Quite frankly, there is not much of a choice here: if you don't vote, you will condemn us to changes in our country that will be hard to live with and harder to overcome in the future.
For instance, Republican Senate candidates Linda McMahon in Connecticut, Rand Paul in Kentucky, John Raese in West Virginia, and Dino Rossi in Washington have all pledged to roll back or eliminate the minimum wage.
Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania have all talked about privatizing Social Security - or eliminating it altogether.
Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton speaks at the 2009 Netroots Nation Convention in Pittsburgh, PA | Flickr Photo by kyleshank
Each year, for the past five years, members of what has become known as the "netroots" [a term that almost exclusively means progressives, liberals or Democrats that regularly blog and organize on the Internet] have come together for an annual convention known as Netroots Nation to participate in a forum for progressive activists and candidates to strengthen communities online and grow the progressive movement. It has attempted to inspire action and help those in attendance grow new ideas to affect change.
As the "netroots" prepare to meet in Las Vegas to once again discuss what they could be doing (and have been doing) to "amplify" their "progressive voice" by using "technology to influence the public debate," one wonders if this convention will have any potential long-term value at all to movements in this country desiring more change from the Obama Administration.
David Lightman of McClatchy Newspapersaptly presents the dilemma the "netroots" currently face, "Activists in the liberal blogosphere face a crossroads: They had tremendous success in 2008 helping to turn voter anger into votes for Democrats, but persuading Congress and the White House to adopt their agenda is much harder."
Lightman adds during the convention "members will quiz House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., among others, about why Washington doesn't move more quickly to end the Afghanistan war or give more help to the millions who are out of work" and the "netroots" will likely be told " (a) Washington works in complex, deliberate ways, and one should be happy to achieve 80 percent of one's goals, and (b) since Democrats took control of Washington 18 months ago, they've won the enactment of historic legislation on health care, economic stimulus and financial regulation -- no small achievements."
Lightman's preview of Netroots Nation indicates the convention will be another Democratic exercise in the lowering of progressives' expectations of what is possible in terms of change in this country. There's also indication that the focus will not be on Democrats at all. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), who reassures readers in the McClatchy article that the party is in "no danger of being a captive of the left" believes in unifying "this year's congressional candidates behind an anti-Republican message: that if the GOP were in charge, things would be much worse." The DCCC is a sponsor of Netroots Nation.
Rep. Van Hollen appeared on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Here's a glimpse at the story the Democratic Party will likely be promoting as it seeks to ensure Americans will vote for them in November:
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, what you're, what you're hearing is--as, as Bob said, look, we know that we have a long way to go on the economy. People are still hurting, that's absolutely clear. But we also know what the American people know, which is the day George Bush lost--left office, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. And during the full eight years of the Bush administration we lost private sector jobs. We are now beginning to climb out. And what we are saying is yes, let's focus on the policies, because why in the world would we want to go back to the same economic agenda that created that mess, that, that lost jobs for eight years? And I think the challenge that our colleagues have here, Pete and John, is to say to the American people, how do you expect to do the same thing and get a different result? I mean, that, that's Einstein's definition of insanity, right? [emphasis added]
Such a message hinges upon whether or not the financial reform legislation can be viewed as shifting the country away from the same economic agenda that created this mess. Robert Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor under President Clinton and is a fairly outspoken progressive voice, asserts, "Congress has labored mightily to produce a mountain of legislation that can be called financial reform, but it has produced a molehill relative to the wreckage Wall Street wreaked upon the nation."
Also, should we be so certain that the Republican's are following "Einstein's definition of insanity"? What they are doing may not be working out for certain sections of the American population, but it is most certainly, politically, paying off. As a tactic, crafting a debate on issues that ranges from what the Tea Party is not willing to accept to what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street and other private interests fear will infringe on their precious free enterprise system today has effectively defanged every piece of legislation that has come up for debate in Congress.
Representatives like Rep. Van Hollen ignore the tactic that the Obama Administration has practiced, the courting of Republican votes for legislation the party will continue to oppose no matter what concessions the Administration grants them.
The Administration has decided Republican voices are more important than any liberal or progressive voices in the Senate or House that might be making demands.Instead of seeking to silence the conservative echo chamber that effectively skewers any progressive agenda items that could potentially be put on the table, the Administration has gone out of their way to assure and reassure Republicans that they can move the debate in their direction.
