to say them, but one thing you can't truthfully say is that they're not Democrats. They have a much better claim to that title than Sirota has -- after all, they've helped start real wars and kill real people.

Will MoveOn now poll its membership in New York about whether to make an endorsement in the Clinton vs. Tasini race?

I put the question to the executive director of the MoveOn.org political action committee, Eli Pariser. Here's his full reply: "We focus on the issues and candidates our members are excited about. We've heard almost nothing from MoveOn members on Tasini -- New York MoveOn members are more focused on winning back Congress, ending the war on Iraq, and Ned Lamont. As for our formal endorsement process, that's triggered where there are two viable candidates and where there's a baseline of interest from our members. Right now, this one doesn't meet that second threshold."

But the only reliable way to find out how interested New York members of MoveOn would be in a Clinton-or-Tasini endorsement is to ask them. And, evidently, that's a question that the people in charge of MoveOn.org don't want to ask.

On the issue of Clinton vs. Tasini, the current MoveOn stance comes across as a way for its leaders to make sure that MoveOn members in New York don't get to respond to a poll that would likely result in an endorsement of Tasini.

J. Lieb.: No Sense of Decency

A hat-tip to David Sirota for unearthing this item: The Lieberman operation (Lieberman II: Scrape the Bottom of That Barrel Until It Screams!) is going for broke to smear Ned Lamont--and has lots of names to name. Connecticut's Journal Inquirer reported yesterday that Lieberman's communications director, Dan Gerstein, in an e-mail sent to reporters over the weekend blasted Lamont for being "slightly to the right of socialist Bernie Sanders on fiscal policy?" "Why should anyone outside the Sharpton/Kos wing of the Democratic Party believe Ned Lamont will represent their views in Washington?" Gerstein added.

There's something about these yentas tsk-ing over the Sanders reference that really puzzles me. Do Gitlin and Sirota agree that Sanders is not a socialist, though Sanders himself says he is? If so, it's probably the first time I've ever agreed with either of them -- and both, well, that's really a red-letter day. Or is it that yeah, Sanders is a socialist, but it's no fair to say so? What, in the name of Pete, is all this rage about?

From: Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org Political Action
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 11:42 AM
Subject: Vote on MoveOn's endorsement: U.S. Senate

Dear MoveOn member,

I know we've been in touch a lot this week, but we need your help making one more important decision. Who should MoveOn endorse in New York's U.S. Senate race?

... Voting for the MoveOn endorsement for U.S. Senate in New York starts now and is underway until 11:00 AM tomorrow, September 1.

To: Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org Political Action
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: Vote on MoveOn's endorsement: U.S. Senate

It's a good step that MoveOn seems to be responding to widespread feeling that it isn't democratic in its decisions. But this is transparently rigged against Tasini, presumably to produce a pro- Hillary vote.

1) with no prior announcement, and on the beginning of a holiday weekend, you throw this major decision at us.

2) you give us less than 24 hours.

Come on, guys, this is ridiculous. Do it again, and do it right.

It's great that MoveOn has responded to the many New Yorkers who wanted the organization to poll its members about the Senate race in New York. I'd just like to suggest that the respective bios of myself and my opponent, Hillary Clinton, left out some important facts.

My friends at MoveOn cite Hillary Clinton's votes for issues that every Democrat supports--for example, protecting Social Security--but the poll neglects to say that she supports NAFTA and other free-trade agreements that hurt workers (I oppose so-called "free trade"), that she sat on the Board of Wal-Mart for six years, that she believes in discrimination because she opposes same-sex marriage (which I support), that she advocates criminalizing flag-burning (I'm opposed to such an attack on the First Amendment), that she has never been for single-payer health care and is the second highest recipient of lobbyist money (I'm campaigning for single-payer, "Medicare For All" and do not get any corporate lobbyist money).

From: "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action" help@list.moveon.org>
Date: September 1, 2006 4:53:44 PM EDT
Subject: No U.S. Senate endorsement

Dear MoveOn member in New York,

We wanted to let you know, MoveOn won't be making an endorsement in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary. In voting over the last day, neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Jonathan Tasini garnered the two- thirds support from MoveOn members necessary for an endorsement. The margin in our online vote was 56 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Tasini.

The MoveOn election effort in New York and across the country will stay focused on beating vulnerable Republican incumbents in House races—working to end one-party Republican rule in Washington.

Ya know, I'm the first to admit that I'm not the most politically sophisticated person on the planet. Nobody is ever going to mistake me for Noam Chomsky. But, Holy John Hoyt! Even I know better than this:

Either you're with us, against us, or you don't matter:

... There are NOT two candidates in the race.... there are in fact four candidates and two write-ins for the 7th. The candidate I support, and will vote for in November, is the Green Party’s Dave Chandler. Yet he is not acknowledged by MoveOn.org, which won’t even allow for a write-in.... So why the exclusionary MoveOn effort?

Cheney:

He's not the only source of the problem, obviously, Tim. If you killed him tomorrow, you'd still have a problem with al-Qaeda, with Zawahiri and the others. But bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the very beginning, he continues to be a top priority today. That hasn't changed. The president and I get periodic reports on our efforts in that regard. There's been no lessening of our interest or of our activity with...

Pelosi:

"[E]ven if he is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done is done. And even to capture him now I don't think makes us any safer."

See any difference in the substance of the two quotes? Of course not....

Sigmund Freud says somewhere -- I'm paraphrasing -- that he never encountered a perversion he found really alien. Foot fetishism, you name it -- he could place himself in imaginative sympathy with it -- find something within himself that resonated to it. This is both a bold confession and a sublime bit of self-assertion. Yet in my own modest way, I've always felt I knew what he meant.

This Kos thing defeats me, though. Here's a guy who spends all his waking hours screaming about how important it is to vote for the Democrats rather than the Republicans, and then he writes a post indignantly refuting Republican claims that there is a difference.

I don't think this is just calculation. It's too crazy for that. Calculation would notice the inconsistency. Somebody help me out here. Can this be explained? Or does the lad have a brain tumor?

It all stems from a basic misunderstanding of what the "Democratic" Party is. Rather than being an imperfect but accessible instrument of the people's will, it is a maze designed to keep the people's will out while ensuring that the center of the maze is always occupied by the dollar.

Talk of reforming the Dem Party makes as much sense as "reforming" the Mafia -- the institution does not exist to do anything other than hurt the people....

Because this institution is not a single structure with a top-down design, nor a single control tower. It's more like a slime with a network of interconnected lumps. And right now and for many years back (to say 1977) the core controlling the whole sprawling mess are lumps(more or less loosely interconnected) that push a "new Democratic"/neoliberal program.

It's prolly much like the structure of K street -- an infestation of like-minded, self-interested parasites passing themselves off as symbiotes.

But this party network core has no cast iron unified characteristics; like a maze, it can be broken up because lumps can be set against other lumps. And what's more, after a controlling core breaks apart, obviously the operational program can be supplanted with a new one.

Yes, reform of this nasty posse of badgers is impossible; but they can be overthrown.

Could it be anytime soon, though? Soon, as in before the '08 prez run? I doubt it -- more and more every day I doubt it. But then, is this core's overthrow necessary for social progress?

Who knows? Perhaps all we need do is blow up its core. Hell, it may blow itself apart -- even though one has to think with a little taste of power like House rule the chances move toward super slim.

But still, there is precedent for remarkably fast changes of control. The radical overthrow in 1896 seemed to come out of nowhere. As if in a flash, the gold dems entrenched at the party helm for 22 years were overthrown totally. They even left the party for a few years, and the overthrowers didn't even need to win -- in fact they lost 2 prez elections in a row, and then really took a breather, before regaining control in the next cycle, only to lose again, and not finally win till 1912, over a split Republican party.

Then there's overthrows that do get reversed fast -- like in 1972. The insurgents, such as they were, held power for about 6 months. And yet the damage that overthrow did to the regular core effectively spelled the end of it -- the end of the old Truman to Johnson regulars.

They may have restored themselves, but much like the Bourbons, not for long or not for real. Nope. Instead, the party was reformed -- if that's the word -- incrementally over a few years into the hodgepodge pushmi-pullu monstrosity we still face today.

