HIDDEN ISSUES: THE DEMOCRATS' DISASTER
Sam Smith
Regardless of what one thinks of the Republican Party's policies, it must be admitted that as a political organization it has operated with frightening efficiency over the past quarter century.
And regardless of what one thinks of the Democratic Party's policies - or lack thereof - it must be admitted that as political organization it has operated with depressing incompetence and inefficiency over the part quarter century.
This is not something that is publicly admitted or discussed, but it nonetheless is true.
One need only look at the record of the current Congress - elected because of GOP entropy rather than its own virtues - to see the problem. Here, we have one of the most disliked presidents in history, one of the most disliked wars as well as a bunch of Democratic issues like the environment piling up in the living room and the Democrats in Congress are unable to take effective advantage of any of it. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has an approval rating below that of either Bush or Cheney.
The Democratic Party doesn't really exist as a coherent movement anymore. It has no clear agenda, its grassroots look as though sprayed by a herbicide, and its leaders - to use an antiquated and inapplicable term - have little interest in anything beyond their own election.
This is not really an ideological matter; it is more the result of incompetence, corruption and organizational chaos all happily denied by unfettered egos fed by lobbyists rather than their own accomplishments. Even the people who used to keep the party honest - the liberals - now only serve as elite enablers of the party's desertion of its popular base.
The results include not only an absurdly ineffective Congress but a presidential campaign offering a choice between the corrupt and the vacuous in first and second place.
If you strip away the politics from it all and you look at the two parties as competing Mafia mobs, you've got to hand it to the GOP. They really know how to control the 'hood.
The metaphor is not an unfair one. After all, a member of the Bush or Clinton Family will have been in the White House as president or Vice president for 28 years if Hillary Clinton wins, and it was almost that long ago that Bill Clinton started helping Vice President Bush's Contra operations out of Arkansas.
As for Harvard suit and establishment toy boy Obama, just remember that this is a guy who is such a coward that he was afraid to vote for a limit of 30% on credit card usury.
The solution for the Democrats' decay is not easy to come by. Worse, our laws make it virtually impossible for a new party to take its place. The Greens might have changed the politics of the country had they had spent more time on backyard politics and less on the presidential race. The liberals seem forever condemned to life as names on the databases of groups like Move On or Emily's List that promise salvation for a $25 contribution.
The only thing that might really change matters would be a movement that the establishment - including the liberal establishment - can't control. It must be decentralized, viral and have dreams rather than strategic visions. It happened with the civil rights, women's and peace movement, so presumably it can happen again.
In the meantime, it would help to recognize honestly and publicly the pathetic, corrupt and ineffective mess that Democratic Party has become.
17 Comments:
Well said!
I think the dems are skilled at collecting corporate payola/bribery while wringing their hands in fake dispair and anticipating the republicans taking the rap while hiding the fact that they are absolutely no different. Its all Nader's fault don't you know. Anyone who trusts the dems is a fool.
Grassroots has become nothing more than an euphemism for small insignificant donor.
The Democrats could care less about the sentiments of their 'grassroots', they just want the money.
This is the real reason for Howard Dean's demise in '04. There was zero interest is listening to the thoughts and ideas of the so called grassroots. All Joe Trippi seemed to be interested in was more money. At some point the reality registers and the support disappears. So it goes once again with the present crop of candidates. It is so much Balder & Dash, Flap & Doodle.
Should there actually arise a Democratic candidate genuinely interested in seeking the views, opinions, and concerns of their constituency and then willing to reflect those views, opinions, and concerns in their campaign, then the Democrats might once again find themselves restored to real power---the power of the people.
There have been and are such Democratic candidates. They just get ignored to death by the media so that only a few of us are aware of their positions:
Carol Mosely Braun
Dennis Kucinich
Mike Gravel, etc.
Hilary Clinton "visited" Detroit last Saturday and spoke at my union hall, IBEW Local # 58 ( construction electricians ). The nearly defunct Detroit AFL-CIO handed out 250 discreet invites to the big event. NO advance notice was given to ANY working electrician ( non-union official types ) or ANY other union member in Detroit ... save for the usual official sad sacks & safe hacks who get the tickets to these deals.
So, anyway, Sam has not only perfectly pinned the tale on the donkey's corpse , he has also nailed the stumblebum zombies of official organized labor .
An honest acknowledgment that both these organizations have PASSED AWAY would finally open the door to some realistic hope for 95 % of the U.S. population !
- waiting to breathe, John A. Joslin ( IBEW # 58 , Detroit )
I don't really know why anyone is all that surprised here. One of the biggest--and most quickly swept under the rug--revelations to come out of the Watergate hearings was the fact that nearly all the major corporate contributors who gave away huge campaign monies donated to BOTH parties, R's and D's alike.
Once you've learned this, what elese really is there to say?
While the criticisms are deserved let's not forget that it is the American people who through stupidity, laziness, indifference or ignorance fail to recognize (both in the sense of discovery and acknowledgement) and elevate better candidates and fail to demand substance from both them and the media who cover them.
Americans aren't getting the government they want, they are getting the government they deserve.
Kucinich talks a good game. Nevertheless, his campaign is really not that different. Our experience in New Hampshire during the '04 primary was one of chaos, incompetence, confusion, and ineptitude. Those occasions when candidate Kucinich passed through the area were, for the most part, photo-ops with very little exchange of ideas percolating up from the 'grassroots'. Here, too, the thrust was money.
Couldn't help wondering if there wasn't something incongruous about a Vegan who dyes his hair?
It's all show biz with smoke and mirrors.