Progressives, on the other hand, have learned that they will incur the wrath of those in the Administration like the brawny and rugged Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other Obama advisers if they dare to oppose the Administration's attempts to sterilize legislation on behalf of the corporations they are attempting to regulate.
Given the record of scorn displayed toward progressives who organize with their own agenda in mind (e.g. Emanuel calling liberals "fucking stupid" as they ran ads against Democrats opposing the public option), it's no surprise that progressive voices would be reluctant to tug the conversation in their direction. Instead of incurring the fire of the Obama Administration, many probably would rather focus on the reactionary Tea Party faction growing within the Republican Party and simply tackle that instead of the failures of the Democratic Party during Obama's first two years in office. Unfortunately, this ignores the reality that Democrats have failed to rebuff the growing rancor of anti-government sentiment in the GOP and offer an alternative message; in fact, that Tea Party message is effectively dragging the Democrats toward supporting a political agenda more conducive to a vastly unregulated free market system that Democrats admit has gotten us into the mess we are in today.
Democrats have gradually become more and more the party of "no" to progressives. Their admission of running on a message that is anti-Republican is an indication that their campaign strategy for these elections will also be a strategy of "no." How is this any different than what Republicans have been doing as they claim Democrats are the party of "no"?
What we have in this country is a political establishment discourse that has devolved into discussions from Democrats on why the population should reject Republicans and a discussion from Republicans on why the population should reject Democrats. It does not allow for real talk on the issues any more than a domestic dispute between a husband and wife allows for real discussion on who was responsible for escalating the situation and why there was yelling and screaming in the first place.
To some extent, both parties are right: neither offer an agenda for a future that will go to the root of the problems this country faces and take on the private and powerful interests that are further entrenching these problems in the fabric of American society.
This failure produces a "trickle-down" effect that has a detrimental impact on the "netroots." Articles and postings like Eric Alterman's recent essay are published and proclaim that America cannot have a progressive presidency right now. They debilitate, demoralize and produce comments demonstrating an acquiescence to this meme.
The "netroots" will meet and focus on primaries and electing better Democrats, using blogs, Twitter and other social networking technologies to turn "red states" "blue", how to improve online organizing, the current state of progressive media, etc. There is no doubt that many will take home some valuable knowledge and insight they did not have before they attended. And most likely they will network with other people who are part of the "netroots" community and gain the opportunity to be more effective at what they do. However, this is an event receiving sponsorship from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which contribute to the maintenance and polishing of the Democratic Party's image.
There would be nothing wrong with these committees supporting this event if wedding this event to those committees did not automatically limit the scope of debate at a time when the dimensions of discussion in politics need to be expanded.
Only in America do political activists (especially ones who call themselves progressives) limit their visions for change to what can be passed legislatively this year or the next. Only in America do those committed to organizing consistently coach themselves to accept terms for organizing that will not alienate the very politicians who have contributed to the situations organizers seek to address.
An event that organizes those who are the most vocal section of society has great potential. But, the dominance of politically-safe sessions (in the aftermath of the Citizens United v. FEC decision, no abolish corporate personhood now workshop), the absence of any sessions on reforming the broken electoral system, and the lack of discussions around the very few differences between Republicans and Democrats and what to do about that reality warrants skepticism.
If the "netroots" leave ready to do more to defend Obama and Democrats from Republicans, this convention will have massively failed. But, if they leave ready to advance small-d democratic policies and items that often appear on proposed progressive agendas, if they leave committed to creating space in the public sphere for real progressive organizing to take place, there is a chance that this event will not have just been an opportunity for Democrats to revitalize support for their increasingly stale politics in this country.
Written by Paul J. Poposky
Saturday, 19 December 2009
The first semiannual Left-Wing School of the Greater St. Louis/Metro-East saw attendance and participation from local students, educators, concerned citizens, and Left activists which exceeded expectations.
The one-day event, held for the first time at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) was organized and hosted by the Autonomy Alliance (AA), and co-sponsored by the MetroEast Green Party. The School featured a diverse array of speakers from the AA, the Workers International League-International Marxist Tendency (WIL-IMT), the Gay-Straight Alliance at SIUE, and the Metroeast Progressive Movement (MPM), as well as college professors and representatives of a local workers' collective. Discussion on a wide range of topics was lively, stimulating and civil, fulfilling the events stated mission to provide:
"an opportunity for Leftists to learn about a variety of ideas presented by local organizations... for organizations to come together to exchange their ideas, learn from each other and grow in solidarity with one another."