At any rate it's clear to me what has to be done -- attack the party's left flank and if possible, destroy it. Hack away at the so-called real progressives clinging inside the party today. Bust up the prog caucus. Vow to expose them and defeat them in '08, with a wave of real outside progs that split votes and send 'em back to private life. Show their feckless herd of guileless supporters the farce and humiliation these clowns live with. Expose the merciless neglect and episodic battering their ilk take at the hands of the lib-prags. Notice the obvious corporate plants inside their caucus -- hell, Tom "the tassel-toed Tartuffe" Lantos is no more a progressive than Ollie North.

Anyway, you get it. The target theme for the ridicule blitz: "Faux donk liberals and the progs who love them." Force those party progs to show they're not the real thing. Force 'em to jump ship, commit political suicide to save their reputations. Demand they denounce every liberal in sight, even the Roosevelts, and they damn well better refuse to caucus with the warchiefs and the robin-redbreasts of legal torture.

I for one am starting with those NY/NJ interloping carpetbaggers, Barney and Bernie, the sugar plum twins of maple and cod country fraudulence.

Some of us (not the sea-green incorruptibles like Father Smiff of course, but some of us) are still big party focused -- up to a point -- but I would rather the party burst into a zillion flecks of shit, rather then retard the progress of American job holders for another generation. Nope, the jobbery can't wait.

Q. Auntie, what would your advice to Democratic candidates be, especially on answering questions like 'what is your plan for Iraq?'

A: ... there are many possible answers, but I would think that those Democrats who are challenging incumbent Republicans might respond something like this: 'Just a minute. Did you, personally, vote in favor of this war?' To an affirmative, the Democrat can then ask, 'Why...?'

One possible response will be that as a member of Congress, the Republican had access to information that was not released to the general public for security reasons, and that information appeared to justify the war. In that case, a good response from a Democratic challenger might be, 'I oppose the war and want to end our military involvement there, but I have to defer offering a more specific plan until I, too, have access to information not released to the general public that might give me a better idea of how to achieve that goal....'

These, I take it, are the famous sansculotte 'Netroots'. If the Bastille has nothing more formidable to fear, I think it can sleep in peace.

But there's something about American electoral politics that makes even smart people stupid. Poor Katha has a column this week which is, truly, one of the saddest things I've ever read.

I'm writing this column in Clinton, Connecticut, where I live part of the year and hope to vote in November. I'm abandoning the antiquated voting booths of New York City because I want to do my bit to help the Democrats take back the House and Senate....

It's all downhill from there. It's an abortion column, basically, and Katha ties herself in knots trying to argue that single-issue reproductive-rights advocates should not be supporting candidates based on their reproductive-rights record. Rather, they should support Democrats no matter what. Here's her argument, reproduced (and reduced, like a deglazing sauce) from NARAL. It seems that if Democrats get control of Congress, the following wonderful things will occur:

1.  Pro-choice lawmakers would control key committees, and pro-choice lawmakers would instantly become a majority on every panel.
2. Rather than sitting through anti-choice hearing after hearing, called by anti-choice committee chairs, new committee chairs could spend their time promoting women's health.
3. Anti-choice lawmakers would no longer have a forum to spread propaganda....
4. Pro-choice lawmakers could hold hearings to investigate the FDA's refusal to approve emergency contraception over the counter, the devastating effects of the global gag rule on women's health, and pro-choice measures that could reduce America's staggeringly high rate of teen pregnancy.
5. Pro-choice forces would control the Senate and House floor schedules. This means that we could avoid anti-choice legislative attacks--and instead, see votes on pro-choice bills that have been held up.

This woman is too bright, and too funny, and too experienced, to degrade herself with this kind of Daily Kos congressional-page sophomorism. "Control the floor schedule," for Heaven's sake -- is this what left politics in the United States has come to?

Lieberman says he has been promised seniority

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut running for re-election as an independent, says the party leadership has assured him he would keep his seniority if he returns to Congress.... Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) denies making a decision.

Lieberman said his desire is to stay atop Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.... The governmental affairs panel is primarily responsible for oversight and investigations of the executive branch....

Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group that supports Lamont, said ... “This is a Lieberman campaign tactic... Democratic leaders are supporting Ned Lamont.”

Well, no, Tom. They're pretty obviously not.

Matzzie (shown at left in an earlier avatar, before he shaved and started wearing suits) reminds me of poor Jacob in the Bible, who labored seven years for Rachel and awoke after his wedding night to find that the bride's father had pulled a switcheroo and subsituted Rachel's older sister, Leah -- probably the homely sister, although the Bible tactfully doesn't say. Jacob promptly volunteered to labor another seven years for Rachel, and I'm sure that's what Matzzie will do, too.

Gotta admire the guy's perseverance. But I don't envy him his wedding night with the tiny toad of Bridgeport.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/3/19332/6603

Can Dem blogging grow hair on your palms? Newly designated as "mature" content by SmartFilter internet censor software, Kos and his polymorphously centrist flock are claiming they're being unfairly lumped in with porn merchants.

Fears of a "Kos Blackout" at companies utilizing these filters have the party hearties bewailing being able to access Limbaugh and Drudge from their work machines but not the truly sweaty stuff they've come to depend on as a substitute for real intimacy. "I don't know what I would do," writes one KOSser in withdrawal, "if I couldn't access during the day."

Ironically, one of Bill Clinton's last deeds before leaving office was signing the Children's Internet Protection Act, which lifted the fortunes of censorware makers like SmartFilter by forcing their products on libraries receiving federal funds.

Pwog-blogger Matt Stoller (shown above with his hero) is a very happy guy today:

What's happening all across the country is that second and third tier candidates are proving to be much tougher opponents for the Republicans than they expected. At this point in past cycles, the map is usually shrinking as the party committees must cull challengers who just aren't getting it done. This time, the map of possible districts that are competitive is actually growing. Early targeting on swing districts simply didn't matter. There are a couple of key drivers that have changed the map. One is Dean's 50 state strategy, which has put organizers everywhere in the country to identify and help candidates. Another is the netroots and the ability to shuffle money to candidates without going through a party committee. And still another is the flexibility with which the party committees have been willing to adapt to Dean and Chris Bowers's strategy (even if they chafed a bit at first).

Stoller, however, once he gets going in this vein, can work himself into quite a high state of self-stimulation:

It's very exciting to watch this party being transformed. We aren't just improving the model for electing Democrats, we are coopting the existing centers of power and helping them see that playing our game can advance their interests as well as ours. If Democrats take the House and/or Senate, it's going to be a very different party leadership than the one that sits in DC right now. It'll be a more independent, more confident, and more fun group of leaders, and all of that will infuse the existing members with excitement and energy.

Here's Matt Stoller, philosophe:

I studied some Soviet history in college, and one of the most fascinating anecdotes my professor told me was about what happened when the archives were finally opened to Western historians. You see, the papers that historians had access to prior to the fall of the USSR were mostly from low-level bureaucrats, and the language they used about their amoral behavior was excessively bureaucratic.... Historians expected that when the curtains were lifted and papers from top officials were made available, they would be able to get a sense of the 'real' intent of the leadership, in normal Russian.

What happened of course is that, like with any regime loosed from its moral bearings, the language the top officials used was the same bureaucratic language used by the middle management. In essence, the Soviet system failed because its language codified corruption and bleached morality from it. Leaders thought in terms of the language they used, and that language did not allow for error or moral failure on the part of the state.

It gets better:

...Verizon is a bad actor in the political process. If you put legislation through on a Federal level, they will go to the states. If you go to the states, they will go to the FCC, or to the localities. If you stop them there, they will go to the courts. At no point, however, will Verizon accept the democratic process as legitimate, at no point will this company accept a set of laws that they don't like. Our country is built on the consensus of the governed, that even if you don't like all of our laws, you buy into the process of forming them and consent to all of them.

Matt, Matt -- apply yourself, and think -- what do you believe the Constitution is for? Who wrote it, and why? Did your undergraduate studies cover this topic, along with the prose style of the Soviet bureaucracy?

First, the bad news. Here's what's going on.

