I would like to offer a slogan for Chris Hedges and the rest of the “poutrage” crowd:
Losers Unite!
People wonder why so many of us in the New Left Blogosphere get so angry about the incessant attacks on President Obama and the Democratic party from those who claim to represent the left. For me, it’s about a future for my granddaughter and all the young people I care about. It is one thing to criticize and try to persuade a president or party to change, but it’s quite another to be a trojan horse, intent on bringing down the party from within. And that is exactly what Chris Hedges of Truthdig admitted recently.
I’m sure you remember Chris Hedges as the author of the Cornel West story that caused so much shit to hit the fan a few months ago. Well here is Hedges telling us his real motivation and hero, from Democrats for Progress (I don’t want to give Hedges any clicks)…
If elections were that effective, as the anti-war activist Phil Berrigan used to say, they would be illegal. We must follow the path Nader forged, attempting to sway enough people with conscience to sever themselves permanently and unequivocally from the mainstream and especially the Democratic Party.
I have no idea what that first sentence is even trying to say. Can anyone help me with that?
And did you catch the “especially the Democratic Party” line? I have to wonder why he thinks the Democratic Party should be the target even more than Republicans. To me, it reveals that the motives of this gang of anarchists isn’t progress or helping people in any way, it is to exact revenge on a political party for failing to bend to their demands. The Democrats are a party that is made up of many voices that speak for all sorts of different groups, children, women, the poor, the sick, GLBT’s, the elderly, college students, teachers, unions and many more. It apparently fails to be doctrinaire and rigid enough to satisfy them. Most of these Democratic politicians go into public service wanting to make a difference in their communities and help people. So let’s attack them and make some money off it. It’s the new American way.
And Chris Hedges really wants to follow Ralph Nader’s path, because I guess that’s worked out so well for Ralph? It’s a perfect metaphor for the movement though, Nader has never really been interested in any kind of grass roots politics, he’s never run for any local offices, the House, Senate or dog catcher for that matter. He wants to jump to the head of the line and be President. Much has been written about Ralph and how he operates from former employees, but that’s the model Chris Hedges wants people to follow?
And he wants people to “sever themselves permanently and unequivocally from the mainstream”, basically, make yourself an outcast, make yourself insignificant, irrelevant and join us on the sidelines where we can lob grenades at people trying to actually do stuff. What’s with those damn people trying to do stuff, anyway? And really, would people with a “conscience” want to marginalize themselves along the lines of Hedges, Hamsher, Greenwald, and the rest of the band of boneheads?
If Chris and this crowd really think they are going to have any success in bringing down either political party, especially with the childish approach they are taking, they really need to bang their heads against the wall for about 5 minutes and see if that knocks any sense into their brains. I’ve had exchanges with some of these folks where I told them that if they really want to break the two party system, they need to organize at the local level, run candidates, get elected, do good work and rinse and repeat. Shit, they could just use the Tea Party model, who have had way too much success at it lately (minus the good work part). I think it speaks volumes that they aren’t even as smart as the folks in the Tea Party.
I decided long ago that if I really wanted to have an impact on society and do my part to help make our country a better place, that I am much more effective trying to change it from within. Since both political parties have all the money, the platforms and control of the system, to think that any grass roots movement could have a chance against them is just fucking crazy. Even the Tea Party people were smart enough to fold into the Republican establishment and gain traction. There is no reason why we liberals shouldn’t be able to do the same within the Democratic Party. But it takes time and patience. The extreme fundamentalist Christian right has been methodically and systematically infiltrating the GOP from the local level for more than thirty years in order to achieve their current party dominance. But the Poutrage Posse lacks that kind of discipline and focus, preferring instead to fling poo at the President, which, while clearly satisfying to them on some emotional level, is probably the least effective way to attract new supporters who are willing to do any actual on-the-ground organizing for change.
