Since the midterm elections, my primary focus has shifted from denouncing the Bush regime to exploring how to employ the newly won Democratic power.
This is not a shift in purpose, which is still to defeat the Bushites and to repair the damage that they have done to this nation, to the international system, and to the planet. But the change in circumstances means that our strategy needs a shift in emphasis. After the first stage devoted to waking people up enough to become an electorate that would begin transferring power out of Bushite hands, it now seems to time figure out how to best use that transferred power .
Many people have responded favorably to my strategic shift. But there are people who liked it better when I was denouncing the Bushites than when I portray the Democrats as a potentially effective instrument of our purposes.
Indeed, the very idea of valuing the Democrats and their newly won power makes them angry. And they express this by denouncing the Democrats for their various corruptions and weaknesses.
It usually goes something like, "Don't look to the Democrats to save us-look at how clueless and cowardly they are, at how complicit they are in one evil or another. They are not moving boldly enough to get American soldiers out of Iraq, now! They are not militant enough in their preparations to expose the crimes of the Bushites. They're too slow to take up the arms of the war against the Bushites-like impeachment. Democrats voted for the Patriot Act and the use of force in Iraq, and they carry water for corporate interests rather than those of the working American families, whose interests they should be representing."
That's what I often hear these days from some on the left who think me a naïve dupe, as if my seeing the Democrats as an essential tool for good means I don't recognize their failures and mistakes.
To that position, I say: Get real!
No good will be achieved unless our efforts are in alignment with reality. Look what happened to the Bushites in Iraq when they based an invasion on cherished ideas of how the world works that were out of touch with reality. Some on the left –also refusing to acknowledge how the world really works– would commend to us a strategy as unlikely to succeed as the Bushites' approach, founded on illusions and distortions, in Iraq.
My point is not that their accusations against the Democrats are false. It's that there is a problem with how some on the left think and feel about the Democrats' defects.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE A HAMMER, USE YOUR SHOE
First, though it may be regrettable that the achievement of good –in this case, the defeat of the Bushite forces– depends upon a flawed political party, it is nonetheless an inescapable reality. There isn't even a half-way realistic scenario by which the Bushite forces can be stripped of their powers that does not rely upon the Democrats.
The government is the ultimate power in our society-the power that's backed by force. The Bushites can not be defeated without vesting some of that power into the hands of someone else. Indeed, wasn't getting the electorate to turn against the Bushites the ultimate purpose of all our efforts? I can only wonder who Democrat-haters think might wield effective power against the Bushites.
If they think we're going to win this one in the streets, then I say again, "Get real!"
Or do they seriously entertain dreams of some third party –presumably morally far superior to the Democrats-- actually gaining power? Please recall that no new party strong enough to gain power has arisen in America for a century and a half. And even that process took the better part of a decade? Can anyone seriously believe that this is about to happen again, now, or –even if America were as ripe for a new party as in the early 1850s– that we can afford to wait a decade while Bushite forces continue to rule?
The answer to all those questions seems clearly to be no. And that leaves us with only the Democrats –whatever their defects-as a possible instrument to wield genuine legal power, backed law and its enforcement, to confront Bushites. We have to build with the tools we've got.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
You may be right in some instances. It will be a good idea to keep a wary, not jaundiced, eye upon the Democrat majority. A B Schmookler is aware of the 'centerist' DLC faction of the allegedly more liberal party & the co-opted Move-On which now supports the DLC types & the no impeachment now pledge of soon to be Speaker Pelosi & pledges to continue to fund the armed forces, not pull our forces from Iraq, favorably consider temporary increase in Iraq, etc. Oh yes, one may hope for gradual disengagment of U S Forces &, perhaps, a peace with honor; but when? How many deaths of Iraqi's [civilians & fighters for the Suni, Shia, Kurd & other factions] & U S troops will it take for the purveyors of CW [conventional wisdom] to realize that the anarchy of a civil war has been a fact for over 3 yrs & any further investment of money or troops won't produce any sort of peace, with or without honor, in Iraq?
When & how do the DLC types propose to bring W & co to account for war crimes, other crimes against humanit & the usurping of power in violation of the Constitution & USC?
The DLC types must bear constant scrutiny & a short, tight leash from all who are liberals. Preperations for starting & funding a 3d, 4th, et party(ies) are in order given the wretched record of DLC types. To start the actions may be premature in the 1st 100 hrs of the 110th Congress but should proceed after the 1st 100 days of the 110th Congress if a DLC dominated majority proves to be a lethargic, toothless, lap dog for the establishment which controls both parties. The peace in Iraq is lost & it has been lost for 3 yrs.