[Quoting New York Times] "Despite the rush from many Democrats to endorse Mr. Lamont after his triumph -- only a handful chose personal loyalty to Mr. Lieberman over the Democratic nominee picked by voters -- some now quietly admit they would be satisfied to see their longtime colleague returned to Washington. But none of the Democrats would speak for attribution because of pressure to publicly appear supportive of their party's nominee, and they were granted anonymity so they could speak freely about their feelings toward Mr. Lieberman."

After the primary, DC Democrats dissuaded Lamont from attacking Lieberman, essentially promising him that they would talk Joe out of running. This was of course a lie, but it worked. They lied not only to Lamont, but to us, and to regular activist Democrats who work for the party and play by the rules.

When you run an anti-establishment campaign, even when you win the primary, never ever never ever never ever assume they're gonna back you. NEVER assume that. Most of the time they won't. ... That's why they have a stranglehold on "their" chosen ones. I have even seen the parties throw their own general election candidates to lose to the other side as punishment for a winning quixotic insurgent campaign.

Lamont people were bloody FOOLS to believe that bullshit from the party, for they are back-stabbing sons-of-bitches. NEVER EVER believe the party like Lamont did, because you'll get fucked every time.

Hell, man, I'm surprised you're not doing a piece about Air America going under. I'm surprised you're not camped out to be first in line to buy your seat aboard the ol' Schadenfreude Special. Toot, toot.

Seriously, though; it couldn't have happened to a nicer miserably partisan, insulting to real progressive ideals, practically doing Bush's job for him while doing a miserable imitation of a "progressive" voice in American media, radio network.

Guess they couldn't get back all the real progressive listeners they pissed off and drove off with the infamous Randi Rhodes slagging of the Green Party, Ralph Nader, and anyone else who dared oppose the DP.

We Answer to the Name of Liberals
By Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin

As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay in the London Review of Books, that American liberals -- without distinction -- have "acquiesced in President Bush's catastrophic foreign policy." Both claims are nonsense on stilts.

Clearly this is a moment for liberals to define ourselves. The important truth is that most liberals, including the undersigned, have stayed our course throughout these grim five years. We have consistently and publicly repudiated the ruinous policies of the Bush administration, and our diagnosis, alas, has been vindicated by events. The Bush debacle is a direct consequence of its repudiation of liberal principles. And if the country is to recover, we should begin by restating these principles.

We have all opposed the Iraq war as illegal, unwise, and destructive of America's moral standing. This war fueled, and continues to fuel, jihadis....

We believe that the state of Israel has the fundamental right to exist, free of military assault, within secure borders close to those of 1967....

But what about these these "liberal principles"? It seems by order of priority principle number one is:

Make no mistake: We believe that the use of force can, at times, be justified. We supported the use of American force, together with our allies, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

the Bush administration has defied evidence and logic, sabotaging its own professional civil servants. It refuses serious consultation with experts and critics.... It stifles civil servants attempting to do their jobs. It appoints cronies whose political loyalty cannot compensate for their incompetence....Reason is indispensable to democratic self-government.

There's quite a list of Gladstonian stalwarts who have subscribed their names-to-conjure-with on this resoundingly flung gauntlet (note, the group is very very heavy on the mortarboards):

• George Akerlof, Berkeley
• Jeffrey Alexander, Yale
• Eric Alterman, City University of New York
• Kenneth Arrow, Stanford
• Ian Ayres, Yale
• Benjamin Barber, Maryland
• Yochai Benkler, Yale
• Joshua Cohen, Stanford and Boston Review
• Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard
• Robert A. Dahl, Yale
• Norman Daniels, Harvard
• Michael Doyle, Columbia
• Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Graduate Center, CUNY
• James K. Galbraith, Texas
• Robert W. Gordon, Yale
• Adam Hochschild, Berkeley
• Arlie Hochschild, Berkeley
• G. John Ikenberry, Princeton
• Christopher Jencks, Harvard
• Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford
• Michael Kazin, Georgetown
• Chang-Rae Lee, Princeton
• Margaret Levi, University of Washington
• Sanford Levinson, Texas
• Doug McAdam, Stanford
• Jane Mansbridge, Harvard
• Katherine S. Newman, Princeton
• Robert Post, Yale
• Robert B. Reich, Berkeley
• Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale
• Ruth Rosen, Berkeley
• Elaine Scarry, Harvard
• Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Graduate Center, CUNY
• Richard Sennett, LSE and NYU
• Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton
• Jane Smiley, Carmel Valley
• Christine Stansell, Princeton
• Charles Tilly, Columbia
• Michael Tomasky, The American Prospect
• C.K. Williams, Princeton
• William Julius Wilson, Harvard
• Alan Wolfe, Boston College
• George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole Research Center

They probed the millions of "serialized" American undersoul fragments, and I bet you all can anticipate their laff-riot "findings".

1. Americans' views of government are missing two key ingredients: a concrete understanding of what government is and does, and a ready sense of the mission of government why it exists and what differentiates it.
2. ...two coherent, but opposing, mindsets -- Americans view themselves in relation to government: as a consumer or as a citizen.

Solution: re-frame their head. Move their mind-sets en masse to citizenship by Avoiding portraying government as a laundry list of services that individuals 'buy' with their tax dollar.... Emphasizing our shared responsibility to maintain the public structures, services and programs that create our quality of life. Of course there are details, and some cheery rah-rah, but I'll leave the full dive into its stoogeanna for any unplanned Defcon 13 boredom alert. Only in the idlest of idle hours can this sort of bog air not retard the flight of even a fairly dull mind's arrow.

Let's hope you don't get there this week. Next week we'll have a new def13 special.

THE Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday.

The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he'll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook.

...The Democrats are giving up a golden opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest principles (even on national security), to forge a public identity that fits those values - and perhaps to win more close races by being positive and having a vision worth voting for.

Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don't find a more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived. They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course.

The vogue for Lakoff in pwog circles is a mildly interesting phenomenon in its own right. Pwogs tend to be obsessively interested in words and insufficently interested in things and actions; everybody has seen at first hand the tiresome, obsessive policing of diction that characterizes the liberal-schmiberal milieu, to the near-exclusion of all else. So Lakoff's message that it's all about language finds an audience, in pwog-itania, predisposed to receive it.

But I think the Lakoff phenomenon has another dimension too. Liberal Democrats know, on some level, that they are bankrupt. They have no real influence within their own party, and their own party is the permanent second banana anyway; they're not just screwed, they're doubly screwed, screwed coming and going. Comes now Lakoff, however, with a promise that somehow, through the power of words alone, all can be made right.

This must have the same kind of appeal for liberal Democrats that cargo cults had in New Guinea -- the promise of supernatural victory over powerful and poorly-nderstood forces. Or perhaps it's more like the appeal of pyramid schemes for financially strapped, naive white-bread Amurricans -- a kind of no-money-down, no-pain, magical get-rich-quick scheme.

It'll work for you, says the witch doctor, if only you believe.

Katha's thinking seems to be that feminist solidarity requires that she leap to any woman's defense who is being criticized for doing things that a man could do with impunity:

...[A] man with the same positions would be less bad, because he couldn't use feminism (or female stereotypes of caring and nurturing) to disguise them. But since anyone with a realistic hope of becoming President will necessarily have made all sorts of unsavory bargains with the status quo, this amounts to saying we'll never have a woman in the White House. We'll continue on as now: "expecting more" of women and tacitly expecting less of men.

The last time we took up the sad case of Katha Pollitt here, she was arguing, it seems to me, out of the other side of her mouth --

Katha ties herself in knots trying to argue that single-issue reproductive-rights advocates should not be supporting candidates based on their reproductive-rights record. Rather, they should support Democrats no matter what.

I think the contradiction is more apparent than real, though. Because the practical bottom line in both cases is that you have to line up behind, you guessed it, the Democrat.

Drawing the same conclusion from contradictory premises is, of course, something that hardened Democrats get very good at.

Reid probably didn't read the comments, but he might have found a few of them rather disagreeable:

I hope the staffer (65+ / 0-)

that wrote this knows how pissed people are at your treatment of lamont. Lieberman is a cancer on democracy.

