The Dangerous Unanimity of Bush and Feingold

I'm not going to get into the Lieberman fiasco in CT. It's getting plenty of airtime from the usual suspects, and there will be more interesting developments as time passes. I think Josh Marshall says all that is necessary right here.

Riffing off my last few posts, I want to draw attention to the profound agreement between George Bush and Russ Feingold - that the Iraqi people are toys for us to play with as we see fit, and when we want to drop that nation like a hot potato and walk off, we should. That George wanted the war and Russ didn't shouldn't camouflage an incredibly arrogant and short-sighted "America First" relationship to the rest of the world, and a stubborn lack of realism about what "It's so fucked up we can't do anything with it, so we'd better just leave" is going to do to the region. I point not to suppositions, but to an excellent case study - Afghanistan. If the US repeats the Soviet's mistakes with regard to abandoning a nation to its own implosion, what can we look forward to? Another analogy - Iraq will be to Iran as Afghanistan currently is to Pakistan, an anarchy zone abutting a nuclear power.

There are other choices besides the neocon "gotcha" game of "If you do things different than Duhbya, you're attacking America" and the inversion of (not the opposition to) that position, "Get out now." Given that Bush has made clear that he *is* all for walking away, just as soon as he can make it someone else's problem, the default position is "bug out". Bush is just waiting for another person to say the actual words.

Wes Clark, in his pithy and scathing WSJ editorial, makes what's at stake uncomfortably clear:

The public doesn’t have to live with the reminders of old sentiments, jingoistic pronouncements, or votes in the House or Senate. Instead, the public is free to observe, listen and judge. And that judgment has been passed, especially on Iraq: The war was a mistake. Flawed intelligence, overly optimistic planning (or in some cases, none at all) and grandiose geostrategic designs, hyperinflated rhetoric about democracy, and perhaps raw political advantage. Whatever. The public hasn’t quite sorted it out—but they know a failure when they see one. And Iraq, as well as the larger Middle East policy, is such a failure.

Iraq isn’t Vietnam. America can’t just walk away without horrendous consequences. But “stay the course” isn’t a strategy. And the longer the bleeding goes on there, the harder the electorate will dig for answers—and the tougher they’ll be on those who got us in, and aided, abetted and apologized for them.

The mistakes the Bush administration have led the country into must be resolved, and not by walking off. The first step to dealing with the mind-boggling mendacity of the Cheneyites is refusing to allow them to continue to claim that what they have done and continue to do is right. The second thing is not to allow them to paint the nation into a corner of "Our way or bail" as the only routes for addressing the cesspool they have left in their wake, consuming more resources, money, and lives by the minute.

Have they made such a nightmare out of the situation that it is irredeemable? The only way to answer that question is to walk off. Leaving a small and demoralized force of Americans in their current positions is not tenable either, so how do we orchestrate a certain kind of leaving that does not mean abandonment either of the people we have wronged or the real security needs of the US?

No, I don't have the answer of how to make it better, but I can see what marching off is going to do - I don't think we have a clue as to how bad it can get. Until we get there.

Al Gore got it right - and now it is contingent on us to do the right thing.

Anglachel

Nope, Not Vietnam

Vietnam analogies are dead wrong when it comes to Iraq, particularly when made by right-wing talking heads and their media whore enablers. There is not some kind of peacenik neo-hippie movement out there being an internal enemy and underminging the nation from within with all their uncouth, unwashed behavior. That didn't even happen in the 60s. We did have Gov. Reagan ordering the teargassing of residential neighborhoods in Berkely to keep people off the streets, and hordes of armed thugs in uniform wandering around beating the crap out of paecefully protesting citizens and brandishing fists and weapons at families in a public park (I was there). The 60s were marked by unreasonable violence by the state against Vietnamese and Americans.

The real analogy is of more recent vintage. Iraq stands in relation to the US as Afghanistan stands in relation to the former USSR. Superpower stomps on regional pipsqueak and gets its ass handed back to it on a silver platter by a home-grown insurgency. The nation, devastated by war, devolves into perpetual anarchy, while the world turns its back and pretends not to notice. The war bankrupts the superpower and demoralizes the nation, causing a centrist, moderate backlash against the arrogance of the state. The house of cards crumbles.

The big difference, of course, is that Iraq sits on top of a huge crude oil reserve, and the USSR has more internal oil and gas reserves than the US.

Wonder where that's going to lead us...