The matters of universal health care, an adequate minimum wage & other social reforms have been ignored for 6yrs. It's incumbent upon the new majority, with or without DLC input or support, to deal with these matters at once or sooner.
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larry278 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 47 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 4:21:07 PM
Was the Bush Admnistration stupid, dumb and blind?
This is written in response to a tangential aspect of your article. I do not believe that the Bush administration is, or was, stupid and/or incompetent (although, they meant, if "found out", to actually, still remain shrouded, and functionally, further continue to hide the real kernel of the truth behind their apparent "imcompetancy"). Yes, the president is as dumb as a fencepost, but he was placed in that role by design. Everyone else in that administration was, and is, for the most part, very, very bright. No, the debacle in Iraq was made to be by design, -- this administration intended to carry out what it was carried out, in the manner that it was, purposefully, --- to destabilize that region of the world. Do you really believe that Rumsfeld is really that stupid that he did not know that the number of troops utilized was insufficient?!! And that disarming the Iraqui military would not be equally so? And, regarding the Vice-President, you mean to tell me, he did not know?!!! This man was in the very administration of a President who, at the time, said that he wanted to let Sadaham be, because he served "the equilibrium" of things in that part of the world. It is incredulous for me to believe, that these men were clueless. And destabilizing that sector of the world would also go a good way in initiating a bankruptcy of the people's coffers, --- something, that is necessary, to deflate Americans' economic expectations slowly by manipulating the dwindling of the number of us, who belong to the middle class, before this economic system would bust from the sheer weight of so many wanting what the economy will not be able to deliver, --- not enough new technologies, and enough jobs within each, are being created to offset, let alone, to surpass, the number of jobs that have, and are being lost, from dying technologies and industries (newer technologies are employing far less numbers of people, than the technologies that they have been supplanting and continue to supplant). If no manipulation of this kind, or of similar sort, so as to allow the culture to adjust in stages, and suffer a less drastic landing, was to take place, America would see a revolution, faster than a family saying "cheese" during the proverbial family "photo-op",---- and that would not be good for the ruling elites, would it? Afteall, that is the function of democracies, isn'it? -- To keep the masses placated. Maybe I am not very articulate here; overlook that, and see if it might not be good to examine this further in search other factors, that I have not mentioned here, and that someone far much more educated and smarter than me, might not "see" and, thus, bring up to support, at least, the "general direction" of my proposition here. Does this mean that these men are good and attempted good social engineering? No. I still feel,in my gut, that they are evil.
by
susette_du_soleil (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 7:34:35 PM
This article makes some sense, so let me throw in some numbers.
There are 80,000 seperate governmental jurisdictions in the US today.
It is fair to say that each of them has a board of 6 to twelve people and that many of these board seats are elected.
This means that there are some three quarters of a million elected positions that will give people some power, expertise and credibility in dealing with public issues.
While serving on the County board or the school board may not give a person the power to get the troops out of Iraq, it makes that person a little more credible and gives that person a lever to effect change.
By burrowing in and taking over so many seats and controlling enough boards progressives can eventually effect the grass roots change we are always talking about.
It is a matter of political will, hard work and organizing.
The Democratic Party is merely the vehicle, it is up to us to drive it in the right direction.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY
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Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 8:35:49 PM
RChapman, you are exactly correct. It is exactly what the conservative Republicans did after the '64 elections. Even Nixon was not part of that program, but as many angry Demmocrats fled to the Republican Party because of seven or eight major hot button issues which over rode every other issue, they began to take over the country from the ground up: school boards (some fighting integration, some fighting evolution, some fighting pornography such as Playboy, Husler and the XXX rated movies threatening their school children), some partly became very active in Republican Party precints spured by the moral scandals from Kennedy(Marilyn Monroe) to Gary Hart (Donna Rice) and a lot of scandal in between the two; since the Republican Party is a closed party and the Democrat Party is an open party rights groups were located in the Democrat Party: Hippies and the drug culture, the outlandish chains and whip parades of gays in San Francisco nationally televised, civil rights protestors and Vietnam protestors were eastern liberal democrats, the anti-war movement seen as an anti-American Movement shoved most people into the Republican party, activate the churches on the abortion issues and you have a flip over of the political scene from dominant Democrats in the thirties and forties to the dominant radical right of the eighties and nineties.
The only way to effect real change is from the grass roots up. If you want to change anything, you have to work carefully to change a party. The party controls the man every time, there may be exceptions, but I cannot think of any; John McCain is called a maverick in the Republican Party. Is he really? He sounds more George W Bush today than George W Bush did in 2000.