Why Are Kossacks Such Enablers? (3+ / 1-)

The cult of personality around Harry "Keeping the Powder Dry in Perpetuity" Reid is truly mystifying. No one has betrayed Democratic principles more, yet Kossacks act like he's Paul Fucking Wellstone.

Get a fucking clue.

I was going to post a snarky comment (9+ / 0-)

thanking Mr. Reid and all the other Senate Democrats that helped out Mr. Lamont in his Senate campaign!!!

Seriously, "we're" going to have to decide how to treat the dems that hung Mr. Lamont out to dry. Particularly the two so-called "superstars" that are going to be the front runners for the dem Presidential nomination in '08. (OK I mean Hilary and Barack).

My personal opinion is that they can both go f#ck themselves.

Unfortunately these voices of well-founded disgruntlement were greatly outnumbered by the anesthetics corps:

Ed (7+ / 0-)

I am as big a Lamont guy as you, but Reid did what he had to do on this.

It is not on Reid.

by Big Tent Democrat on Tue Nov 07, 2006 at 09:15:56 AM PST

Jeez (39+ / 0-)

Could we please hold off on the circular firing squad?

by SadTexan on Tue Nov 07, 2006 at 09:17:23 AM PST

Tomorrow, but not today.... (3+ / 0-)

today we take back our country. Tomorrow we can eat our own.

by Got a Grip on Tue Nov 07, 2006 at 09:34:25 AM PST

How about after we kick out the bad guys? (4+ / 0-)

I'm sure it can wait a single day, during which we need to be as positive and fired up as we can be.

"We need to be positive and fired up," says one of the Kool-Ade dispensers above. I like that. Why is this needed? Will it exert some magical force that will influence the outcome? Or do we need to be "positive and fired up" because that's the only way to keep reality at bay?

A Victory for Progressive Values

Dems' victories are progressives' victories, and though there's still much to be done, the election was a great first step.

Let's be clear -- it wasn't just a good night for Democrats. It was a good night for progressives, and no media spin that these new elected officials are "conservatives" changes who they are. The media is always marvelling that "new" Democrats are so much more conservative than "traditional" liberal Democrats of the past -- which would surprise all the folks firehosed in the streets of the South by many Democrats of a generation ago.

There are no doubt some conservatives among the new Democrats elected but as Rick Perlstein, Ezra Klein and Chris Bowers note, many were progressive and Netroots supported and almost all were tough on core economic justice issues.

Let's remember -- those massive Democratic majorities of a generation ago were fake. In 1981, Ronald Reagan was able to control the agenda in Congress because 67 Boll Weevil Democrats essentially caucused with the GOP.... I actually am more confident in the present 228-230 Dem majority we are getting this round to support progressive initiatives than those fake-larger majorities of the past.

Now when it comes to leaps of faith, I can respect ones that have a worthy object to leap at: the Lord God Jehovah, or the communist millennium, or pick your own. But the Democratic Party?

Well, chacun a son gout.

My friends at the Vermont Guardian recently carried an interview with Bernard and his replacement in the House. If it walks like a Democrat, and talks like a Democrat...

Sanders, Welch focus on new direction for Congress
By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian
Posted November 10, 2006

BURLINGTON — Senator-elect Bernie Sanders and Congressman-elect Peter Welch said this week that Democratic leadership skills will be put to the test now that they control both chambers of Congress.

Sanders, who hopes to introduce legislation to allow people to purchase drugs imported from Canada once the new Congress convenes in January, said people around the country will be watching Democrats closely....

“...The hard part is to stand up against the powerful corporate monied interests in Washington and begin, in fact, to face the problems facing the middle class in this country,” said Sanders, in a post-election interview with reporters.

...[D]espite the call by some for an immediate withdrawal[from Iraq], neither Sanders nor Welch believes that is the best policy to pursue.

... Welch and Sanders noted that the first order of business should be attempts to roll back some [emphasis mine -- MJS] of GOP’s economic policies, such as tax breaks to large oil companies and the wealthy, and reign [sic] in some of the free trade arrangements....

Here's an unknowing exemplar from Max "Factor" Sawicky:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/nov/20/what_is_a_populist

and here's his prog-pop platform :

• A foreign policy that rejected bloated military spending and routine interference in the affairs of others;
• Fighting the Federal Reserve and the banking industry for the sake of tight, inflation-risky labor markets that would spur wage growth;
• A strong system of social insurance to protect workers in retirement, disability, unemployment, injury, and ill health;
• Rejection of the dogma of free trade.
• Counteracting the domination of corporate interests by the construction of cooperative institutions in civil society, especially trade unions, and a revitalized, professional, high-quality civil service;
• The broadest possible tax base, to include capital gains, dividends, stock options, the site value of land, rents from resource extraction, financial transactions, and great wealth; a serious attack on tax evasion.

Pelosi announces Iraq 'Democratic forum'

Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced a "Democratic forum" on the Iraq war that will take place early next month....

"Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Major General John Batiste will join current and new members of the Democratic Caucus in discussing options for a way forward in Iraq."

Ille deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit
Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis.

After progressive victories across the nation on Election Day... two things are clear: the American public is much more receptive to progressive ideas than suggested by the media, and the conservative movement is in disarray.... [H]ere's a modest proposal: perhaps it's time for the paper of record to create a beat on the progressive movement.

Where to start? Well, what about those "progressive victories"? Whom does Katrina have in mind? There were certainly some Democratic victories -- but Katrina is not dumb; she knows that's not the same thing.

But more to the point -- why in the name of all that's holy would a smart person like Katrina waste any time advising the New York Times?

Where to start? -- I know I keep saying this. But really. Does Katrina think that 43d Street is a strategic objective? If Aunt Sadie decides the "progressive" movement is a "beat"-- then we've arrived?

These pwogs. How they crave respectability.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/6/73813/0572

I think Pelosi will be a great Speaker. I'm hoping that Reyes misspoke. But, this leaves some to wonder from a policy point of view, are we getting different results from what it would be if Harman assumed the post? Are we getting different results from what we would have if the GOP kept the chairmanship?

This does seem so out of the blue that I'm hoping that Reyes was misquoted. His position definitely need to be clarified....

I'm hoping that Reyes was misquoted. It is enough to have to worry about Leiberman betraying our interests.

Dear CODEPINK Supporter,

Many thanks to those of you who took action this week to contact Senator Harry Reid about his remarks that he would support sending more troops to Iraq. His office was flooded with calls and emails on Tuesday! Below is a statement Senator Reid posted yesterday, saying that he does NOT support an escalation of the conflict and wants to bring out troops home. Let’s be clear: He only backed down because of the pressure he felt from the grassroots. Let’s see this as an important victory....

Frankly, I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq.... We obviously want to support what commanders in the field say they need, but apparently even the Joint Chiefs do not support increased combat forces for Baghdad.

I believe we should start redeploying troops in 4 to 6 months (The Levin-Reed Plan) and complete the withdrawal of combat forces by the first quarter of 2008. (As laid out by the Iraq Study Group)

My DW has done some work with Code Pink, and I even designed a cartoon mousepad for them, back a few years ago when they were doing some really fun, creative action -- back before they attempted to hand the entirety of the American Anti-War Cargo Cult (I won't call it a 'Movement' anymore) over to the Democratic Party in '04.

They seem tickled pink -- ha, hah hah -- that in response to their high-school civics class tactics (call/fax/write your 'elected' politicians), Harry Reid (who really does remind me of some dickless, namby-pamby bank-examiner character from a WC Fields picture) has sorta kinda backed down on his comment that we need more troops in Iraq, even though his statement includes the term 'redeployment'.

What really gags me is that Code Weak is calling on the goddamn' President -- that is to say, the President of the US, not Venezuela (sadly) -- to come up with a plan to get us out of Iraq.

Jeezus. I need a bong hit or two. Or three. Or twelve. And, a couple of Guinnesses.... Ahh, hell, make that eight Guinnesses.

Let's be frank
by Robert Kuttner

CONGRESSMAN BARNEY FRANK, incoming chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, has proposed something big and bold -- a grand bargain with labor and business to create a society more equal, more dynamic, and less bureaucratic.

Democrats control Congress by narrow margins, which limits their power to two areas. They can block things Republicans and business elites want -- and hold those goals hostage for things Democrats and liberals want. And they can use the hearing process to shed light on the real America. Frank plans to do both.

