It's Official: Obama is an idiot | 122 comments
Vote Republican (0.00 / 0)
like I said before.

It worked so well in MA.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
you are a broken record (0.00 / 0)
voting for dems doesn't seem to work out either.  I am voting green!

My blog  
[ Parent | ]
No, YOU Are A Broken Record (4.00 / 1)
I've just finally had enough of you, is all.

We've had a very extensive discussion of the realistic options about what's worked in the past, and what has a reasonable chance of working in addition to that, thanks to people like John Emerson, educationaction and others.  And you've completely ignored all of it, preferring to just keep on doing your whiny broken record routine.

What's most disgusting is that if everyone who was as disgusted as you are was just half as smart and dedicated as they are disgusted, we could take over the party in about 2 years.

But then you'd have to give up whining.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
You are the whiner (4.00 / 1)
you call the President an idiot then demand that I vote for him!

My blog  
[ Parent | ]
Fine. You're An Idiot,Too! (0.00 / 0)
You didn't see where I wrote about primarying him?


"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent | ]
Alright do it (0.00 / 0)
i AM WAITIN!

My blog  
[ Parent | ]
I have attended caucuses and primaries since I was 18 (0.00 / 0)
.  I am 42.  It hasn't worked.  I am not a professional bloggers. I have a life.    Emmerson said himself the progressives have never been able to control the democratic party, and the leaders would rather lose than let us in, so I don't see what he has to do with anything!  

My blog  
[ Parent | ]
Sigh (4.00 / 4)
Have you learned nothing from conservative's rise from the ashes 50 years ago? Instead of leaving the GOP after losing the nomination to Nixon in '60, they took it over. Are you saying that we can't do that, but we can form a viable 3rd party? Please!

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent | ]
Actually, we can't (4.00 / 1)
The nominating process for President in 1964 had a small number of primaries.  State parties chose most of the delegates and conservatives took over the local and state parties.  Hubert Humphrey was nominated rather easily at the 1968 Democratic convention despite not participating in primaries (he did get some Johnson delegates).

The path that Goldwater took in 1964 would not work in 2012.

The nomination would also probably be easier for a Republican movement to control as a number of big Republican primaries are still winner take all.

Identity politics played no factor in the Goldwater movement.  It is a substantial barrier to anyone challenging Obama as a Democrat in 2012.

[ Parent | ]
I'm not just talking about '64 and Goldwater (4.00 / 6)
but about the entire arc of conservative ascendance through 2004, that culminated with Nixon, Reagan, Gingrich and Bush II. This was accomplished through exceptional movement building, both within and outside the GOP, which was eventually taken over by them.

Why can't we do that? If the NRA, anti-abortion groups, anti-gay groups, and white racist nativists can, why can't we? Yes we can! ;-)

And identity politics had everything to do with the Goldwater movement. It was all about suburban white Protestant nativists fearing the loss of their America to everyone else, a reaction to Brown v. Board (blacks!), JFK (Catholics!), Sputnik (Ruskies!), etc.

Why can't we react to THEM at last?

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent | ]
Bingo! (0.00 / 0)
This is precisely what I would love Open Left to debate: how do progressives take back the Democratic party from the DLC and moderate Republicans who currently run the party? I would love for Paul Rosenberg, David Kowalski, and anyone else to thoroughly debate an actual program based on historical experience.

Progressive policies used to define Democrats prior to Clinton, through a focus on issues important to working people, the 90-99% of Americans who are not wealthy and never will be wealthy.

[ Parent | ]
Or... (4.00 / 2)
What Digby (sort of) said:

For all its apparent freshness, however, the Tea Party movement is neither new nor novel, historians and political scientists say.

It is firmly rooted, in its ideology, rhetoric and - there's no polite word for it - its paranoia, in the post-World War II American right.

Every few years, usually though not always during a Democratic administration, the movement reappears, with a similar set of grievances: The expansion of government is moving us toward socialism; there's been a dangerous weakening of the national security apparatus but also, paradoxically, the threat of police state provisions at home; an alien subversive of nefarious intentions, composed of cosmopolitan elites and corrupt "one worlders" has infected the government.

In the 1950s, conservatives were angered when their champion, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, was shoved aside by Republican elites in favor of the moderate Dwight Eisenhower.

Kathy Olmsted, a University of California, Davis historian of the period, notes that they accused the one-time Supreme Allied Commander of being a communist agent, an allegation made repeatedly by candy tycoon Robert Welch.

Consider the far-right rallying cry during the presidency of Bill Clinton: Jackbooted government thugs were on the loose; American soldiers were fighting under the U.N. flag; the 1993 tax increase - and yet another failed attempt at health care reform - the marks of a closet socialist.

The most fitting parallel, however, may be the early 1960s, when right-wing activists believed the civil rights movement was the work of the Soviets and, as Ronald Reagan alleged, Medicare a push for socialized medicine.

"The tropes, the rhetoric, the cultural profile - there are profound similarities," says Rick Perlstein, who has completed two books of a trilogy on the history of the conservative movement and is widely viewed by conservatives and liberals alike as its key chronicler.

Plus ca kook...

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent | ]
Actually It's Much Older Than That (4.00 / 1)
Post WWI is more like it, with the the 1919 Red Scare.  Except that was a bipartisan affair, with Democratic Attorney General Palmer getting into it with gleeful abandon, thinking he could get elected President as a result.

But Republican business elites were the driving force, just as they are now with Fox and Freedomworks.

Go back much further than that, and the parties get reversed, and it was the Southern conservatives who committed fucking treason when Lincoln was elected.

Yeah, they were committing treason in the name of fighting big government.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent | ]
the most interesting things about the red scare (4.00 / 1)
1. it targeted on the basis of ideology as well as identity (immigrant, southern and eastern european, jewish, etc.)
2. immigration was in the DoL then, not the treasury or the DoJ or the new DHS.
3. the Secretary of Labour individually reviewed the deportaitons and overturned countless of them (compare to Ashcroft and Special Registration in 2003 and 2004)
4. set precedents
5. followed precedents
6. contributed to the rise of jay edgar hoover
7. i'm not sure about this last one, but i think a mitchell palmer was a quaker :)
[ Parent | ]
Yup. There's a reason why "it can't happen here" was written in the 30s. (4.00 / 1)
Sinclair Lewis wasn't only transporting the rise of the Nazi movement into the US, he could dig into more than sufficient evidence of similar populist extremism in the US in the past years. And he obviously used this for his book. That's what actually makes his story so believable.
[ Parent | ]
It's Official: Obama is an idiot | 122 comments
USER MENU

Open Left Campaigns

SEARCH

   

Advanced Search

QUICK HITS
STATE BLOGS

Home | RSS/XML Feed | Register | Contact

  © OpenLeft 2007-2010, Powered by SoapBlox

Powered by: SoapBlox