Anglachel

Bush's Timetable

I think it is pretty easy to see that Bush, all protests to the contrary notwithstanding, has set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

It's the day after his presidency ends.

At that point, he doesn't give a damn what happens to Iraq, the soldiers or the US. He'll be free and clear, having manipulated things to try to keep himself and his fellow war crimes planners - Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, et. al. - from being held accountable for the willful murder of innocents. He doesn't actually give a damn about the people whose lives he has destroyed right now, either, but once the term of office is done, he can stop even pretending to pretend that he takes it seriously.

Anglachel

Unity and Civility - Wes is a Class Act

Wes Clark was one of the first Democratic leaders to directly and unequivocally request that Joe Lieberman abandon his contrarian pursuit of a senate seat as an Independent.

Walking his talk, Gen. Clark is engaging in some no-nonsense diplomacy within the party. Without bluster, trashy language, or threats, Wes lays out the facts and asks for the rejected senator to act for the good of the Democrats and of the country.

On Tuesday, the message sent by Connecticut voters was loud and clear. They want change, and they want Ned Lamont to represent them in the U.S. Senate, voting for Ned by a 52% - 48% margin over Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

You see, despite what Joe Lieberman believes, invading Iraq and diverting our attention away from Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden is not being strong on national security. Blind allegiance to George W. Bush and his failed "stay the course" strategy is not being strong on national security. And no, Senator Lieberman, no matter how you demonize your opponents, there is no "antisecurity wing" of the Democratic Party.

Indeed, Connecticut Democrats recognized all of this, and yesterday they chose Ned Lamont as their nominee for the U.S. Senate. Now, I hope you'll join me in supporting Ned as he heads into the general election this November.

As a Democrat, I respect the will of the Connecticut Democratic voters and their decision to make Ned Lamont their nominee. Even before the election results came in on Tuesday, Ned Lamont showed his respect for the voters by committing to abide by the Democratic primary result and support whoever won.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, began collecting petition signatures to run as an Independent several weeks ago while concurrently running in the Democratic primary. In short, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

Despite his efforts to appear on the November ballot as an Independent, I held out hope that Joe would withdraw from the Connecticut Senate race after the primary votes were counted. Unfortunately, Joe has announced his candidacy as an Independent candidate, running against Ned, the Democratic nominee.

In 2000, the presence of a third party candidate, Ralph Nader, no doubt played a role in the defeat of Vice President Gore and Joe Lieberman. Now Joe Lieberman is risking our party's claim on his Senate seat by running as a third party candidate himself. Recent news reports detail the GOP's interest in supporting such an effort. It's time to draw a line.

I committed myself to supporting the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Connecticut, and I ask you to do likewise. Because too much is at stake with our troubles abroad and at home, we cannot play games this Election Day. That's why I call on all loyal Democrats to join me in urging Senator Lieberman to drop his bid for the Senate as an Independent and endorse the duly nominated Democrat.

We should thank him for his service and invite him to stay active, or even run again someday, but as a party we cannot let Joe Lieberman be this year's Ralph Nader.

The 2006 elections represent a real crossroads for America. We must unify our efforts to stop George Bush's radical agenda and end this one-party government. I hope Senator Lieberman will join us in this critical fight for our nation's future.

http://ga4.org/campaign/joelieberman/

I admire Wes Clark's ability to be both unequivocal and completely civil in this demand. There's more than a few bloggers who could stand to learn that petulant trash talk does not advance a cause and just hands weapons to the anti-liberal punditocracy.

Moreover, I approve of his message of unity. It not only says what needs to be said, but also how it needs to be said. He does not go off into conspiracy land, imagining some wicked cabal by party insiders to cheat the good, pure and true out of their victory. Instead, he talks practical politics, keeping the focus on the real opponent - the Bush White House and the De Lay Congress - and fights substantive attempts to divide the party. He does not stoop to demonization and holds out a hand to let Lieberman redeem himself.

Honesty, integrity, decency and no-nonsense politics. More of this, please.

Anglachel

Dear Joe

Get out of the race and stay out.

Toodles - Ang

Back to Reality

The "Dump Lieberman (Oh, yeah, Lamont, you're a handy millionaire)" campaign has been great fun for the last few news cycles, but Billmon quickly jerks us back to reality. The whole thing, because it is short and perfect:

I guess this is Shrub's idea of "faithfully executing" the laws -- he wants to take the War Crimes Act out and shoot it with Dick Cheney's shotgun.

