progressives who are ideologically and socially not in total agreement should hack each other to pieces in the most vitriolic way possible (dr anonymous)
There's no link here, because the conversations are already on this blog.  Can we please talk through our disagreements (of which there are many) like human beings instead of spouting off and insulting each other, often baselessly and in the most base terms?
lol
I think we can agree that, if you advocate voting with most of your party, that's just a sign you're an ex-Republican: Specter and Kos come to mind.

 

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

or it could be that you believei n a big tent strategy that keeps conservative democrats on board while the party moves further to the left
just sayin - there are different ways to approach it.  it would be good to unite around the things we can unite on and be clear we disagree without condemning each other for the things we don't.

what i find objectionable about asking for party discipline on the health care bill is that it's very selective.  progrsesivse are supposed to be disciplined and support anything that saves even one life, while stupak miraculously gets his own personal bill.  there's a time and a place to play hardball, and it doesn't make you evil to do it.

[ Parent ]
Where's your evidence that the Party is moving further to the left?
Instead of, say, to the right?
[ Parent ]
is moving, not has moved
i think the evidence is here - and if you take into account the changed social and economic circumstances, whetehr they want to, they're going to have to.  unless you think progressives are wrong about everything :)
[ Parent ]
That depends
On the nature of the disagreement. You see, some of these issues are very important, and some of the views held make me very angry.

I don't like personal attacks or petty point scoring, but I wouldn't mind seeing a little more anger around here. When a disagreement gets beyond a certain level of importance - torture, environmental destruction, denying healthcare to people who need it - then frankly, civility and politeness can go fuck themselves.

The posturing of disagreement does nothing to move anything forward.
There is no good reason to vent.

There are lots of places where you can fighting advice, not from people who enjoy the thrill of fightinbg of course, but those that describe how to save your life etc. and the phrase, "if you lose your temper, you then fight two people, yourself and opponent" fits right in.

Because you are upset, does not mean that displaying anger is more effective, or even more honest.


--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

[ Parent ]
Okay, let's clear this up
1. I'm not sure what you mean by "posturing of disagreement". I don't pretend to disagree with people because I think it looks good; I disagree with them.

2. I should also say that I'm not someone who has recently "lost his temper" or "hacked someone to pieces with vitriol". My point here is simply to defend the right of people to get angry during important arguments. Of course you are right that someone can lose their self-control and thus their ability to argue, and that is not what I'm advising.

3. The point is that getting a little angry about healthcare or foreign policy or the environment is FINE. Telling someone on this website that they are cowardly or morally confused is FINE. The issues under discussion are so important and have such real, human consequences, that tiptoeing around each other's feelings with this smiley brand of civility and collegial politeness makes me feel a bit queasy.

[ Parent ]
how is not more honest to display that your'e upset if you're upset?
i think it's the WAY you do it that matters.  there are a lot of alternatives to name calling and venting.
[ Parent ]
i agree with you that it's okay to be angry and express that anger
and it's probably easier for me because I agree with the idea of moral imperatives as well.  But as someone who comes further from the left than about 99.999999% of American politics, including a substantial number of people on this site, and is working on moving further to the left, I think it's important to remember that we're a small minority and we have to be quite careful about how we go about things.  

Also, don't get me wrong - I'm not placing the blame on one 'side' or the other - when people start bringing up and going off on prominent people who have for a variety of reasons chosens to disagree with the agenda of the democratic party leadership at a given moment, I don't like that either, and I think they need to be careful too, because otherwise they're going to end up spending a lot of time wtih the DLC.

But I think for keeping an inside-outside approach we need to have and air disagreements and conflict in a way that moves us forward, not backwards. "I think you're full of shit for x,y,z reasons" is somewhat tolerable for me.  "I think you're the moral equivalent of a Nazi because you take a different attitude towards [topic]" is not.  It's all about teh communication.

also - i'm totally guilty of this too - and i understand why people get passionate about things.  But if you look at how, say, shergald approaches the issue of Palestine, constantly bringing it up without personally attacking anyone, I think it's a good model for how to proceed in shaping the opinion of a site as a commenter.

[ Parent ]
Treating everyone like human beings
is what being a progressive is all about.

Thanks for the excellent reminder.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

fat lot of good it's done :)
thanks for the thanks though.  maybe we can start a fourth party.  or takeover the democratic party and the third party.  or both.

:D

[ Parent ]
I think many (not all, but many) in the pass-the-bill camp come from the Patronizing Wing of the Democratic Party
Just as there's a certain tradition with the Democratic Party feeling the need to bash the Left to make itself look centrist and enlightened, there's the same tradition of "practical" liberals feeling the need to bash "purists" so that they feel like they're level-headed, rational-minded heroes who make a real difference, not like those stupid idealists.