Thanks for your comment and thanks to Mr Shomookler for an excellent article.
Phil.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 969 comments)
on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 4:40:59 PM
I agree with every word of the article. Now it's up to all of us on the Left to act like true progressives and work within the Democratic Party, as flawed as it is, to make things of value happen. I believe the DLC types can and should be isolated in the process lest they turn the Democratic Party into an adjunct of the GOP as they have already begun to do.
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Kenneth Briggs (133 articles, 88 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 112 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 8:44:15 PM
...That some on the ultra left refused to vote for Kerry in '04 and did nothing to win the Democratic majority in '06 and now insist that Bush be impeached, even measure the "progressiveness" and worthiness of Democrats in Congress by their willingness to go along with such a premature if worthy act.
My view: voting for a Democrat was the most progressive thing a person could do on November 7. Now building public pressure to end the war, raise minimum wage, guarantee union rights, protect immigrant workers from corporate abuses, protect affirmative action, civil rights, voting rights, the ballot, fighting global warming, and pushing for universal health care are things we can imagine as possible.
If the tide had turned against the Dems, we'd be fighting the notion that the war in Iraq was a good thing, more tax cuts for the rich and so on. But this is all elementary...
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Joel Wendland (34 articles, 116 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 16 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 8:59:04 PM
You said it as well as it could be said. Those so called progressives who did not vote for Kerry and who did not help elect a Democrat Party have no say in anything the Democrats do and say for the very reasons you so well stated.
If they could not vote in the last election, I say to them: "Good bye, Good riddance, do not let the door hit your backside on the way out."
If one of them ever runs for office, I would do all I could to prevent their election.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 969 comments)
on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 4:50:41 PM
"Yes, the Democrats are flawed. Yet flawed is not the same as evil. "
1.5 million dead Iraqi civilians may disagree.
It's hard to get through to people who don't have the historical chops to follow along. This is a fundamental flaw (a fatal flaw?) in the American mis-education system. The great American myths warp the critical thinking capacities of near everyone.
Democrats start wars, commit war crimes, and prosecute imperialism just like Republicans do. Clinton has still, to this day, murdered more Iraqis than Bush 1 and 2 combined. Those are real lives, really destroyed by your beloved Democrats.
What's more relevant is that the fraudulent "War on Terror," originally concocted in Israel, and transported to America via Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, JINSA, AIPAC and the rest, is a BIPARTISAN ENDEAVOR.
Democrats are just as dangerous and criminal in burning the Constitution as are Republicans. They are not rushing to restore your civil liberties. They are not rushing to impeach one of the most glaringly criminal administrations in history. They are not rushing to stop these criminal wars of aggression and atrocity. What they are rushing to do is seize the presidency and all the power that goes along with it, for their own benefits.
This is all highly relevant when it comes to the struggle for America in the long term. New parties must rise to power, which will only likely occur after massive depressions and economic armageddon. Don't fret, many economists are predicting just that. But, it is going to take a massive "surge" of millions into a revolutionary party whose aim is to overtrhow the current duopoly/plutocracy.
In the meantime, the Democratic leadership is indistinguishable from their gangland cronies in the white house. They wanted to escalate the violence in Iraq, and now Bush is set to do just that. They have Iran in their sites, and so does Bush.
In the real life and death crucial issues of our time, there is no difference between the two parties of big business. Both are fascist, ie. a merger of corporate and state power, a la Benito Mussolini's clear definition of the term.
I truly believe that the Bush Administration has broken the law and the Constitution, at minimum, in four areas. As such, as voters, we MUST push for an impeachment. Believe me, if you took some confidential files and gave them to China or Russia, there would be charges made by the government. We must protect the Constitution, since our present president and his cabinet have seen not to respect our Constitution.
And believe me, the right, is still the right. They still believe with all their hearts that liberals are evil. Too bad you can't read what my bro. writes. The only way you can prove to a parent who has abused his or her children, to admit it, is in a court of law. That's what it is going to take to make the neocons admit that they are the evil ones.
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Dale Hill (58 articles, 0 quicklinks, 102 diaries, 347 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 10:00:30 PM
The Democrats have no Iraqi blood on their hands???????????
Thats how that statement should have read. If a democrat voted for the invasion that democrat has blood on his hands.
That you centrists and DLC loving sheep applaud the six years of cowardice, the six years of voting for Bush agendas, such as the Patriot Act, No Child Left Undamaged and turn any criticism of that cowardice and betrayal into a simple, "oh those purists on the left think there is no difference between the two parties, how silly and unrealistic of them" shows only how little you will contribute to the ultimate solution.