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments . . .

"People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite likely they might be under a microscope," said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off.

This is like letting John Gotti rewrite the RICO statute.

I guess somebody finally was able to make Shrub understand what was in that Hamdan ruling:

Once Common Article 3 applies to the conflict with al Qaeda, the legal framework within which we analyze the various interrogation and torture allegations changes dramatically, as does the . . . potential liability of various U.S. officials under the War Crimes Act.

So now we have the shameful spectacle of an American president asking his rubber stamp Congress to redefine the meaning of "war crimes," lest at some future date and in some future place he and his flunkies be forced to account for theirs. Just call it the Milosevic Amendment.

Is there a pit of slime so filthy these moral cretins won't drag us through it? A cup of national humiliation so bitter they won't make us drain it to the dregs?

Apparently not.

But I really wouldn't worry about it that much if I were one of the boys. With a bit of luck they should be able to push their CYA legislation through while the heelclickers are still in the majority.

Besides, even if they fail, and the legal situation does goes south on them, there's always Brazil. Who knows? Dick and Rummy might even make a few friends down there.

The Boys from Brazil

Yes, dear readers, Bush knows what his administration is doing is wrong and is trying to avoid incarceration. They have led the nation into war crimes. And the majority of the American public was more than happy to go along as long as we were on the "winning" side.

In short, just as Lieberman was the obvious and deserving candidate until the punditocracy and the snoozing last minute voters realized they were supporting a loser, the US public didn't give a shit how awful Bush policies are until they are clearly demonstrated as losing propositions. No moral judgment, no principled stance, just wanting to be on the "winning" side.

Republicans are going to lose this electoral cycle not because the voters actually reject fascism but because the Rethugs look weak. Appearance is reality.

Anglachel

The Way to Bet

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

The "Site brought down by hackers" excuse on Lieberman's side is too lame to even rate as pathetic. So, the bet's on Lamont. The piling on Lieberman tomorrow is going to be ugly and petty, and there is going to be a lot of dislocated shoulders from excessive back-patting. There's also going to be an upsurge of very savage opportunistic assaults on the "DLC" and how the Democratic party isn't going to take their betrayal anymore, yadda, yadda.

Here's a bet. How quickly will Ned Lamont join the DLC? I say a lot sooner than most people suspect. He's a businessman who has voted with Republican colleagues in local government. That's not a smear, it's just a statement of fact. This is someone whose natural affinity should be for like minded Rockefeller Republicans. (In my book, that's not a criticism, btw.) So, I don't think there's much question about who he'll hang out with in DC once he gets there and the spotlight goes away. That's not a criticism of him, either.

The reason for wanting to replace Lieberman is not his policies but his partisan fecklessness. The bet on Lamont is not that he'll be liberal, but that he'll be loyal.

Anglachel

Housecleaning

Digby's blog Hullabaloo has been removed from my blogroll. What was once an intelligent and engaging blog has sunk down into crap/rant territory. Her defense of Jane Hamsher's "humorous" photoshop image of Joe Lieberman in blackface was the final straw. It really creeps me out when a "left" activist thinks using racial stereotypes to denigrate people is a good thing to do.

I have added Robert Reich's blog. He publishes sporadically, but does excellent reporting on economic and political issues.

I'm tired of reading screaming and invective instead of reporting and argument. I'm also tired of the Kos-centered war against the "DLC". I've looked at the rhetoric and the stances, and have concluded that I am one of the "traitors" to the left as defined by Atrios, Digby, Jane Hamsher, Markos, etc., since I think the Cintons have provided outstanding public service to this nation for decades. You want people to pick sides? Done.

Another moderate leftist abandoning the Kossack netroots for good. My political opinions are more heterogeneous than Pro/Anti-DLC.

Anglachel

Real Change Involves the GOP

With luck, CT will have a more responsive Senator come November, and the Dems will have a new team player who will be more reliable on party-line votes. I agree with Josh Marshall that the Rubicon for Holy Joe was saying he was setting himself up to run as an independent if defeated in the primary. This sent the twin messages of A) I think I'm going to lose and B) I'm not committed to the party. A senior senator is hard to dump, but a disloyal loser has nothing to stand on.

Now, how about the netroots doing something constructive for a change? Instead of throwing themselves into trashing other Democrats (and let's be clear, the Kossack aligned blogs would cheerfully greet another generation of Republican rule if it meant keeping "DLC" candidates out of office), why not take on the big guns, the GOP?