Aside from health care, nowhere was this more evident than with the massive bashing of Ralph Nader supporters in 2000.  Liberals who choose not to vote for Al Gore?  Inconceivable!  Screw freedom of choice - they have to get in line!  Let's start yelling at them!

And now we see this in health care with the public option.  People, such as myself, have a certain principle regarding the necessity of the public option, and pass-the-bill liberals who want to feel good and feel like they're  practical, get-things-done mini-Ted Kennedys can't resist bashing on them.  You never see them bashing centrists, of course, because it's okay for them to stray.  But liberals can't have desires - they're expected to fall in line with whatever the "practical grownups" have decided.

Has anyone noticed that the vitriol, here on Open Left and elsewhere, is almost always started by a pass-the-bill person?  It always flows from the pass-the-bill, never in the other direction.  Sure, a lot of it is motivated by their self-righteousness - just like Nader = Bush, apparently kill-the-bill = killing of 30 million people.  But I'm sure another, perhaps subconscious motivation is that tradition of smug, patronizing, I-know-best-because-I'm-so-damn-practical talking-down to liberals.  Some of the pass-the-bill people are incredibly arrogant and condescending.  I find pretty much no one of that description on the "purist"/kill-the-bill side.

i don't know if that's accurate
i wouldn't be surprised if it were, as someone who used to be on that side (on the Nader thing, about which I think I was compeltely and totally wrong now) and is now to the left of it on ever front.  But many of the arguments of the progressive-but-don't-mount-a-significant-threat-to-the-democratic-leadesrhip side rest on real concerns about people's welfare.  You and I might think they're utterly and totally wrong, and we might even wtihhold our support, but there's a difference between that and getting into 100+ comment backbiting threads.

And on the left side, I think there's a difference between purity and having a real goal based on principle that's further to the left.  Principled stands, I think, need to be engaged pragmatically - and by that I don't mean that we need to cave every time they pass a piece of $hit legislation and say it's great and then say the Democrats are great and it's okay that they pass for 'left' when virtually no other wealthy country has a 'left' that's as far to the right as the U.S.  I mean that sometimes people to the left of the Democratic establishment and the progressives that are sometimes critical, sometimes party disciplinarians have to have well through through long term political strategies - which INCLUDE withdrawing support when something really is a violation of bottomline principles.  The guilt trips from those who are more centrist are annoying most of the time, but they're pretty easily ignored once you contextualise them.

anyway, mainly I'm talking about HOW we deal with our very real differences, not who is to blame or what they are for.  To draw an anology, as a minority on several fronts, I've learned that there are two forms of grace that are necessary in the face of insensitive comments from the majority - the first is the grace of not shouting back at stupidity when it's not malicious and the second is about accepting that that grace hasn't even been acknwoledged.  And then I go to therapy and work with others who face the same issues when and where I can.

This is why I'm really glad that the Grayson option is there now, and I don't understand why it wasn't mounted months ago.  It concretely places the demand not as an abstraction, but as a competing bill that could be and could have been included in the bill.

but everyone is entitled to their own social analysis, and mine might be less accurate than yours - maybe the situation is so f"£ked that a split is necessary.  But even then - to draw the analogy again - there are times when you walk away, but you don't always do it while throwing a hissy fit.

It's annoying, but it'st he price of having strong beliefs.

[ Parent ]
There is plenty of blame to go around.
I'll admit that it gets tempting to use heated rhetoric to support one's points.  I have tried hard to avoid impugning the motives of those who want PO included in this particular bill, at this particular moment.  I don't disagree with your intentions, only your tactics.

I firmly believe that that path takes us to a place where we not only get no PO, but we get no bill at all.

I have no interest in questioning anyone's motivation that they want to do what is best for this country.  That is counterproductive.

I find pretty much no one of that description on the "purist"/kill-the-bill side.

Well, I had someone just today who accused me of being pro-AHIP and wanting to throw people to the corporate sharks, simply because I disagree with that person's tactics.  I'd say that is pretty smug, patronizing, arrogant, and condescending, not to mention offensive.  But maybe that is just me.

My point is, let's not place the blame solely on either side.  Plenty of people in both camps use over the top rhetoric.

We PTDB! Now, let's pass Grayson's Public Option Act!

[ Parent ]
People should try to put the maximum number of words into the headline to state stuff that could be more practically be explained in the main body of the text.
Inteesting new idea. Headlines are best, fuck the rest!
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