Other Leftist groups set up information tables and distributed literature, including Hands-Off Venezuela, Radical Education Against Capitalist Tyranny! infoshop/library, Wellred Books, Socialist Organizer, and the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign. A documentary film on gay marriage buses, produced by Ed Reggi of Show Me No H8, was shown during the lunch recess.
Highlights from the School include a fascinating course detailing the history of "Feminism and the Kinship Sphere", co-taught by representatives of the AA; a presentation on "The Need for a Mass Party of Labor & Role of the Revolutionary Party" and a class titled "Capitalism is the Problem: Socialism is the Solution" by the WIL-IMT; a highly informative Q&A on what it is like "Working in a Workers' Collective" by Black Bear Bakery, an anarchist run worker collective, which also catered breakfast at the School; and a class taught by SIUE Professor Steve Tamari on the need for "A Democratic Secular Solution for Israel and Palestine".
The Left-Wing School culminated in a closing session where dialogue, reflections, comments and constructive criticisms of the organization of the school and the ideas presented were welcome and encouraged. Participating organizations agreed to continue and expand the Left-ing School in the year to come. To encourage greater participation and democratic planning, a steering committee was established to coordinate future Left-wing School events and build solidarity with local May Day actions and celebrations, as well as the annual Commemoration of the General Strike of 1877 and the St. Louis Commune.
The most significant development to come out of this event was a proposal, which was approved by participating groups, for the establishment of the St. Louis/Metroeast United Front (SLUF), a united front for the organizing of public events, rallies, commemorations, and future schools in the St. Louis/Metro-east area. This is important for moving forward in common struggle in a region of the United States with a long and storied, proud history of militant working class-labor struggles.
Yesterday, President Obama went on five Sunday talk shows. FOX was not among them, thankfully. In reading about his coverage yesterday, I came across this:
But Mr. Obama chose to make a statement - and raise a distracting fuss on Fox News - by declining to speak.
And Fox milked it. When he was not talking about Acorn, Mr. Wallace bemoaned the presidential slight, asking, "Whatever happened to reaching out to all Americans?" He told Bill O'Reilly that the White House aides were "a bunch of crybabies."
Apparently, the feeling is mutual. "We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform," a White House deputy press secretary told ABC News on Saturday. "Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again; not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon."
The WH deputy press secretary was Josh Earnest. I like the feistiness from him, especially the reference to FOX's decision to show an entertainment show rather than Obama's address to Congress. In response, Bill O and Chris Wallace admitted Glenn Beck and Hannity have an ideological point of view, claimed they themselves aren't ideological at all, called the Administration crybabies, childish and immature, and claimed every other major outlet is irrelevant. Kind of emphasizes Earnest's point.
So my question is whether the White House position with FOX will continue, or whether this is a one-time punishment of FOX for refusing to air Obama's speech. I have long thought no serious progressive should go on a TV show where the game is fixed, where each question is structured from a "so when did you stop beating your wife" standpoint, and where each big name they have helps their ratings. When Hillary Clinton opted to go on Bill O's show during last year's campaign, a lot of my die-hard movement FOX-hating friends gleefully rubbed their hands and said "ooooh, the belly of the beast! I'm getting popcorn!" Hillary drew a ton of viewers that night. Viewers equals ad revenue, ad revenue equals Bill O, Bill O's success leads to new ventures like the FOX Business Channel. I'm not saying such appearances are entirely responsible for FOX's continued existence. Right-wing donors will always support their own, and FOX is at the top of the heap.
But if you're looking for someone to blame in part for the continued existence of FOX, blame progressives who continue to go on, blindly thinking "surely among that viewer demographic that voted for Bush in 2004 by an 88%-7% margin, there must be a moderate I can speak to." Or "surely, we have to reach out to everyone." Or "I have to build my media profile and brag to all my friends I went on teevee." Then they turn around and whine about FOX for twisted lies and not firing Glenn Beck after he said the President hated white people and wishing Beck would disappear after hit jobs on Van Jones, Yosi Sergant and ACORN.