There's this little race coming up in California here in San Diego, pitting Brian Bilbray (R - Lobbyist) against Francine Busby (D - Liberal) in a competitive rematch for Duke Cunningham's old seat. How about putting as much energy and noise into that match up, which actually works towards changing the balance of power in the Congress, as into the symbolic but not that legislatively important CT senate race? Of course, taking over Cunningham's seat would be symbolic as well, and would give the pundits something to chew on for months afterwards. Francine is a strong liberal, too, so what's not to like? It's a real race, one where the makeup of the district is the opposite from CT, with a Republican majority, but more moderate than not and worried over corruption and international entanglements.

In short, the only way that real change - in power and in policy - is going to change is by taking on the GOP directly. This means real political work, like motivating the sizable (and growing) Dem minorities in allegedly safe GOP districts. 2,000 votes. That's what would have sent Francine to DC. I still can't believe that the wider left blogosphere didn't see the PR value in seizing the Cunningham's seat. What better message to send about the K Street payola racket than back the seat of one of their more rapacious practitioners?

The netroots left has ably demonstrated that they can savage their own party. Now let's see if they can defeat real political opponents. That takes a little more effort, and actually standing up for a candidate.

Anglachel

Clark on War and Politics

There's an excellent transcript up on the Wes Clark web site of a recent FOX News Dayside appearance. (I guess that's one of their regular shows. Sorry, haven't owned a TV since 1989, so don't really know what's on.) The entire transcript is reasonably short, and the idiocy of the FOX talking heads is truly a gigglefest, so you should read the whole thing. Here are a few key points I want to tease out of Gen. Clark's answers. Please note that I have edited a few places to remove chatter & irrelevant info:

On Hizbullah: "Well, that's a real problem, because there are still women and children, apparently, in there, and frankly, this is a political movement, not just a military movement. So, the Hizbullah have been providing education and healthcare in the towns. So, maybe the teachers are Hizbullah. The doctors are Hizbullah. Local authorities are Hizbullah. They're all affiliated, and then some of them have weapons."

On the fundamental problems of Bush's approach to the ME:
CLARK: Because we would have been talking to people. ... You see the basic problem that you have here - and since you're asking a political question, I'll give you a political answer.

Juliet Huddy: Oh, or, or just an honest answer. (laughs)

CLARK: A strategic answer. Look, you cannot solve these problems with military force alone, and you cannot limit talking to people that you already know you're going to agree with. You can't say, 'If I don't agree with you, I'm not going to talk to you.'

On treating with other nations: "Well look, nations don't always tell the truth, but you can't educate nations like they're third graders, and you can't treat them like they're third graders. We got very close in the 1990s to a peace agreement that would've ended fighting between the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Israelis, very close. So, there's no reason why we can't keep talking. You don't draw a line and say, 'Okay, that's it. I'm not going to talk to you. We'll see you on the battlefield,' unless there's a direct threat to the United States. Neither Syria nor Iran is directly threatening the United States right now."

On the use of military force: "It, it's why when you use military force, even though you may be going after targets or trying to kill people, it is ultimately a political act. And what you must always aim for is the right political outcome."

Aside from the fact that Gen. Clark can talk coherently about international affairs, which is such a nice change from any of the Cheneyites, there is something else vitally important at work here. This is someone who is unrelenting in defense of the US because he understands and takes seriously that other people believe in their nations (or movements), too, and are willing to go to great lengths to preserve them. Valuing American practices and institutions does not require the denigration of other nations - to the contrary, it places a greater burden on us to inhabit our beliefs - of justice, humanity, peaceful resolution, but also democracy, quality of life and freedom of conscience. He also points out that what we see as "terrorists" locals see as a socially and economically constructive organization, people who deliver food, education and protection. We have to understand that Lebanese have a number of rational reasons to look kindly on Hizbullah.

It is, above all, a pragmatic and unshakeably ethical approach to regional conflict, which is not going to go away anytime soon. Perhaps the middle east can be calmed, but situations like Kashmir and Darfur remain to be adequately addressed. Gen. Clark makes no bones about war is to be used for - achieving political goals. How does this differ from the Bush doctrine? Refer to the above paragraph. If you regard other nations, governments and populations as both rational actors (who can and will negotiate) and as unique yet equal others to yourself (beings who are ends, not means, and who must be treated as such), then there are kinds of war that are off-limits, such as preemptive strikes on other states with whom you can bargain. Invasions of other countries for domestic consumption. Activing out tribal resentments against demonized foes. In short, you will not conduct war the way Bush has done, as an extension of a violent and hateful will.