Business... wants more trade... more foreign investment deals... and relief from excessively bureaucratic audit and reporting requirements.... But... at least half the Democrats in the House -- including Frank -- are skeptical. So what would business have to give in return to get Democrats to support trade agreements and regulatory relief?

First, Frank wants to renegotiate the grand bargain first brokered by FDR.... Business has to learn to live with trade unions again.... Specifically, Frank wants business to support a reform to allow a union to win recognition once a majority of workers signed union cards.

Second, Frank wants to tie trade deals to enforceable labor and environmental standards.

"And third, he wants big business to support universal health insurance."

They [big biz] need to stop demonizing the public sector.

An ongoing seminar on the widening inequality in America- and the need for a new generation of strategies to broaden American prosperity.... other hearings will address financial regulation.

• The Pecora hearings
• The Truman Committee
• The Fulbright hearings

Future historians may add the Frank hearings of 2007-08 to this influential list.

I'll end with Frank in his own words:

I want to make opposition to the current regime [of economic policies] respectable.

Matt Stoller is well-situated to talk about the intersection of contemporary internet-based protest and the Democratic Party. He does not seem very current on the boots-on-the-ground left that is responsible for the huge anti-war demonstrations we have seen since 2002, as well as for local organizing against Wal-Mart and for the "living wage." About the 60s left, he is all wet....

The "Internet Left" is a mostly brainless vacuum cleaner of donations for the Democratic Party.

I'm (1) an anti-intellectual (2) non-lefty (3) coin purse who (4) isn't goddamn pure enough to be on the same side as the true 60's-generational liberals who (5) opposed the war out of reasons much more noble than any dregs of thought I could manage and (6) why the hell don't people quote more Karl Marx, these days? So let's just stipulate all that, shall we?

This little tiff in the progressive blogosphere over the wanker "intellectuals" who think bloggers suck because they don't read "Marx" (snort) is pretty ridiculous....

Here's my take on the whole matter -- "intellectuals" who'd rather read books and measure purity are next-to-useless. I prefer people of action, not of elitist academics.... What did all those Marx readers deliver the country? Nixon. Reagan. Bush. Bush II. Not to mention the DeLays, the Scalias, and the long national nightmare that is just now being stemmed.

That's not a knock on people who've been fighting the good fight. Just on those who think the intellectual circle jerks of the 60s are superior to what we're building today.

I would go so far as to suggest that we lefties might want to return the compliment, and hate the Judases of the Democratic Party rather worse -- if only a little worse -- than the Pilates of the other party.

Asked if MoveOn members would be upset with Sen. Clinton for not proposing (as John Edwards has done) to flex the power of the purse, Tom Matzzie, MoveOn's Washington director, told ABC News, "Our members are not of one mind on that" and he praised her for recognizing that the Senate "has a role" in checking President Bush's plan to send additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

"She's farther ahead than most other 2008 candidates with the exceptions of Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards," said Matzzie.

It was up for about an hour and a half late last night, and accumulated sixty-odd comments before 'hunter', that unsleeping Dzerzhinsky of the netroots, dropped the hammer. I saved it here, though, along with all the comments.

As usual, the pathos of the experience was the number of people who apparently know better but still can't tear themselves away from this maelstrom of futility. My post contained a poll:

Poll

Just how disgusting is [Edwards' performance for the Israelis]?

Not at all -- I agree 100%	6% -- 4 votes
Hey, be realistic. Cut the guy some slack	20% -- 12 votes
Mildly disgusting, but I'd still vote for him if he was the nominee	6% -- 4 votes
Intensely disgusting -- I almost barfed -- but I'd still vote for him if he was the nominee	20% -- 12 votes
I actually did barf, but I'd still vote for him if, etc.	6% -- 4 votes
Enough is enough. I've had it.	40% -- 24 votes

60 votes

A majority acknowledged nausea; 2/5 said they'd "had it." On a more depressing note, there was a lot of fatuous huffing and puffing over my pseudonym. No sense of humor, these people.

JSP some time ago noted that fifteen minutes trolling Kos is probably time well spent, since it makes the Kosserei burn up untold democrat-hours berating you, speculating about your troll status, pulling accounts, blocking IP addresses, etc. -- time they could be spending trying to elect Democrats. Better they do almost anything than that. (The other thing they do is elaborate an esoteric argot -- what does "to freep" mean? Or "to fisk"? This is at least creative, in a modest way.)

I was, of course, delighted that it was 'hunter' himself who liquidated the martyr hamaschick. It's always funny when you meet in the 3-D world people you formerly knew only online. Before I went to Daily Kos last year, I had a mental image of 'hunter' that owed a lot to Tab Hunter:

http://www.democrats.com/democrats-iraq-scorecard

The 2008 campaign has begun, and the Democratic presidential candidates are competing for the support of the anti-war majority - that's us, folks!

It's extremely rare for progressives to be courted by Democratic leaders, so let's make them really compete for our votes by making our position clear:

1. Deny all funds for Bush's escalation
2. Support immediate redeployment of U.S. troops, to be completed by the end of 2007 using the funds already appropriated
3. Oppose the $100 billion "Supplemental" appropriation in March and any other bills to extend the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Is it a winnner's reframing word? I doubt it, since the instinct of the weeble majority is clearly "come home, boys and girls" -- and probably stay home, too.

And why "the end of '07" and not immediately? Why the timeline of 'escalating' Congressional actions if troops remain? Why point three at all? I guess because point one only hits "escalation" funding.

But what I can't figure is, why does simply saying 'cut off all war funding now' sound too... what? Risky? Radical? Unrealistic?

This is the sort of mush you expect to hear from an incumbent, or even a candidate -- but from a supposed "activist"?

Bob doesn't sound any more serious about this issue than his elected representatives are.

The image above reminds me uncannily of someone, or a combination of someones. The hair is Danny Kaye, and the side-of-beef face is maybe a distant, feeble-minded cousin of old Joe Dzugashvili.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/08/impeachment_at_our_peril.php

Constitutional patricide! This oedipal stuff really unnerves me. It's always a bad sign.

Impeachment At Our Peril

Impeachment would be a suitable punishment.... Still, congressional Democrats ought to resist the calls to engage in constitutional patricide....

The key question is not whether there is a case, but whether it should be prosecuted. The Democrats would do so at their peril—and at risk to their agenda.... [I]mpeachment will force its proponents to act as extremists.

Patricide, though... I share J Alva's horror. The last father-figure President we had was Dwight Eisenhower. This gang, it's more like George and Dick's Excellent Adventure. It's scary to imagine the museum of neo-Roman civic sculpture in David Corn's head -- all those marble togas and pecs and stern expressions.

The Nation magazine is ready to rumble, though. Here's a recent bit of pulpit oratory, taking its text from the Upper West Side's favorite bad writer:

Into 2008

On the eve of the 1992 elections, novelist E.L. Doctorow reminded Nation readers why the bizarre and troubling pageants known as presidential elections matter so deeply. "The President we get is the country we get.... He is the artificer of our malleable national soul." ... the President has become "the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. One four-year term may find us at reasonable peace with one another, working things out, and the next, trampling on each other for our scraps of bread."

It's hard to imagine that after this spectacular plunge into bathos, there might be still deeper abysses ahead. But The Nation unerringly finds 'em:

The early [Democratic Presidential] favorites come hearteningly close, for the first time in our history, to actually "looking like America."

The huge shadow of the chief executive is part of what has deformed our political system....

Let us imagine, and insist upon, the election of a President with the broad heart, the sharp but open mind and the principled passion to seize the opportunity that now exists for a long-term political realignment in America--who can set not only Democrats but a strong national majority back on track toward the goals of equality, opportunity, true democracy and social justice.

I wish I knew who actually wrote this slab of rodomontade. Pwoggies have a strange susceptibility to the corniest flag-waving -- I suppose that's one reason why that trumpery, vulgar blowhard John F Kennedy is still held in such high regard.