Cross-posted at Extreme Liberal’s Blog
I’ve stopped believing that people like Hedges and Hamsher are liberals of any sort. If it walks like a Republican, quacks like a Republican, and tries to get people to vote against Democrats or for Republicans, dagnabbit, it’s a Republican.
Hedges has one good thing to his credit. His War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a very good journo memoir/jeremiad. Not in the same memoir-league as John Laurence’s The Cat From Hue or Peter Arnett’s Live From the Battlefield, though still a good read.
The rest of his stuff, you can keep.
And to put it simply, in as few words as possible, for the poutragers, third-party Dem defections = Republican votes, full stop. They are no doubt cackling with glee at Greenwald, Hamsher, Hedges, and the like, and actively funded Nader.
Yes!!! “…walks… quacks… acts like a Republican.” Must be a heartless, gutless, brainless REPUBLICAN, indeed.
A lot of people believe that the democratic party is beholden to the same corporate interests as the republican party. They are no longer accountable to the needs of most Americans.
I used to believe that the Democratic party was far from ideal, but at least it did a better job of improving the lives of ordinary people. Clinton put a huge dent in that belief with NAFTA, welfare reform, etc and Obama looks like he might more do more harm to Social Security and Medicare than the Republicans could do under Bush. Obama has also continued and intensified our imperialist debacle in the middle east.
You can feel to disagree with people like Hedges and me, but don’t say we’re Republicans because we’re not Democrats. One reason that democrats are a target for Hedges, is because they stab workers, the poor, the disenfranchized in the backs after making them promises. We always knew who the Republicans stood for, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Democrats stand for the same people.
I truly believe that the two-party system that we have stands for the rich and powerful. I don’t believe a more humane, decent, and fair society is possible under this corrupt system.
Finally, I would just like to say that Democrats maybe friends of teachers and unions in word, but certainly not in deed.
“…Obama looks like he might more do more harm to Social Security and Medicare than the Republicans could do under Bush.”
Seriously? Who stopped Bush from privatizing Social Security, then? And how well would it have worked to have it all private had it happened before 2008?
“…don’t say we’re Republicans because we’re not Democrats.”
You might not BE a Republican but juvenile attitudes like that help get them elected. Funny thing about waddling and quacking in feathers, isn’t it?
I’ll give you that it was the dems who stopped Bush from privatizing social security when it was a strictly partisan issue. But, Obama wants to be the great conciliator. If enough dems support him then there will be major concessions to the republicans and very little for the Democrats.
And speaking of juvenile attitudes, I voted for Nader in 2000 (when I was pretty much a juvenile). But I’d do it again. Gore was a horrible candidate and Lieberman was worse. I didn’t agree with him on very much and refused to settle for a rubbish candidate. Gore lost that election on his own. I was a democrat at the time and reasoned that it was important not to capitulate to the DLC and the right-wing of the Democratic party.
I’m really not trying to be uncivil here. We have a fair disagreement. But the non-Democratic Party left, the “winers”(Hedges, Greenwald et al.) believe that our country is not ruled by parties as much as it is by corporate interests. The game is rigged and these interests win regardless of who’s in power. I think that’s the central disagreement and it might very well be a deep philosophical disagreement (progressive/liberal vs. socialist/social democratic). I happen to think there is no room in the Democratic party for social democrats much less socialists.
You don’t know a damn thing about Herbert Hoover or FDR, you know-nothing Naderite. Get a damn education before you spout your witless crap.
Interesting. How do you know that I know nothing about Hoover or FDR.
I voted for Nader in 2000 and haven’t voted for him since. Does that really make me a Naderite?
Your comment downthread might be a pretty good indicator there, Sparky.
And you don’t know much about punctuation, either, do you?
So much wrong, so little time…
Gore was a fine candidate – he was a horrible campaigner. There is a difference. Learn it.
Lieberman, well, he did in fact turn out to be an abomination.
And your “…not capitulating to the DLC…” sure helped things, didn’t it? Proud of yourself, then, are you?