It sounds so ... simple. Talk to people. Ask them what they want. Tell them what you want. See if there is common ground. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Because you always have war to turn to. That's the easy choice, to declare, as one of Clark's questioners did, that "they" are fanatics who cannot be reasoned with, only destroyed. Then you don't have to offer your own reasons or change your views, objectives and desires.

In a time when the Sec. of State is calling bombing of civilians "birth pangs", when End Times nutcases are being invited to the White House as advisors, and when the adminsitration seems to regard wel regulated government and the rule of law as something to avoid at all costs, this simple advice seems exotic.

I don't think it ironic, in the way Billmon does, that the strongest voices against use of the military as the primary tool of foreign policy is to be found among military personnel. My father, a Marine in the Korean War and son of a Navy officer, taught his children to be suspicious of war-mongering and to listen to the vocies of peace. I know from the time I worked at the Naval hospital that no one was as outraged at the waste of life as the people who tried to put the war-torn men and women back together. Gen. Clark has a word on the cost of war as well.

"Clark said he knows what it feels like to be responsible for the deaths of innocents. When he was fighting the air war in Serbia, a cluster bomb accidentally went off over a schoolyard and children were killed. A few days later there was a note on his desk from a child’s grandfather. "I will never forgive you," the man wrote. Clark said he has prayed for forgiveness ever since."

Anglachel

Riverbend on Loss

Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words “Leave your area or else.” The culprits behind these attacks and threats are Sadr’s followers- Mahdi Army. It’s general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last month we’ve had two different families staying with us in our house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats and attacks. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s Shia, Arabs, Kurds- most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias.

Other areas are being overrun by armed Islamists. The Americans have absolutely no control in these areas. Or maybe they simply don’t want to control the areas because when there’s a clash between Sadr’s militia and another militia in a residential neighborhood, they surround the area and watch things happen...

I look at my older clothes- the jeans and t-shirts and colorful skirts- and it’s like I’m studying a wardrobe from another country, another lifetime. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when you could more or less wear what you wanted if you weren’t going to a public place. If you were going to a friends or relatives house, you could wear trousers and a shirt, or jeans, something you wouldn’t ordinarily wear. We don’t do that anymore because there’s always that risk of getting stopped in the car and checked by one militia or another....

I’ve said goodbye this last month to more people than I can count...During times like these I remember a speech Bush made in 2003: One of the big achievements he claimed was the return of jubilant ‘exiled’ Iraqis to their country after the fall of Saddam. I’d like to see some numbers about the Iraqis currently outside of the country you are occupying… Not to mention internally displaced Iraqis abandoning their homes and cities.

I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever know just how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis left the country this bleak summer. I wonder how many of them will actually return. Where will they go? What will they do with themselves? Is it time to follow? Is it time to wash our hands of the country and try to find a stable life somewhere else?

Summer of Goodbyes

Billmon Right Again. Unfortunately.

I'm way behind the news curve due to travel and a programming project, so I'm going to try not to rehash too much of yesterday's news. However, Billmon, still the best and most bitter voice on the internets, said the ugly truth that had to made clear:

But there's one big problem with all this hyperventilating [about Ned Lamont's probable victory on Tuesday]: It wildly exaggerates the anti-war fevor that Ned Lamont supposedly represents. Oh I know Ned says he's anti-war, but he only means the war in Iraq. The war in Lebanon, on the other hand, is just fine by him. And he's already pledged he'll be just as staunch a friend of Israel and the Israel lobby in this war as Holy Joe ever was or ever could be. So bombs away...

...Lamont's stance also reflects a glaring contradiction in the emerging Democratic consensus on U.S. policy in the Middle East (a consensus which is about to make Joe Lieberman a man without a party). Politically, it's a position that won't be sustainable for long. And as a matter of policy, it's a recipe for an even wider and more destructive war -- one I fully expect most Democrats, including Lamont, will end up supporting, despite the consequences.

The contradiction is between the growing sentiment among both grassroots Democrats and party leaders in favor of a rapid withdrawal of U.S. military forces (or at least ground forces) from Iraq, and the effect such a withdrawal would have, both on the overall strategic balance in the Middle East and on Israel's war against Hizbullah...