How artful of you to ignore your fearless leader , Harry Reid's recent abomination, already lining up to kiss Georgies ass and applaud his decision to increase the number of troops in Iraq. You folks are far too selective in your perusal of the facts and far too accepting of the way the Democratic Party has ignored its proud heritage and spit on half its traditional support.
Time and again I note fact, time and again apologists like Mr. Schmookler step around them and mouth the same tired and silly platitudes, excusing one lost opportunity after the next.
Cant wait for your article, looking forward to it in fact, like one of Aesop's fables.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 6:45:08 PM
A perfect example of conservative democratic garbage
Comment is flagged and has been reviewed by the editors -
Reason: Ad hominem
Editor's Message: Come on. Let's keep this civil. No need to get nasty ere.
and thanks for it. I compared your defense of the party with a fable, nothing more complimentary.
I blame the Democrats for the war, you splutter, another typical sidestepping of the realities of what I post. You belong in the GOP, Steve. I condemnt he Democrats for the failure to actually be an opposition, to actually oppose, to remain silent and thereby bloodying their own hands.
nasty, ad hominem remark removed after flagging. Come on guys. Get along and stick to issues not personal attacks
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 5:43:45 PM
This comment has been flagged and is awaiting review by the editors -
Reason: Nasty Attacks
Rather than responding, one single time throughout these debates about the complicity and betrayal of the Democratic Party, without one single time actually responding to one single fact of their complicity that I have posted time and again,in the various places your conservatism infests, you decide that silencing the opposition is the solution. Whats next Leser, Camp X-Ray?
You and your ilk, the corporatists who invest both political parties, the apologists who, Neville Chamberlain like, refuse to come to grips with the failures of our two party system will bear the responsibility for the death of democracy.
I look forward to your next article, supporting , as did Harry Reid, the escalation of American forces in Iraq.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Saturday, December 23, 2006 at 9:15:21 AM
If you want the rich to continue getting richer, and the poor to continue getting poorer, vote Democrat or Republican.
On the other hand, if you'd like to know why a two-party system only represents the interests of the wealthy and the big corporations, why a "representative democracy" is a sham and only a participatory democracy is worthy of the name democracy, and what happens when the rich don't get poorer, but are actually taxed for things that harm society, like owning huge areas of land that is barren and neglected when people are homeless and landless, and the poor don't get rich, but get the opportunity to earn a living wage while they and their children get health care, and how things can change through honest elections without a revolution, watch this video about Venezuela and let ordinary Venezuelan people explain things to you:
Instead of a g-dd-mned piece of paper, they now have a real Constitution with honest, responsible members of their communities in positions of responsibility (responsibility to the people who put them there) to uphold and enforce their Constitutional rights.
And if you think, after watching the video, that it would be nice if we also had their rights and freedoms, then get involved with election integrity work, because without honest, open, free and fair elections, we never will.
And beware of any scheme put forth by the Democrats and/or Republicans that doesn't call for hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots at the precincts in full public view, or attempts to retain machines of any kind in our election processes. Machines can only be used when you have an honest government, accountable to the people, and we don't.
But that may all sound rather complicated, and it shouldn't be. All you have to remember is the Golden Rule, everything else is commentary. When you torture other people, you cannot complain if they should torture your children one day. When you invade a country that never harmed you and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, you cannot complain if some day your country experiences an economic crash and some other opportunistic country or countries take advantage of the momentary weakness and confusion to invade and kill a few hundred thousand or million of us. What goes around, comes around. The reason for treating others with respect when you have the upper hand, is because some day the tables may be turned.
But if you're determined to be pragmatic, to go along to get along with a fascist regime and its collaborators because it is the easiest thing to do and, as the "good Germans" said, resistance was apt to get you killed, then you have no right to complain if some day the peace-loving peoples of the world take power and fly you personally to Iraq and make you dig up the mass graves of the innocent that were tortured and killed in your name with your tax money and rebury them with the respect they deserve as human beings. Because if history repeats itself, and it often does, that's exactly what they might do to try and teach you the consequences of your inaction. And don't try to tell them that you didn't know what was going on. You know. And everyone knows you know.
It isn't that complicated. Tell the truth and shame the Devil. Can you do that?
--Mark
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Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 10:08:06 PM
It frustrates me when I hear people say that there's no difference between the Dems and the Bushites.
Consider what's shown by the opinion polls taken among the peoples of Western Europe in the past few years: typically, these European peoples have gone from roughly 70% of them having a positive view of America as a world actor, one basically to be trusted, to about the same percentage having a negative view, seeing the U.S. under the BUshites as a threat.
