Stop Me Before I Vote Again

OK. Help me out.

There will be SOME kind of orchestrated noise on the "left" to distract people in 2012.

How do you distinguish the fake from the real?

1.) A Sanders, Dean, Feingold primary challenge? Fake or Real?

2.) A Sanders, Dean, Feingold third party run? Fake or Real?

3.) A weak Nader/McKinney third party run in combination with a well-funded Bloomberg third party run? What would that mean?

4.) A Romney (R), Palin (I), Obama (D), and Bloomberg (I) four way race? What would that mean?

OR

what I see as the most likely scenario

5.) A strong Palin primary run against Romney allowing for Obama to invoke fear of Palin as the motivation for canceling primary challenges and left third parties. Kind of like Lonegan vs. Christie in NJ in 2009. Romney choses Huckabee as his running mate, beats Palin, and the base stays to edge out a victory against Obama in 2012.

The post is directed at the Hall of Shame progressives. I have no idea what shape the formalized 2012 mud wrestling will take. I do know that any serious organized discontent has to shun them if the discontented hope to pose a threat. The perverse entryism of the New Left burnouts and the "creative class" focuses on wrecking the efforts of party's marginalized factions.

Shaking tails and the lowering/raising of booms? A concert festival, they'll never see it coming.

http://bullmarketfrogs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/war_squirrel_elite_2-482x645.jpg

How do you distinguish between "new left burnouts" who are actively working for the Democrats and "new left burnouts" who are basically honest but who will sign anything or lend support to anything?

Take Chris Hedges. I see him popping up just about everywhere, from the hard left to the soft liberal left.

That list of signers of "Progressives for Obama" is all over the map.

It has old Communist Party USA types like Van Gosse.

It has old 60s society lefties like Jane Fonda.

It has red baiters like Todd Gitlin.

The "left" in America is simply too small to have any well-defined distinctions. It all tends to mush together in one tiny little wet ball.

Randal, don't forget the flies! The rising progressives are cunning. They claim "no flies on us", but they decline to say exactly where those flies may be. I suspect they're being held in reserve.

On second thought that list is a bit narrower ideologically than I first thought.

The signers I like seem to be serious intellectuals (like Wallerstein) who are perhaps a bit naive about factional infighting and party politics.

There do seem to be a lot of elite left hacks.

ToT,

I don't distinguish between them. Their motives range from fatuously ingenuous to polished bad faith, but the broad strokes remain the same. They're hellbent on derailing. The effect on sincere groups is calamitous and not restricted to biennial electoral politics.

There are some people in the United States (Barbara Ehrenreich, for example) who seem to be social democrats without a party.

In Canada, they'd belong to the NDP. In Britain, they'd be left Laborites.

But in the United States they're still pursuing the Michael Harringtonite dream of turning the Democrats into the Social Democrats.

The Clintonites, the DLC and Obama have thoroughly defeated them.

So take one of these elite left hacks. What would the "leap of faith" look like? If any of these (already marginal people) jumped to the far left, who would care?

Eventually their tenured professorships and non-profit jobs will be snuffed out anyway.

" The perverse entryism of the New Left burnouts and the "creative class" focuses on wrecking the efforts of the party's marginalized factions."

golden boy Al puts a finger
on the rad-pwog adam's apple here

1. Fake. As fake as it gets.

2. Probably fake, as it involves ex-DP "progressives".

3. Nahh. Nader's got to be well into his eighties. Let the guy enjoy his old age; he's done everything we've asked and then some. Progressive/Green 3rd-party run with a Bloomberg independent run? What would it mean? High entertainment value, but still fake-ish.

4. Sadly, real -- but even more entertaining than no.3.

FB,

Cry havoc, and let loose the squirrels of war!

Owen,

Some of them fell in love with their tactics. Entryism can work! The outcome may be regrettable, but the proof of concept is glorious.

People, people, people: Have no fear: Carl Davidson (who was perhaps the author of this fine comment?) will deliver!

i know cats who purr w/o anyone petting them at ALL

I liked the comment just above the one that Al linked to.

"Forget it, Obama is done, Democrats should focus on ballot initiatives"

Yeah, that's worked out great in states like Oregon and California, which are now ungovernable. Feh.

I do agree that Obama is done. Stick a fork in him. He'll be a one termer and go down in history hated by both the right and the left. By the right because they hate everyone anyway and by the left because Obama has got to be the most ineffectual fop ever to gain the office.