Perhaps one reason for this perverse taste is the anaesthetic effect of self-administered Fourth of July rhetoric. Patriotism is the opiate of the liberals. In this case, the fumes of the pipe have apparently obscured the Nation editorialist's self-contradiction from his own awareness. On the one hand, the swollen Presidency has "deformed our political system" -- from what shapely former form, I wonder, and when did the deformation occur? -- but on the other hand, our salvation lies in a "President with a broad heart, a sharp but open mind," and all the other anatomical qualifications for a savior -- a manly brow (particularly if she's a woman), a chiseled chin, and oh let's hope, liquid liberal eyes brimming with the tears of deep and earnest feeling.

You may not want to believe it, but the DLC is still in charge of the party in the form of the New Democrat and Blue Dog caucuses, as well as a whole crew of consultants warning the party off of dealing with Iraq. Business lobbyist centrists rule the roost, with progressives pushed to the side everywhere from the think tank world to Congress to the Presidentials (no, there is no progressive in the race, and though several have instincts that way no one has developed yet into a genuine liberal).

Matt isn't willing to go quite as far as David Sirota, though:

The Associated Press today tells the story of how Democrats in Washington clearly do not want to end the Iraq War.... The renewed refusal by Democrats to use their majority in even the most basic way to stop the war is a declaration that the new majority is not close to using even the most basic powers afforded to it to stop or slow down the war. In other words, in backing off, the Democrats have just weeks after the 2006 anti-war election mandate effectively declared themselves as supportive of the Bush administration's stay-the-course policy - a truly sickening act of cowardice.

Matt has a solution to the problem, and man is it a bold one:

The mechanism for doing so is criticism, and perhaps primary challenges against some prominent Democrats who are among the worst of our obstacles.

When I hear the phrase "primary challenge" I go for my Browning.

I tried to skim through as much as I could, before I got sick at what appeared to be Amy Goodman giving Gen. Wesley "The Sweater" Clark a wet, sloppy blowjob for his opposition to the US war drive vs. Iran, and seemingly accept without question his answers re his bloody brutalization of Serbia and Kosovo at the behest of President Bubba:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/02/1440234

One Mike Lux is very upset about the results of a recent poll:

....there is some stuff in there that also just scares the shit out of me, and ought to scare anyone who cares about the broader progressive agenda.

Look at some of these numbers:

Question:

If the federal government were to receive additional money, do you think the additional money is more likely to be spent well or is it more likely to be wasted?

• Spent well: 13%
• Wasted: 83%

Questions:

A. Government does more to help people get ahead in life.

• 30% agree

B. Government mostly gets in the way of the economy and job growth.

• 57% agree

Mike, naturally, doesn't address this question. In all fairness to him, it's almost certain that the question has never occurred to him. For reasons of his own, he would very much like voters to believe in some government that he might be, or once was part of:

Long-term, the broad progressive movement needs to have a... strategy toward convincing Americans of the positive things a well-run government can bring to their lives.... this is why I was a lot more excited than many progressives when I was in the Clinton White House about the National Service, 100,000 cops on the street, and re-inventing government initiatives we implemented....

I'm being too hard on the guy, obviously. You can't expect a man to be rational when his career is at stake. Here's his CV:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mike_Lux

Mike Lux is the founder of Progressive Strategies LLC and a director of the Center for Progressive Leadership.

* Director, Proteus Fund
* Director, Arca Foundation

According to the Progressive Strategies' web site, prior "to founding Progressive Strategies, Lux was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), PFAW Foundation, and the PFAW Voters Alliance....

Before coming to People For the American Way, Lux served at the William Jefferson Clinton White House as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, where his role on health care and budget issues involved working closely with a wide range of constituency groups including labor, seniors, health care providers, trial lawyers, consumer groups and agricultural interests.

"Since leaving the White House in April 1995, Lux has become a significant fundraiser for progressive causes and candidates. He was a 1996 Clinton-Gore Finance Committee Vice Chair, and served in the 1996 cycle as a Democratic National Business Council Vice Chair.... Prior to his service at the White House, Lux was Constituency Director on both the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and the Presidential transition. Lux was also a senior staffer for the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and Paul Simon campaigns in the 1988 cycle....

Lux is currently (January 29, 2003) involved in assisting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "in assembling and raising money for a new outside organization designed to provide a voice to the party's progressive wing....

No wonder people don't vote, and die stoically when their time comes. They know a scam when they see it.

If we do pull out of Iraq, and all of a sudden do have to shut that trillion dollar trade deficit, we will have to build a genuinely new economy based on different legal and economic structures. That's a huge task, and there was no mandate for that in 2006.

I guess it's so he can fairly claim no mandate for this package in last fall's election results.

So there's the bam right in his own kisser, like Lou Costello might have thrown, and then...

the Democratic Party is becoming an antiwar party that has been pulled out of the bipartisan imperialist consensus. But it is not there yet.

Well, here's Code Pink again, actually expecting MoveOn and the Jackasses (wow, sounds like an old punk band) to magically grow a pair of cajones and stand up to warmongers and fascists.

I love how MoveOn actually feels the need to _poll_its_membership_ to decide on something that should be a slam-dunk decision for an allegedly "progressive" organization.

Jeezus H. Christ on a Segway. My brain hurts:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Tell MoveOn and Congress to Get Real
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:35:44 -0500 (EST)
From: CODEPINK
Reply-To: codepink@mail.democracyinaction.org
To: flugennock-at-sinkers.org

Call Congress:
(800) 828-0498
Attend a MoveOn
4th Anniversary Vigil

Dear Mike,

Today, Monday, March 19, marks four years of war in Iraq.... Today you have another opportunity to attend rallies, call and visit your congressperson before they vote this week on the supplemental bill that would allocate another $100 billion for war. Tell them "No More Money for War."

You also have an opportunity to pressure one of the largest on-line activist groups, MoveOn.org. MoveOn has not taken a stand against this Supplemental....

We need to tell Congress to stop the political machinations and use its Constitutional authority to end war by cutting the funds. We need to tell MoveOn to join the rest of the peace movement with the clear, principled call to Congress: Vote No on the Supplemental. Don't Buy Bush's War. This week, your leadership is crucial. Call your member of Congress at 800-828-0498....

-------------------------------------------------

Y'know, I'm actually glad I'm in Mexico all this month practicing to retire, and not marching in a circle with a sign or standing around in the dark with a candle or some similarly symbolic, ineffective bullshit.

If CP had any _real_ balls, they'd just be asking us to call MoveOn and the Democrats and tell them to take a long walk off a short pier.

House Democratic leaders pressed undecided lawmakers yesterday to support the Iraq war supplemental spending bill....

The leadership’s vote round-up was given a boost this week by MoveOn.org’s decision to back the bill, which gave liberal lawmakers cover, and by the support of former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), who wrote in a letter to members of Congress, “This resolution provides a light at the end of the tunnel. It is not perfect, but it moves our national debate forward.”

http://pdamerica.org/.

Witness this, in an E-letter I got from 'em:

While PDA and the leadership of MoveOn.org took different approaches on the Iraq funding bill, we know from years of joint work that MoveOn activists are as committed to ending the Iraq occupation as we are. Together, we can move the Democratic presidential candidates on Iraq, and on preventing an attack on Iran.

Was just checking out some reports yesterday on the protests vs. the Chimp's Latin American visit, and some of the tape on CNN, and found myself doing a mental comparison of how dissident movements outside the Empire handle this, vs. the cargo cults -- oh, alright, "movements" -- inside the Empire: How they fight imperialism and corporate dictatorship outside the Empire:

• General strikes
• Molotovs
• Smoke bombs
• Molotovs and smoke bombs launched from improvised over-the-shoulder "bazookas"
• Bricks
• Barricades
• Flipped cars
• Improvised battering rams
• Destruction of corporate property
• Actually engaging the police in actual combat (imagine _that_!)
• Generally making the place ungovernable and the Chimp's visit a living hell

• Marching around with signs
• Standing around with signs
• Standing around with candles
• Teach-ins
• Knit-ins
• Movie nights
• Vegan potlucks
• "Lobbying days"
• Writing letters to politicians
• Whiny press releases
• Movie stars and politicians leading marches
• Nonviolence training for people who are already pretty goddamn' docile as it is
• Various other quaint old 1950s high-school civics class bullshit
• Anti-authoritarian Bloc Action Calls which are pretty much ignored
• "Civil Disobedience" actions pre-arranged with the police
• Generally being meek, cowed, intimidated, and entirely useless to people around the world who were hoping for us to help bring down the Empire from the inside

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/fashion/22trade.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

had this waiting beneath a blizzard of blither on boutique activism's au-courant hook, "we're fair traders m'lady." Here's the nasty fish bone:

After graduating from the New School with a degree in literature in 1993, Sander Hicks, 36, the founder of Vox Pop, worked at a Kinko's, where he and his fellow workers experimented with union organizing and even a worker collective. Now, he's proud of his high-quality coffee, but asserts that the fair trade label gives it an additional "karmic kick."