It's time to look beyond the Democrat/GOP, this/that, either/or model. It's time to look outward.
Look instead to South America. Look at Argentina, specifically.
Recall that not so long ago their entrenched and corrupt government and their people were in a situation quitte similar to ours now. People were out of work. There was no economy, really. Private debt was ruinous. The currency became worthless. The the middle class was bankrupted and disappearing.
If I recall correctly, three equally corrupt factions of two or three essentially identical parties self-elected themselves into power in rapid succession.
This kept going until one day the people became so furious at the bogus governments the spontaneously gathered up pots and pans and went to their windows, leaned out their heads and began banging the pots together, shouting, "Everyone out! Out! All of them out!" That is, they wanted all of the government people out of office, if not out of the country as fast as possible. (The Orange Revolution, rings a bell here, too.) The government did not respond somehow thinking that everything would blow over.
But the people did not riot or storm the government buildings. The people simply stopped paying any attention to what the government said, or did. They ignored it. They let the politicians continue to elect and appoint each other. The people just kissed off the politicians and dropped out of the system altogether.
Of course, there had to be an economy of some sort, so the people set anbout making their own version of one. Groups of the working class took over empty buildings and started their own cooperatives to help each other survive. As I remember it from international news reports (not from the silent NY Times, of course) one group of laid-off car workers simply took over the car plant where they had labored and started building the cars again, obtaining materials and services from other workers groups that had taken over abandoned facilities in their own line of work.
And soon the laid-off who had occupied their old plants were manufacturing their own cars and selling the. Materials were obtained from other groups that had done the same thing with, say, transmissions and tires, etc.
At first the government sent in police. But it soon became clear to the police that it would be better to let the people alone.
There is still a Government of Argentina, of course, but what it does, who knows? Perhaps they go to conferences in Germany and meetings at the UN. Who knows? cares?
The people who were not so long ago saying "Out! Everyone out!" are now running their own neighborhoods with their own neighborhood associations and cooperating with other neighborhood systems to obtain the things they can't make or do for themselves.
It would be a good idea, I think, for people here in the US to study how that apparently successful and relatively peaceful "devolvement" was accomplished with out a Grant from Wells Fargo Foundation, or a license to operate as an NGO, or permission from a federal, state, or local government panel to use an eight-feet of the street for loading and unloading purposes from time to time.
What is emerging in Argentina, is the future taking shape: an official "government" left alone to hold embassy parties whenever it like, and an unofficial, little remarked upon "non-nation" where "ungoverned" people do things for themselves. - TN
A good article which lays out the problem but not the solution.
Grassroots organizing is almost impossible. Most people work such long hours that they don't have time for anything else. Even if they did, the mainstream media and the educational system have left us with a nation where few people have any real grasp on what is actually going on with this nation. For instance, if you ask the average American citizen about the United States' role in the overthrow of the Mossedegh government and the establishment of SAVAK, they won't have the slightest clue about what you are talking about. They won't even understand what nation you are talking about. More importantly, they'll have no idea why Iran might legitimately want to arm itself against foreign intervention. They'll have no idea why people from other countries might want to harm us other than saying that "they hate our freedom."
In such an environment, how is a grassroots movement even possible.
To 7:16, among others.
The people have no say in who the candidates are. Even in the primaries, there are no choices except people who take money from corporations and billionaires.
Clearly, the gist of this thread is that there is no hope for change in America until things get so bad that all the people who do the actual work in our economy go on strike. A major threat to the well-being of the rich is the only way they will ever listen. Even then, the first reaction will be to send out Blackwater's goons to forcibly pacify the people, leading to a violent revolution. Throughout history that has been the only way to end a corrupt, dictatorial system which has no connection to the people's needs.
I don't exactly see how to ignore the government as anonomous (June 13, 2007 12:02 AM) said, since they collect our tax money and wreak havoc worldwide. But we can at least do so with the news media.
I was so disappointed with NPR the day after Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney when they did not report the news, that I quit caring about their coverage ( after sending them a note expressing my disappointment ). I now download Democracy Now!, burn it to CD and listen on the way to work as my news source.
The main reason to listen to main stream news is to complain to them for their not covering the news. Could we boycott their advertisers or something?
That sounds like a great notion. Let's boycott every company that advertises on any news program or network, being sure to inform them of what is happening and why. It should not end until we get something resembling objective, spin-free, commentary-free, celebrity-and-product-endorsement-free news.
I could not agree more. The challenge is to determine what to do about it. Argentina may not provide a model that we can adopt or even stomach if we do.
No, the Democrats have blown it by taking cheap political advantage in an effort to win. For instance they pounded Bush into the ground every time the Iraqis suggested some sort of amnesty for the guerillas.
Couldn't help wondering if there wasn't something incongruous about a Vegan who dyes his hair?
I've tried to resist asking because I'm sure I'll regret doing so, but...what's the connection you see between veganism and hair coloring?? As far as I know (I don't use it), hair color has no animal ingredients, nor are all brands tested on animals.
It is so easy to blame the American people, but I find that tactic to be shallow and pedantic. Most American people have no brushes with the law, and are so busy trying to pay hospital bills, take care of children, overcoming addictions, feeding themselves, working for a living, etc. etc. that politicians are really taking advantage of the lack of time people have. Sure, people can go vote, but who is going to let their kid's softball game go by so they can go political scheming with about 15 other people? Personally, I have about enough time in the middle of the night to work on my degree, and that is about all I have. The rest is consumed by working, children, and a little (I do mean LITTLE!) time to myself. Why are you going to blame me for that? Should I abandon my children, my degree, or my job?
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