This is the link/letter that I thought the crack SMBIVA crew would be all over:
http://protestobama.org/

Reading that was the most fun I've had in this little clicking soiree I've gotten into for a few minutes a day.
1. As I wrote as fake signatory number #628 or so, "this is the left establishment writing to the left establishment." How did Cornel West, of "Progressives for Obama," now sign as someone writing to himself?
2. Of course, there is no left establishment, as the Kasama Project pointed out. No aircraft carriers, no politicians beyond a few soft-shoe artists, no billionaires, no jobs to offer, no union movement, so who cares? Who needs to be written to with such urgency by such left luminaries as our heroes Henwood, Chomsky, Wallerstein, and whoever else tries to claim to be on the right divide of the pre-presidency Obama, which is a highly debatable claim by even these micro-names?

I do agree that Obama is done. Stick a fork in him. He'll be a one termer and go down in history hated by both the right and the left.

So you've got President Romney or President Christie or whatever hack the Republicans put up after Palin gets shot down in the primary (and handsomely bought off not to run a third party campaign).

Obama probably won't be able to rebrand himself as a "chastened man" and put himself up as a progressive leader because he already ran as a progressive (in terms of the imagery of his campaign if not his specific proposals) and and governed as a conservative. Nobody will believe him a second time around. The scam is blown.

The idea of identity politics has also been discredited, and, interestingly enough from both the right and the left.

Left identity politics has been discredited because Obama has shown that a black man can be as much of a Wall Street whore as Clinton or Joe Lieberman.

I also think that the sheer idiocy of the "Tea Party" has discredited identity politics from the right. Even white people laugh at white people now. Their cover's also been blown.

So what happens after 2012 after Obama goes to his gig at the Carlyle Group?

"So what happens after 2012 after Obama goes to his gig at the Carlyle Group?"

You've got me there Trail of Tears... I haven't a clue. Generally I figure things have to get much worse before they can get better based upon my own reading of history and gut feeling, but those are hardly any sort of reliable prognosticators of events.

We'll see.

mjosef,

I'm allergic to open letters. Even more so to manifestos. I find them demoralizing, but not to the point where they're harmful. That letter has signatories I like; some, a great deal. I think they'll find it demoralizing without my help.

Mr. Schumann:

Now you've made me vewwy, vewwy angwy.

MD,

He's got a very sweet gig: manufacturing fictitious legitimacy from a fictitious base. It's the ultimate in middle management jobs. All one needs to do is invent a set of senior managers, automate the workplace and invent a customer base so large and vaguely defined that any output can plausibly be said to have been purchased.

It's capitalism without tears. There's no direct exploitation because there are no workers and there is no product. All value consideration is solved by the complete excision of value. The only necessary thing for success is that the middle management somehow manage to get paid.

I know I've probably already beaten this horse to death, but this thread's as good a place as any to beat that old nag some more...

Now, I know all this "inside baseball" and "pre-game analysis" shit is fun'n'all, but in all seriousness, I think the real difference in '12 is going to be made by people who don't vote which, as you'll recall, was what made the Donkeycrats crap their drawers so much during the recently-concluded midterm pissfight.

I think The Left™ is making a huge mistake in putting time, energy and resources into "winning" in the upcoming '12 "election". As Michael Moore (spit) pointed out himself eight or ten years ago, there's already been a de facto boycott of the elections going on, and the old saw about how people don't vote because they're apathetic pretty much goes out the window when you actually ask non-voters why they don't vote.

If The Left™ had any sense at all, they'd be doing what opposition/dissident parties in many other countries do when the establishment parties and elections are revealed to be an obvious fraud -- call for a boycott. Instead of wringing their hands at the absence of a "magic Leftie" or the lack of a Left equivalent of the Tea Party (a damn' shame, if you ask me), they should instead be putting that time, energy and resources into organizing an official boycott campaign. Encourage people to stay home on "Election" Day, and outline the reasons why -- and not only that, but encourage stay-at-homes to spend "Election" Day writing to their "elected" representatives and media explaining why they chose not to vote. Citing George Carlin's monologue on why it's actually people who do vote who have no right to complain about the quality of "leadership" would be a big help here.

Problem is, The Left™ may already be too late organizing a properly effective boycott campaign. I've always believed that organizing a '12 "election" boycott campaign should've started as soon as the first bank bailouts were passed, and as soon as the first arrests of single-payer supporters at the Baucus hearings went down, as soon as it became obvious that Obummer and the Donkeycrats were no friends of The Left™. They may still have time if they knock off worrying about candidates and start organizing a boycott, but they really need to get down to it if they want to have a campaign ready to roll out to coincide with the first hucksters throwing their hats into the ring for the '12 Presidential Fracas -- which, as any Democrat will tell you, will be The Most Important Election Since The Planetary Matter Accretion Disk Appeared Around Our Sun.

Trail Of Tears sez on 12.11.10 @13:00:
How do you distinguish between "new left burnouts" who are actively working for the Democrats and "new left burnouts" who are basically honest but who will sign anything or lend support to anything?