...What's become clear to me is that the Democratic Party (even it's allegedly anti-war wing) will not try to stop this insanity, and in fact will probably be led as meekly to the slaughter as it was during the runup to the Iraq invasion. Watching the Dems line up to salute the Israeli war machine, hearing the uncomfortable and awkward silence descend on most of Left Blogistan once the bombs started falling in Lebanon, seeing how easily the same Orwellian propaganda tricks worked their magic on the pseudoliberals -- all this doesn't leave too much room for doubt. As long as World War III can be sold as protecting the security and survival of the Jewish state, I suspect the overwhelming majority of Democrats, or at least the overwhelming majority of Democratic politicians, will support it...

...It is a stunning testament to the political devolution of this country that the most effective anti-war movement in America is inside the walls of the Pentagon or buried deep in the bowels of the CIA! But that is the reality, thanks in no small part to the Dems and the Israel lobby.

I had hopes once that the Democratic Party could be reformed, that progressives could burrow back in or build their own parallel organizations (like MoveOn.org or even Left Blogistan) and eventually gain control of the party and its agenda -- much as the conservatives took over the GOP in the 1980s and '90s.

But I think we've run out of time. Events -- from 9/11 on -- have moved too fast and pushed us too far towards the clash of civilizations that most sane people dread but the neocons desperately want. The Dems are now just the cadet branch of the War Party. While the party nomenklatura is finally, after three bloody years, making dovish noises about the Iraq fiasco, I think their loyalty to Israel, or their fear of the Israel lobby, almost certainly will snap them back into line during the coming "debate" over war with Iran.

I hope like hell I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am. So I guess I'll just have to accept being labeled a traitor to the cause -- or whatever the hardcore partisans are calling it. Sure, why not. They're certainly free to follow their party over the cliff (we're all going over it anyway) but I'd at least prefer to do it with my eyes open.

The War Party

As usual, I've only snagged a few highlights. You need to go read the entire piece and preferably all of Billmon's analysis of the war.

I think he has captured the core political truth - the US will not say no to Israel - though I think he inflates the culpability of the Democrats in this. The nation as a whole, as disgusted as it allegedly is about the war, will jump up and salute if Bush says we must attack Iran in order to defend Israel. Iran is our Great Satan, as well as being the reason the neocons are in power in the US (think Iranian hostage crisis), and we like the role of big, moral defender of the endangered and downtrodden (the role, not the reality). The Dem leadership will see no alternative if the polls show support for bombing Iran on Israel's behalf. That they should stand up on principle and defy the general opinion of the nation is half-Mr. Smith, half-Norma Rae, and ain't going to happen.

I don't think most Americans comprehend just how fucked up the situation is in the Middle east, and don't think about it at anywhere near the necessary level of sophistication. It's easy to sell stupid. And the average Democrat is not that much smarter than the average Republican.

Anglachel

Generational Metaphors

There's a meme going around Left Blogistan that the divide in the Democratic party is generational. The people with the good political sense are post-Reagan and those with bad political sense are pre-Reagan.

Not bad, except that the political sense parts are more messy than that. Having lived through Reagan, both as governor and as president, I can attest he is something of a watershed for Democrats. In both cases, we watched him preside over an assault on the gains created by the "old" Democrats. We saw him introduce a new rhetoric into the political consciousness, leaving behind the specific (and by then laughable) accusations of Communist Party membership that he so enthusiastically endorsed in the McCarthy era and broadened it to divide the nation into the loyal (pro-Reagan, pro-neocon) and the traitors (everyone else). He had the Soviet Union to use as his boogeyman. The fact that the USSR really was (and remains, but we dont' talk about that...) a threat to all life on earth due to its nuclear arsenal played no small part in legitimizing this approach.

Back to the generational stuff. I say that there is a generational divide, even if the "generation" is more mental than chronological. The netroots Dems are to mainstream Dems as Jerry Brown is to Pat Brown, both pairs divided by the altered reality of Ronald Reagan, the Movie.

Anglachel

Big Plans

I'm working on a big project from now through Saturday, so not much blogging. Lots of interesting topics, however. For me, the sleeper is what will the neocons do if Castro does not pull through his surgery? I think they are planning an invasion.