Thanks for that, you pathetic saboteur. We’re going to be a long time fixing the damage you and your like-minded “reformers” did, and all you want to do is wreck it further.
I’m constantly amazed by how many people on the left have only realized that the US is a capitalist/imperialist nation in the last ten years — and have only decided to “opt out” of that nasty ole corrupt soul-killing system by launching widespread media attacks against the sitting president and his party since the black dude got handed the plate of shit. Third party? Won’t work without changing the voting system from winner-takes-all to proportional, but why let facts get in the way of a good righteousgasm hissy fit, amirite?
As always, Tbogg said it best: http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/02/25/your-mumia-sweatshirt-wont-get-you-into-heaven-anymore/
“I’m constantly amazed by how many people on the left have only realized that the US is a capitalist/imperialist nation in the last ten years”
Well, in the past 10 years we’ve gone to war with quite a few nations in the middle east. And in the past 3 years the unconscionable difference between the haves and have-nots have come into much greater relief. And just in the past year Democrats and Republicans alike have taken aim at public workers. So I can’t see anything amazing about the fact that more people have become aware of US imperialism and capitalism.
I doubt the President’s race has much to do with criticism coming from the left. For one, I think that a lot of what’s going on is structural and has little to do with the President. I liked Obama and had an outside hope that he would be a new FDR, but he has turned out to be more of a Herbert Hoover. So while I think Obama deserves some criticism for his spineless neo-liberalism, I also think the more important thing is to look at the way that our society is currently structured, because if we don’t I think we’re looking at perpetual war and perpetual serfdom for the great majority of people.
For the most part, I agree that voting for third-party candidates is pretty much a dead-end, but I don’t think that electoral politics will produce the change we need either.
“I doubt the President’s race has much to do with criticism coming from the left.”
Well, then, you’re not going to be open to the feedback coming from people of color (and white folk like me & Kerry) who keep shoving examples of it into your face, now are you?
Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.
Well I find it funny how much liberals accuse others of being racist against rich, elite Obama and spend much less time looking at the serious cultural and institutional racism that go on in this country every day. What are your priorities?
Deflection. Another tactic used to avoid the topic.
And your solution is what, then, exactly, Mr. Know-it-all?
That tbogg post will never not be awesome.
Yep. Much of the “poutrage” on the left is based on manufactured hysteria (thanks to sites like FDL), not reality. They have that in common with Fox and the teabaggers. “OMG,Obama is going to [insert outrage of choice], primary him!!” Except that when all is said and done, he doesn’t ever do quite what he’s hysterically been accused of doing. (In fact it is remarkable how much good he HAS gotten done considering the obstructionist right wing extremists in congress with whom he is forced to deal.) However, by that time, they’re on to the next manufactured outrage so no one notices. They’ve created their own self-destructive, and ultimately goal-destructive, reality. And I’m saying this as someone who considers herself pretty far left of center.
Pretty sad and thank you for doing such a good job speaking out about this. I think there are a LOT of people getting sick of it.
It’s time to come out and say who these people are: Naderites. They’ve never been on our side, and they will never be on our side. They, like the repubs, want the economy to collapse so that American institutions will fall apart, and they can rebuild it in their image. It’s the exact same agenda, except for how the utopia will look in the end.
“I liked Obama and had an outside hope that he would be a new FDR.”
Meaning — you’d like him to deny government entitlement programs like Social Security on the basis of race and gender? You’d like him to sideline federal legislation aimed at vast civil rights violations and terrorism (i.e., lynching) in order to win votes for a new New Deal? You’d like him to attempt to pack the Supreme Court? You’d like him to set up internment camps for citizens based on race and ethnicity?
You make some good points about Roosevelt. But, surely you would not prefer a lassiez faire, let them eat cake president to an FDR style social democrat. I do find it offensive that you would imply that my positive take on the New Deal suggests that I’d somehow like to go back to a time before civil rights.