Well... I was a bit young to get in on the late '60s New Left action, but I was just in time for the late '70s no-nuke/Smoke-In/etc. crowd, though I'm not sure that qualifies as "New Left". At any rate, I've been a Leftie for nigh on 35 years and though I've come close, I'm not feeling entirely burned out yet. I finally got past the point of signing or supporting "anything" about ten years ago.

Take Chris Hedges. I see him popping up just about everywhere, from the hard left to the soft liberal left.

Yeah, I've wondered about him, too. One day I'll see an article of his someplace that totally busts balls, and the next I'll see him posting some mealy-mouthed bullshit someplace else that makes him look like a total tool. Take Chris Hedges -- please.

That list of signers of "Progressives for Obama" is all over the map.

"Progressives For Obama"? Spit. What a classic, ranking right up there with "military intelligence" and "airline food". They ought to change their name to "Desperate Piss-Scared Suckers Who'll Fall For Anything".

It has old Communist Party USA types like Van Gosse.

Jayzus. I never could figure that out. CPUSA hacks fronting for the Donkeycrats? That's just fucked up, man.

It has old 60s society lefties like Jane Fonda.

Huh, no surprise there. That tired old broad just needs to go the fuck away, go back to making workout videos or something.

It has red baiters like Todd Gitlin.

No surprise, again. Mr. Don't Be Confrontational, a Progressive For Obama? Whod'a thunk it?

The "left" in America is simply too small to have any well-defined distinctions. It all tends to mush together in one tiny little wet ball.

True dat, but those little fuckers really sting if you throw 'em hard enough -- especially if you squeeze 'em for about a minute so the core turns solid. Years of boyhood snowball-fighting experience have taught me this.

I'm totally with Flugennock - the Soviet thingy collapsed not long after the regime had lost all legitimacy with the Russian "intellectual classes" - we are far from a similar position here in the land of the brave.

And also, who really would you rather have a beer with? Someone from the Left Establishment or IOZ?

Personally, I think that Chris Hedges is absolutely dismal. While I think that he genuinely does care, he's also a walking demotivational poster for leftism (or perhaps better stated: against leftism). He's deeply tied in with an idealized view of Christianity and personal change (and sin) stripped of any ideological content.

As far as I'm concerned, he belongs more in a sort of constellation of writers and such that may mouth all of the terminology and concern, but at the end of the day, espouse a worldview so relentlessly pessimistic and doomer (as well as an idealized society that would basically be a paleocon fantasy) that they've managed to set back leftism in this country decades-as if it was anything but tenuous in the first place.

"who really would you rather have a beer with? Someone from the Left Establishment or IOZ?"

what the hell does that imply ???

And also, who really would you rather have a beer with? Someone from the Left Establishment or IOZ?

Olivia Wilde

"I do agree that Obama is done. Stick a fork in him. He'll be a one termer and go down in history hated by both the right and the left."

Wrong again, SMBIVAs. Only very cloistered, very educated, very white people would come to this conclusion. The President just bought his second term with that tax bill, but since most of you probably don't have to do grubby things like collect unemployment insurance, or are blue-collar workers who might actually welcome a break in the payroll tax, you wouldn't possibly know this.

And this doesn’t even require a wild guess: None of you are black or Hispanic. Hardly any of you are women.

You live in a hyper-educated white male bubble --- hence, the snide requirement to type “Hillary” to get your comments posted --- and you have no clue how the rest of the world lives. You know, the people who actually are “rubes” enough to think voting matters.

milty dearest
read my post:

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2010/12/when_flamingoes_attack.html#comments

u underestimate us some

btw i expect barry to get re elected
and always have
he's the some time darling of wall street's brighter side
that no actual GOPer candidate can lick
head to head
unless we plummet into a deeper job hole
a very unlikely eventuality

OP, I should have made an exception in your case. I did read the flamingo post and happen to think it was correct. I may be underestimating the others in this regard, but not you.

"The President just bought his second term with that tax bill, but since most of you probably don't have to do grubby things like collect unemployment insurance"

I just did 17 months worth of it. I'm making less than half of what I did 10 years ago and working longer hours to get it. And that less than half of what I made 10 years ago buys even less than less than half would have 10 years ago due to the dollar weakness.

Now I've seen plenty of self-righteousness in my life. People who preen with their superiority because they have suffered on the altar of self-regard are a dime a dozen.

And so are you Mr. Working Class Hero.

Now I'm not gonna bother to play a "my working class bonafides are better than yours" with you any more than I would get into a dick measuring contest with you.

But you're a punk. I know that much about you.

Now take your Working Class Hero shit down to your local tavern and play it by them. They'd laugh your ass out of the place.

Me, I'm not buying it. I say you're a punk ass hipster with a little chin scrabble who thinks he's a man cuz he hammered a nail once. Play that shit around town all you want, I know a poser when I see one.

Drunk: I'm a lotta things, but I can assure you, "hipster with a little chin scrabble" ain't one of them.