... he and his fellow workers experimented with union organizing and even a worker collective.

Pride -- a clean soul -- a full cash register -- what's not to like?

I doubt strongly that alternative path was on Father Smiff's list of ways we might "stop traffic".

I humbly submit: acclimating your life niche by putting yourself in a humanist bubble so you can morally survive inside the beast -- it's just crap. None of us are souls unencumbered by the system. It's a fatuous delusion to think otherwise.

Want to make fair trade? Battle the system. Don't try to escape. There is no escape: not in your mind, and not even in your stomach.

So now you know. It really does matter who's President and which party controls Congress. A Democratic-controlled Congress would never have passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which banned intact dilation and extraction abortions and, in flagrant violation of Roe v. Wade, lacked an exception to preserve the health of the woman. A Democratic President would never have signed such a bill...

Here's a view any progressive Tinker Bell could embrace: "the American Empire is falling!"

So sez Terry Paupp, author of Exodus From Empire. Terry argues that the Yankee empire is living literally on borrowed time, by issuing an ever-growing stream of kited checks, i.e. "worthless U.S. Treasury Bonds.. backed up by nothing more than the promise of the U.S. Government...."

You know you're riding the wild pony when you pass a line like the following:

Ever since the U.S. went off the gold standard during the Nixon presidency, the dollar is not backed by anything except the military strength of the nation...." [But thankfully] "... those days might well be ending, as the Euro takes its place as the dominant currency of the European Union, and Europe begins to follow different policy choices and paths from the architects of the American Empire.

Priceless, eh?

Okay. So the A nation's empire is "falling", and we're all about to escape the bloody claws of Pax Americana. Where's spaceship earth headed, then? According to Comarade Paup we're headed toward a "counter-hegemonic alliance" which even as you read this is "...emerging and rising with the capacity to develop national, regional, and international alliances across the Global South...." And it's ready and able to "... undermine the sway and threat of the American Empire."

Annnd there's more -- there's even "struggles within the Global North.... social movements... dedicated to eliminating" not only "the Neo-liberal model" but "the resurgent militarism that seeks to enforce it."

Damned if our boy here don't have "the vision thing" for us too:

a post-Imperial American needs to find a path toward social, political, economic and spiritual liberation for both its own people and the peoples and governments of the rest of the world. The path of a post-Imperial America is a revolutionary proposition and a revolutionary goal. Taking such a path is the only way to re-democratize America and, at the same time, supply the necessary means to achieve an interdependent human rights oriented world under the rule of law .... That is when we shall truly see DEMOCRACY RISING.

Our first pinup -- and I'll be damed if she don't get us off to a roaring start:

Lest we forget, here's Medea back in '04:

Medea Benjamin, a leader of Global Exchange and the Green Party's U.S. Senate candidate in California in 2000, says explicitly that Greens are justified in supporting a vote for Kerry, even though he is opposed to most everything on the Green Party agenda. "In the swing states, where this election's going to be determined, [Greens should] recognize that we owe it to the global community to get rid of George Bush," Benjamin says. "And if people in those swing states support that strategy of getting rid of George Bush, then voting for Kerry might be the strategic vote for them."

Let's put it this way: if a mob of surly anarchists or Central American shoe workers ripped off this dainty bottle-headed imp's self-righteous spotlight-stealing chickadee-for-goodness cover, inside we'd find -- and I'll bet my ranch outside Vegas on this -- a bench-built, CIA first-quality transgendered-wolverine, ready to disrupt, at any appointed key juncture, both the anti-empire and anti-transnat movements.

Warning, people of the good earth -- beware this pixie. She be toxic.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/connell

It's funny, really, but I can just see it. Mr I'm-Entitled, Chip-On-The-Shoulder Alterman falls foul of a chip-on-the-shoulder security guard -- a gatekeeper in the physical sense, unlike Eric, who is only a metaphorical gatekeeper. Or would like to be.

Still, I have to say, this story has made me like Eric a great deal better than anything he's ever written could have done.Talking back to a doorshaker, and ending up in the slam -- why, Eric and I could practically be cellmates.

Of course, if we had to share a cell, only one of us would ever leave it alive. Is he a big guy? Does he work out?

Stanley Aronowitz has never been a particular hero of mine, but I warmed to him a bit last night, as he administered a gila-monster gnawing to the well-turned fetlock of Laura Flanders, shown above, a niece of Alex Cockburn and, I regret to say, something of a white sheep in that fine family of very, very black ones.

Now any guy who could brave the seas of matrimony in a boat with the late (and by me, unlamented) Ellen Willis has got to have more than enough dura-ilia to take on a young person from Air America. And he had the advantage of being, so to speak, of the devil's party. But still, unequal as the combat was, it was fun to watch, in a mean-spirited, sadistic way – up to a point.

The occasion was a debate in New York, sponsored by Left Forum and The Nation, on that great, evergreen question, “Can progressives move the Democratic Party to the left?”

I now read the blog of Harvard-perched Dani Rodrik quite regularly. He's very clever, but this post got my teeth gnashing:

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/let_political_s.html

Dani's lead: "This is the best thing I have read from a political scientist in a while...." Not saying a lot, admittedly – but even so, it's spectacularly bad: brass-trumpeting, coneheaded, Merlin-of-empire clarionizing by a Princeton poli-wog:

The grand strategy America needs to pursue in the years ahead is not one aimed at a particular threat but rather at restoring its role as the recognized and legitimate leader of the system and rebuilding the institutions and partnerships upon which this leadership position is based....

The grand strategy I am proposing can be called liberal order building. It is essentially a 21st century version of the strategy that the United States pursued after World War II in the shadow of the Cold War -- a strategy which produced the liberal hegemonic order that has provided the framework for the Western and global system ever since....

American power is put in the service of an agreed upon system of Western-oriented global governance. American power is made acceptable to the world because it is embedded in these agreed upon rules and institutions.... The system itself leverages resources and fosters cooperation that makes the actual functioning of the order one that solves problems, creates stability, and allows democracy and capitalism to flourish. Liberal order building is America's distinctive contribution to world politics.

Owen alluded recently to my fondness for Doug Henwood's Left Business Observer and the mailing list associated with it, lbo-talk. I cheerfully admit the charge, even though lbo-talk is certainly by far the most irascible, uncivil, squabblesome e-mail list I have ever seen -- and that's saying a lot. Doug himself has a listowner style strongly reminiscent of Don Rickles. But I like it anyway -- or maybe, that's why I like it. Too much damn civility and sensitivity going around. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, as Jack Nicholson says in some movie, I've forgotten which.

Still, sad to say, even in this coven of highly advanced Marxoids, it's amazing what a grip the Democratic Party retains on the minds of many. I don't usually call attention to my own japeries in other fora -- seems like the ultimate in blogger narcissism -- but I'll make an exception for once.

On the mailing list yesterday, a thread erupted (sounds like something a carbuncle would do, doesn't it?) in response to tiny poison toad Mike Bloomberg's disaffiliation from the pachyderms and apparent intent to self-fund an independent run. Naturally it wasn't long before somebody bemoaned the likely effect on the Democrats. Also naturally, I took the bait and we were off to the races. A few excerpts:

Michael Smith wrote:

> On Wednesday 20 June 2007 14:27, Andy F wrote:
>  
> >  We'd be able to
> > relive the whole Nader thing again.
> 
> How I wish. 

Oh, and that worked out SO well. (And I voted for Nader in 2000.)