In fact, I think that the next stage of the civil rights movement must involve a new New Deal. After the civil rights victories brought down many forms of legal segregation, people like MLK saw that the gains of civil rights would be meaningless if they weren’t supported by economic and human rights. What good is it if I am legally permitted to eat at the lunch counter with white people, but can’t afford to eat or live in decent housing? MLK clearly saw that we had to start looking at civil rights issues not only from the perspective of class as well as race.
In his last months King worked to organize a people’s movement to descend on the Capitol to demand a people’s bill of rights calling for a massive government job program to rebuild America’s cities.
King was disgusted by the way that Congress spent money fighting wars abroad and funding right-wingers in Latin America and failed to allocate anything substantial or sustained to relieving poverty. If you haven’t read MLK’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, you really owe it to yourself to do so.
In any case, I think civil rights is a tragically abandoned project. We do not live in a post-racial America and disparities in class are only growing worse. I hope that more people will learn about the last years of Dr. King, because I beleive that real change will only be the result of a grassroots people’s campaign to redistribute wealth and power. I don’t think the Democratic party is the vehicle for bringing about this change, but I do believe that perhaps that if the movement became powerful enough it could sway the Dems to the left far enough to alleviate much poverty and suffering in this country.
Kevin, I’ll stipulate that your heart may be in the right place, though your head could use a bit of sunshine now and then.
How much of FDR’s New Deal would have been accomplished had he not won election as President? How much would have happened had things not eventually made it through Congress and Supreme Court tests?
The “grassroots” changes you speak so glowingly of came about from court decisions and legislation, not marching in the streets, and most certainly not from voting third party. Those decisions and legislation are done from within the system and only from within the system.
And all the grassroots, marches, and pressure in the world don’t amount to a damn thing without votes. And votes for third party candidates, and votes for Quixotic losers like Nader or Kucinich, therapeutic though you may feel them, are in the long run expressed in real-world terms as votes for the Republican candidates and policies that ought to be seen as the enemy of every real American.
You can say they don’t work that way all you want, and all you will be doing is what’s known as counterfactual reasoning.
If you want to live in a set of carefully drawn abstractions within your own mind, that’s fine, just know there’s not room for the rest of us in there, not to mention some of us might find it somewhat uncongenial.
Well, thanks for saying that it’s my head not my heart that’s the problem. That’s sweet of you.
But seriously, I am not a hardcore Naderite by any stretch. I voted for him in 2000. I am not ashamed of that vote; nevertheless I have voted for Democrats in every election since. I’ve found myself on the opposite end of this debate as well and have been stunned by the intransigence of some “Naderites” who fail to see that Nader’s candidacies have had virtually no positive political impact. To them I am a cynical lesser-evilist.
That being said, I do feel that the relationship between progressives and the Democratic party is not one that is really advantageous to either group. Progressives are a nuisance to mainstream democrats and can mostly be ignored, because we aren’t as wealthy as other contingents and they can count on our votes because we have no other real alternative. So while, I see the importance of voting for the candidate who will help make conditions better for more people, I also don’t think candidates who diverge widely from my core beliefs should have my vote. So in that regard I agree with the “Naderites” that there is something seriously flawed about the two-party duopoly.
Look, I don’t think that having people in the streets will solve everything, but I don’t think either the New Deal or Civil Rights would ever have gotten off the ground if it hadn’t been for popular, grass-roots movements who ultimately pushed some very reluctant Democrats (FDR, LBJ) to do some positive things. Grass-roots movements played a huge part in ending the Vietnam War. I don’t know what a grass-roots movement is possible of accomplishing within the next ten years, but I do believe that it is a better option than working within a corporate-driven Democratic party or hoping to establish a legitimate third party.
“Grass-roots movements played a huge part in ending the Vietnam War.”
Not as much as you’d like to think.
CBS had more to do with it. John Laurence bringing the futility of Charlie Company into America’s living rooms did more than every protest sign combined.
When Mr. and Mrs. Down-the-street saw their kids, or their neighbors’ kids, or someone’s kids, coming home in flag-draped caskets and it looked as though that parade was never going to end, they – the “average people” of America – has many times the influence of those who marched and waved signs.