If the Europeans can tell the difference --and see that difference as so dramatic-- why are so many on the American left unable to see it?
Consider what the conservative, Reaganite jurist Bruce Fein said in my interview of him last spring. Fein, who himself had voted for GW Bush twice, thinking they shared a conservative perspective, made the following contrast: "while FDR, Nixon, McCarthyism, and Clinton were occasionally lawless, Bush is systematically so. Thus he is the greater danger. The rule of law can survive a beating once every five or ten years; it cannot survive beatings every five or ten minutes."
Equally fascist? If a conservative Republican like Fein can see how unprecedented has been the Bushite assault upon the rule of law, why can't people on the left tell the difference between the present regime and their main political opposition?
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (314 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 146 comments)
on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 11:00:06 PM
Sure, the Democrats suck. And the consequences are deadly.
But he's right. This is what we have to work with right now. You want to build a third party? Good idea, go ahead. Good luck also.
But meanwhile, how about we put pressure on those who might care if we do. The Republicans haven't cared.
Back in th 60's, in California, a lot of us said, there's no difference between the parties. So we voted for the Peace and Freedom Party. We got Reagan.
Ed
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ed2007 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 at 12:05:18 AM
"... as if my seeing the Democrats as an essential tool for good means I don't recognize their failures and mistakes. ......"
A fellow traveler is not failing or making a mistake, he is a covert ally, embedded in enemy territory. a Traitor working toward different goals.
".... The political parties of the world's democracies –including the Democrats in the United States– are not Nazis ...."
Western Governments are led by the same economic forces. Most have been under the influence of the same corporate moneyed interests that have distorted the American Dream. Look at the freedoms western governments have deprived their citizens of following 911.These countries were not attacked, but used OUR tragedy to restrict individual liberty on their citizens.
"... Look what happened to the Bushites in Iraq when they based an invasion on cherished ideas ..."
On this point, Susette is right on the money. These Neo-Cons are now in control of the energy resources of the Mid-East and the Caspian Basin by right of our new military bases that provide the Right of Might to all arguments. From a globalist point of view, all systems are A OK.
"... there is a problem with how some on the left think and feel about the Democrats' defects ..."
That is a problem from my view point also.
As some see it, the failure of Democratic Leadership to effectively combat the erosion of the rights of Americans by globalist corporations is a result of ineptitude and a pusillanimous nature.
While others on the left consider their betrayal of the voters that elected them to be intentionally Treasonous and motivated by self-serving reasons, at the bidding of corporate moneyed interests.
"... no new party strong enough to gain power has arisen in America for a century and a half ..."
When the Whig party was discredited by Andrew Jackson, the politicians who were salvageable became part of the embryonic Republican party, following a NEW party platform. It took a reforming Man of the People with the support of the People to effect that change. America still has MEN, and we still have PEOPLE.
"... can we afford to wait a decade while Bushite forces continue to rule? ..."
Bushite's as you call globalist corportists' have been in control of America since 1886 when the Skull & Bones Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Waite, in the case Santa Clara Co. Vs. Southern Pacific RR., declared them, arbitrarily, to be covered by the Constitution of the United States as persons, with the same rights as People. ... Did you get that? ... A globalist Judge, all by himself, granted corporations PERSON-HOOD. The equal of ME, my Father, and my Daughter. ... EQUAL !!!
I can certainly wait ten years to purge corporate influence from my daughter's future, and ensure that a majority of her fellow citizens have the control over their elected leaders our Nation was formed on.
"... like the democracies of Europe. Is there one of them that does not have its own pronounced follies and corruptions, on something like the same scale? ..."
No, there probably is not one that has not been corrupted at this point, But keep in mind, the Marshal Plan that rebuilt Europe after WWII was created and directed by the same globalists', following the same plan. Furthermore, the smaller democracies followed your reasoning and took the path of least resistance for the short term benefit of their economies and people.
Now that most governments have been either co hearsed or forced to follow the path directed by corporate globalists' does NOT make it right or beneficial to the citizens of those governments. It was American power and financial pressure that was implemented to corrupt those governments. It is the American Constitution that still has the integrity to reverse the damage. It only needs ONE man of the People, Backed by a majority of the People, to undo the corruption our tax dollars created.
"... I myself have experienced or observed up close a handful of institutions in recent years, and there isn't a one of them that I've not found disturbingly flawed. Academic institutions, progressive radio stations, the world of publishing ..."
Look closer and show me any institution that affects information disbursal to the public at large that was not formed by a globalist, funded by a globalist directed by a globalist or owed and controlled by a globalist. Look into the