* * *

the Democrats (it seems to me) represent a weak but present barrier against a full blown assault on labour, women, gay, black people, etc. While the initial setback of the demolition of the Democrats might be a positive, even necessary, step in the direction of a long- lasting solution for these groups and the underlying ideologies, what of the suffering caused in the transition period? Are those directly affected ready and able to bear that cost?

* * *

Do you believe the Democrats do not contribute in providing some roadblocks to erosion of workplace rights, abortion rights, affirmative action, etc? No doubt they have been extravagantly cowardly in the aftermath of 9/11, but they did manage to push through a minimum wage increase, and will I think shoot down any possible Bush nominees to the Supreme Court who are off the centre. These are small and uncertain gains, but as Doug points out they may be the only ones available to the respective constituents....who is to make the call? Surely not me, sitting in my position of privilege? If the unions, NOW, HRC, etc endorse the Dems, what next?

* * *

On Jun 20, 2007, at 6:14 PM, Michael Smith wrote:

> I think it worked out very well. It denied the 
> Democrats a victory.  
> True, like
> the Bourbons, they've still learned nothing 
> and forgotten nothing,  
> and for
> the same reason, but perhaps if we keep doing 
> it to them they will  
> fall apart
> and clear the ground.

For what? Just what are the Dems blocking? The revolutionary urge of the masses? When they fall, this frustrated and hitherto unexpressed revolutionary urge will spontaneously organize itself into a party and program? If there were all this bottled-up lust for transformative politics, why couldn't Ralph break 5%?

* * *

The stupidity I was talking about was yours, Michael, sorry to say....

1. The Democrats will not go away, wither away, disappear, or otherwise do our work for us if they lose the next election. The two-party system is just too useful. They will just shift further right again, while the GOP continues to fall into the Schwarzchild radius of Christofascism. 2. The masses are not quivering on the brink of left wing revolution; the people who are organized to take advantage of a political vacuum want things that you don't even want to think about, theocracy....

3. Sure, the masses might run up the red flag and start singing The Internationale tomorrow, and pigs might grow wings and fly, but "the beans might be magic" is a pretty poor substitute for political analysis. Why on earth should be base a political strategy on the possibility that for reasons no one can explain, all the observable forces now in motion, with all their inertia, might inexplicably reverse direction?

4. I love that "yeah, well, there might be some suffering if the Democrats collapse, but social upheaval involves suffering." You're pretty fucking blithe about it. Omelets and eggs, yawn? The worse the better? "Nach Hitler Uns!" Gee, that didn't work out so well either. No wonder the far left has about as much traction on the working class as a flea on ice.

5. Our alternatives suck. The Democrats are lousy, they will sell us out, they are in the process of doing so. Again. The Republicans are threatening to put the lights out for real. Our enemies are extremely well organized. We are fucked sideways.

6. I kind of agree... that the best thing we can do is help organize in movements. That's not inconsistent with an open eyed support of less obnoxious Democrats. It doesn't require such support, but when I look at what the Supreme Court just did to the Equal Pay Act, I think maybe it's nor such a bad idea, as long as we are clear that this isn't a step towards the revo. It's just as step back from the abyss.

* * *

At 05:14 PM 6/20/2007, you wrote:
>perhaps if we keep doing it to them they will fall apart
>and clear the ground.

well, it could be paving the way for bloomies as the new party, eh? :) i mean, like clearing the way for what? exactly? clearing the way ain't going to bring the demise of capitalism or anything else, no more than the upheavals of the 60s (watergate, pentagon papers, etc.) cleared the way for anything other than more of the same. and we're in worse shape, now, in terms of any kind of organized political infrastructure to take advantage of such crises, than we were in the 60s/70s.

And what to make of the masochistic delight with which the direness of our predicament is so lip-smackingly delineated? What is that about? Aren't revolutionaries supposed to be, like, hopeful? Not this gang -- instead we get the prisoner's dithyramb to his chains. O mighty chains! Chains of steel! You hold me so tight, chains! I'll never get out of you, O chains, no matter how I writhe and wriggle! You are some chains, O chains!

* All the stuff handed down from every generation of the dead weighs heavy as a nightmare on the brains of the living.

But then arrives Ms Digby's anointing:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070702/digby

... and I can't help it, I cast stones as fast as I can.

Why at her in particular, so recently bronzed as the official hood ornament for all prog-blog leapers across America? Let me put it to you this way: it's like finding your grinless silent fast-departing pimple-sized audience is not laffin' or diggin' it 'cause the fuckers are just stone deaf.

In the land of the deaf and dumb, Digby is queen. She's the beltway pundits' platonic form of a netroots insurgent, and for the best of reasons: she's a fuckin' high-C fool, just the ticket for the corporate party lite's co-opt act.

In Herself's 'umble "I accept this for all of us" speech for the mediocrity-of-the-year award linked to above, our gal reveals -- in a compact sort of way -- much of what lies behind the triple-bolted Green Door. This award exposes by her very selection the internet dirty-tricks detour sign set up to divert the flow of the coming mass rising of the mittelstand jobbler zillions. It's to be staffed by these Digby, Donatello and Stoller types. They and their familiars will be the phalanx of false prophets promoted by the corporate-sponsored MSM guide to the netroots.

But enough of generality – let's dive in. Here's an example of darling Ms Digby's fatuous preening (try to chew this, you melancholy curs):

We [prog-bloggers] are, in short, something of an enigma. I like to call this phenomenon--irrational fear of hippies which has, in my view, become--irrational fear of political passion.

How Blanche Dubois you are, my dear... passion passion passion! One sniffles in nervous embarrassment at this flowering into divahood. How predictable is it that a closet histrionic might suddenly explode into unbecoming self-display upon the receipt of a statuette.

Our gal points out,

... passion sometimes manifests itself as anger.... how can you not be angry, when [get set for the Sunday punch -O.P.] So many institutions have failed us in the last decade.... [B]eing vitriolic seems the only sane response.

Indeed it is, if you plan on doing nothing about it. And if we need to wax "vitriolic" – then what a venue the internet portal provides! Out there, through its wires, waiting in their cubicles, are all us fellow-travellers aboard Spaceship Myfuckinjobsucks, primed for a political passion movement, and it's wild, baby, wild!

If you have something to say you can say it -- and if it touches a chord, people will return time and again to read what you've written and discuss the issues of the day with others who are reading the same things.

Just what, according to Digby, is the deep shared structural motive of all these conspicuously bright-colored conspiring conclaves?

All of us who blog in the progressive blogosphere, have a common goal.... We want to... take back America.

Okay, swell, let's give it a whirl -- but first, my dear, tell me why all these "institutions" have "failed us" in the first place.

Now I agree, institutions everywhere – publical, civical, academical, foundational, corporational, NPO, NGO, arpeggio -- they've all "failed" us -- but did they fail themselves? Was it a case of mass institutional capture by black-hat Darths, cheered on by the likes of Bill Bennett and Martin Feldstein? Or was it something... much worse?

Advice to you, my queen, before you ride out agin' 'em with your posse of well-intended white-bonneted ronin -- first uncover the full dimensions of this Darth Amerika you are fixin' to wrest institutional power from.

And start by checking right there inside your own headgear. Imagine we are all Darth Amerika's pod people. It's kinda like the total depravity doctrine of classical Calvinism. You gotta figure, since we're all infected, Darth Amerika's agents, aware or unaware, are already inside every big or little tent, behind every curtain -- not just up there in every tower office, but down below, too, in every cellar hideout, waiting, and watching, and ready to talk up a gibberish storm.

To be specific: check out this plague-carrying meme emerging from your own mellifluous throat:

We all agree that Islamic terrorism is a threat, but one which we cannot meet with military power alone.

If you buy that crap, then you are a Darth bot, an agent in good standing of black-hat Amerika. Say this to yourself over and over: "Digby! There is no terrorist threat to nice decent America -- only to Darth Amerika! Digby! The use of the Darth empire's military power is never justified!"

Do it, gal! You gotta purge, baby, purge! Free your mind of corporate gremlins! Exorcise yourself -- the unexorcised life is not worth living. Go vomit up all this corporate bile, all this satanic alphabet soup, you've swallowed over the years, just like all the rest of us. Then go ahead, be fuckin' "passionate".