Why is that?
It’s because protesting in the street is a short ride to a complete lack of credibility, until you can turn hundreds of thousands out across America. Being the picture of Middle America and being upset enough to contact your Congressman swings one hell of a lot more weight, because the protesters were, correctly or not, seen as not being very deeply enmeshed in the “America” everyone takes for granted. And voting people in or out matters even more.
If you’re on the fringe, you’re dismissable. That goes all the way back to de Tocqueville, by the way, in terms of historical precedent.
And the fact remains: This is a two-party system. Like it or not, it doesn’t matter, that’s how this is done and that’s how you’re going to play it, or you’re on the outside looking in.
Even someone as nuts as Jesse Ventura, when he was Governor of MN, said, to a college kid who asked him why politicians always ignored young people in favor of their elders, told the kid that it’s because they don’t vote and the older people do. So unless and until you and the rest of the disaffected start to turn out reliably, you will not deserve to be taken seriously, because you are not willing to get involved and put your vote where your mouth is.
Establish a pattern of being a reliable vote and that will change. Until then, not so much.
Oh, and telling us we’re selling you out and not catering to your demands? Good luck with that. Haranguing people rarely works well as a motivational tool. Neither does sulking in the corner.
Kevin, having worked on presidential campaigns since Mondale in 1984 and political issues work since 1978 (ERA Illinois), I can tell you that the “progressives are a nuisance” meme might mostly be true because, unlike the Christian Coalition and the Tea Party on the right, the progressives don’t show up to vote, much less work on or donate to, every single goddamn dog-and-pony race out there, from school board and water commission on up to super-sexy U.S. Senate races and the presidential race. So it’s a little hard to argue for a seat and a voice at the grown-up table when you’re NOT making yourselves visible across the board. In fact, I think Dems have learned that they CAN’T count on the votes of certain segments of the purity left (hence the disdain for Naderites), so they naturally gravitate to moderates and independents because their JOB is to win elections, not make lefties have a RIGHTEOUSGASM OF JUSTICE!!!
And the hardcore organizing work, in my experience, tends to be done by rank-and-file Dems who may or may not be as left as self-styled “progressives” would like — but they show the fuck up and do the fucking work and don’t play tiresome attention-seeking “maybe I’ll vote Dem, maybe I won’t” games that get in the way of the fucking work.
I worked in a ward office for Obama in Chicago in 2008. I’ll grant you that, as a machine town, Chicago may be a bad example. But still — the people who were showing up in this very economically and racially mixed neighborhood shared the demographics of the ‘hood — black, white, Asian, computer engineers, college students, unemployed construction people, retirees. But they were ALL focused on the goal of defeating the GOP — even the hardcore Hillary supporters who came on board because their reaction to Sarah Palin as Hillary substitute was “Oh HELLZ, NO!”
I walked precincts and phone-banked for Giannoulias and Quinn. The former lost, the latter won. Neither was a Shining Bright Light — but Mark Kirk, aside from voting for the repeal of DADT, has been a typical GOP tool and Pat Quinn signed legislation banning the death penalty and instituting civil unions in Illinois. BFDs in my view, as Mr. Biden says. Yet many lefties were all “Oh, he’s not INSPIRING! He’s so corporate.” Well, duh fucking duh. Our country was founded on genocide and slavery, so we are slow effing learners.
NONE of the people I’ve met who are putting skin in the game and boots on the ground spent much time discussing HuffPo, FDL, Kos, or any of the “crashing the gates” crowd who have been desperately angling to be the go-to voice of the Dems. They already know that we have one highly imperfect party that is somewhat interested in governing, and one party that wants to party on the smoking rubble. Maybe lefties would get more respect from the Dems if they showed the same smarts.
P.S. African Americans aren’t generally wealthy as a demographic class, either, but they make their presence known in Dem politics by doing tons of shoe-leather work.