You can't have it both ways, my friends. I am glad the White House press operation realizes FOX is an arm of the GOP message machine, an ideologically opposed, no-win game. I am glad the deputy press secretary attacked FOX for whining and for being more interested in entertainment than arguably the most important issue currently facing our nation. My question is whether they'll stand their ground when Chris Wallace starts a "Where's Obama" clock or Bill O complains about not reaching out to everybody or whatever.
News is 'news' in our corporatacracy. Currently, for example, we have the Israeli-Warmongers-Only-Perspective 'News'. See below for how the release of a UN report on the war criminal conduct on both sides of the Gaza war is widely headlined in the mainstream news (to see how news of 320 dead Gazan children in that massacre is handled (hint: 'not at all'), see NPR's Linda Gradstein):
Where the Iranian spokesperson is allowed to dispel the headline's glaring implication in paragraph 20:
Javanfekr said Iran is ready to face the six powers and "during the talks we will definitely speak of banning nuclear arms globally because it is not a problem for us as we do not possess any nuclear arms."
So, obviously 'nuclear power' means 'nuclear power power'. Some of you got your war on before you realized that, right? That was the intent.
Meanwhile, McClatchy continues to be a source of news. Here it provides some reality on the domestic side, first the real health care catastrophe:
Factory food sickens humans, livestock and the environment
What we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the last 10,000. So asserts Robert Kenner's new film, FOOD, Inc., which opens nationwide June 19th. The vast bulk of food production is now controlled by just a few mega-corporations with one value: profit. Relying on genetic engineering, pesticides and antibiotics, factory food is cheap, requiring little land. But the external costs to our health, the environment and the natural food industry are enormous.
Director: Robert Kenner
Producers: Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
Co-Producer: Eric Schlosser
Released by Magnolia Pictures, with Participant Media and River Road Entertainment
93 minutes
FOOD, Inc. is the single most important film of the decade. Transcending hype and industry muzzling, the film exposes some of the cruel and unnatural aspects of industrial farms and food processing. It links epidemic rates of US obesity and diabetes with our intake of genetically engineered food.
NPR called it this summer's "suspense thriller."
The film condemns how workers and animals are abused. Illegal immigrants, who cannot complain about working conditions, comprise most of the workers at industrial food plants. They are vulnerable to raids and deportation. No corporate executives are arrested.
Well researched and well scored, the film debunks the pastoral fantasy spin. Industrial food is not grown, raised or processed on a farm. The animals see no sunshine, are kept immobile in cages, and are genetically or chemically modified. Those that are somewhat mobile are bioengineered to plump their bodies faster than their bones and muscles can support. They flop helplessly to the floor when trying to move.
We're regularly reminded by The Daily Show that comedians can make better journalists than newscasters.
This morning's clip on ABC, in which Laughing Liberally's Baratunde Thurston spent 5 minutes discussing the President's address, demonstrated that comedians can offer more serious commentary than most pundits as well.
It's halfway through the show and I just checked my RSS feed; no new posts! Why? I can only guess it's because everybody who posts on the political blogs I subscribe to is also watching the Rachel Maddow show instead of posting on their blogs.
So what do y'all think? So far I find it pleasant to get analysis from somebody whose point of view is more like mine, but it's mostly a pleasure driven by simple fellow-feeling. The news value isn't that high--because the information she's providing is a rehash of things I saw on my RSS feed. No surprise there, I guess.
It seems to me the big potential benefit of her show is that it can serve as a conduit for getting "left wing" (i.e., reality-based) discourse out into the MSM newsstream. I think if Rachel can make that happen, she will be doing her nation a great service.
I was planning to update my earlier "Obama VP Rundown" analysis diary, where I assessed and ranked 20 top vice presidential candidates against a variety of metrics, but my brain wandered off on another train of thought:
A lot of folks on the blogs are declaring this or that person a 'likely,' 'mainstream,' 'conventional,' or 'shortlist' vice presidential pick, and/or discrediting other candidates on the basis that they aren't 'realistic,' or even 'plausible.'
I'm not one to rely on conventional wisdom - so I decided to perform a crude analysis of who "the mainstream" considers a plausible vice presidential pick for Obama, by executing a set of Google News searches and tabulating the results.
Join me for total "buzz volumes" for 30 candidates - plus analysis - on the flipside!
Last week Matt Stoller asked for information on lying in our culture, and our culture of dishonesty. I came across a study about gossip yesterday and thought it interesting. In short, the study indicates that people are likely to believe gossip even when hard facts contradict that gossip.