Anglachel

Climate Change

Mark Schmitt's recent post on TPM Cafe, The End of Checklist Liberalism, uses the prism of the Lieberman self-immolation as a focus for something much larger, something I've been trying to put my finger on for the last few months:

The second reason is that Lamont supporters actually aren’t ideologues. They aren’t looking for the party to be more liberal on traditional dimensions. They’re looking for it to be more of a party. They want to put issues on the table that don’t have an interest group behind them - like Lieberman’s support for the bankruptcy bill -- because they are part of a broader vision. And I think that’s what blows the mind of the traditional Dems. They can handle a challenge from the left, on predictable, narrow-constituency terms. But where do these other issues come from? These are “elitist insurgents,” as Broder puts it - since when do they care about bankruptcy? What if all of a sudden you couldn’t count on Democratic women just because you said that right things about choice - what if they started to vote on the whole range of issues that affect women’s economic and personal opportunities?

But caring about bankruptcy, even if you’re not teetering on the brink of it or a bankruptcy lawyer yourself, is part of a vision of a just society. And a vision of a just society - not just the single-issue push-buttons of a bunch of constituency groups - is what a center-left political party ought to be about. And at the end of this fight, I don’t expect that we’ll have a more leftist Democratic Party, but one that can at least begin to get beyond checklist liberalism.

I'd change the first sentence to read "people won't put up with Lieberman anymore" from "Lamont supporters" (hey, I'm just reading the polls...), but the rest captures an attitudinal change that has come over many, not just the left, in the country. Political climate change.

The left often wonders at the right's ability to pander to and mobilize conservative fundamentalists (who are not necessarily religious) with social or lifestyle issues even as they use power to expand and entrench corporate and economic elite positions. I think that is because they are appealing to a sense of interrelated conditions that together do harm to the fundamentalists' preferred way of life. Though I abhor their vision of what makes a society good, I can see the power of that appeal and why they will follow those who promise to defend it. (On a side note, the Rethuglican bait-n-switch may be running its course, as illustrated by the NYT article on Rev. Gregory A. Boyd last weekend. Carpetbagger's commentary on this is good, as is Kevin Drum's.)

What has consumed the left for a long time, frankly, is a lack of a wide vision of the just society. The parts have all been there, but, after the triumph and the failures of the movements of the 50s and 60s, when we saw our leaders murdered and our youth sent off to pointless deaths in a far country, the left's pursuit of this vision has been muted - cautious, legalistic, narrowly drawn. After Nixon's downfall, it seemed wise to cool passions, regroup, and move politely forward. The interest politics Mark mentions above came to the fore in great part because they had boundaries.

What is happening? The left is turning into Al Gore. Older, heavier, battered by the events of our times, dragging our real and virtual laptops around to explain that the ground beneath our feet has changed, that the passions of our youth weren't wrong, and that the time to act is NOW. It's not just a woman's right to choose, but having choices worth making.

I'm not sure that "traditional Dems" don't get it. I read Clinton's words of advice to Holy Joe (attributed and suspected) more along the lines of giving advice that won't be heard, so not putting much effort in it. What got people excited by Clinton (besides the fact that he has Elvis) was the way in which he could invoke that vision of a better, more just, more hopeful America, not one of military might and swagger, but of generosity and proportion. As with global warming, it was too easily subsumed to political and economic expediency.

Kevin Drum, also reading Schmitt's article, says,

it basically suggests an explicit turn to a European parliamentary model of party governance without the formal structure of an actual parliamentary system. Democrats take on the role of a social democratic party with a broader agenda than just pleasing a small core of interest groups, but the flip side is that loyalty to that agenda is more-or-less absolute. The idea that you sometimes cross party lines to work with the opposition goes from being a sign of grace to being literally unthinkable.

Is this good or bad? I haven't made up my mind. But we're about 90% of the way there anyway, and it may be that the final 10% isn't really that big a deal. And if Mark is right that a broader concern for social democratic policies is one outcome of this, it would be well worth it.

The radical right was the first to reject the civility of a centrist polity, and has won significant power because of its boldness. Schmitt wrote about this (and I blogged it) about two months ago. The key will be making the left into a social democratic block, and keep the Neo-Naderites, for whom no politician is pure enough, or the fake Greens, who love the color of money and not much else, from alienating the center portion of the center-left coalition through petulance and vigilantism.

Global warning, fossil-fuel dependence, anti-modern fundamentalist terrorism, economic stability, middle-class security, medical care - this forms a powerful web of key traditional liberal positions, but given a half-turn (and thus new life) by the events of Bush's administration. Perhaps we could not have had this conceptual realignment without the authoritarian ascendency, but it is real.

And there's climate change for the better.

Anglachel