So we all read the news last week about President Bush's climate conference where he did little more than talk about setting optional goals for reducing carbon emissions. I know most of us were pretty irked to hear our president talking about the need to stop legislation mandating a reduction in carbon emission. Once again we saw our President miss the boat on global warming while the people of this nation screamed their demands for action. But wait...wha?…President Bush passed legislation in 1999 that required older power plants in Texas to reduce their carbon emissions. And his ranch in Crawford, Texas is chop-full of eco-friendly features like solar power and geothermal heating and cooling. Looks like someone has a little environmentalist side to him.
Granted, Texas is still one of the largest CO2 producing state in the nation and, as far as I know, Bush hasn't installed any eco-friendly technology in the White House (wouldn't that be sweet!) but from the looks of it there is hope for President Bush. Hell, his house is more eco-friendly than mine. So what can we do to help President Bush see that the rest of the nation needs the same sustainable energy that he has back in Texas? Hm…I've got! Let's put on the largest global warming summit ever and make sure President Bush and the rest of the world know that the young people of this country want action taken again climate change! Let's call it Power Shift 2007…yeah, that'd be awesome…
Check it out: www.powershit07.org! Power Shift is already growing faster than anyone expected. Over 1,000 students from across the country are already registered to attend Power Shift and we're just getting started. You can't miss this one, go to www.powershift07.org and get registered!
Last week was "Climate Week"-everyone, seriously EVERYONE, was talking about global warming. The United Nations had a huge summit on global warming, Bill Clinton discussed global warming at his annual Global Initiative conference and President Bush held a conference with 16 of the world's top polluters. The result: The United Nations got the ball rolling toward creating carbon emission standards at their climate change conference in December. Clinton pulled out pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars to go toward adopting clean energy technology all over the world. Bush…well…talked.
President Bush made it very clear that he does not support legislation on carbon emissions. Instead, President Bush will only commit to voluntary carbon cuts and setting goals for reducing carbon emissions. His main point was that reducing carbon emissions should impede our economic growth.
Needless to say, President Bush's lip service to global warming was greeted with some serious criticism. Around the world and here in DC people made it known that the President's weak targets for reducing greenhouse gases are simply not enough. Protesters in DC made sure the world knew that the people of the United States do not stand behind President Bush's approach to global warming. All these issues have really given the momentum building up to Power Shift 2007 a boost. This was going to be a huge summit to begin with and now it's just blowing up! There's no doubt that Power Shift is going to be the event that wakes up our nations leaders and gets some serious action on global warming.
The daily grind of Faux News, CNN, and the myriad of local news which report on nothing but sounds bites and shootings has had a deadening effect on the political soul. It seems that center-right-rightwing have a lock on video news, particularly with corporations glad to advertise on right-wing stations, but gun-shy about advertising alongside progressive pundits (even as polls show people are trending progressive).
But there may be an alternative model just around the corner. And as Open Left is a site which focuses much of its energy on netroots activism and infrastructure, I thought it a good place to discuss... TheRealNews See below for more.
I'm not going to do a full review because I don't have the energy for it, but everybody should watch Christiane Amanpour's three part series "God's Warriors" on CNN.
It is a truly remarkable piece of journalism.
We bloggers do a lot of criticizing of bad reporting. That's our stick. When a true journalist produces a high quality, informative documentary, we should reward their efforts with our viewer-ship.
Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News has an interesting collumn that exposes a bit of the root problem Americans face in both general information and in politics.
It's not news that people are prone to believing things that confirm their biases. What is news, I think, is that people are losing the sense that truth is knowable and that one has a moral obligation to seek the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to deal with. Truth is often painful, but truthiness is therapeutic.
I often look at polling data and think, "Here, if anyone chose to look, is all the evidence ever needed to prove that mankind is not, and never has been, motivated by reason." For example, polling data shows that President Bush retains not only support, but truly heartfelt and passionate support among an increasingly smaller number of hardcore Republicans. Some of this is fully explainable by partisanship - in the words of Alexander Haig, "He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch!". But some of it comes from people like a family member I respect who remarked a few years ago, "I don't care what anyone says, I think Bush is doing a good job!" I don't spend much time with my extended family, so I tend to let such remarks go, but if that had been said in one of my classes, I'd do two things.
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