Hillary Rolls On: Are Netroots a Paper Tiger?
As a longtime progressive tired of ineffective protesting, I’ve watched in glee as MoveOn has amassed political power by Webbing a few million of us and our dollars together. I’m a proud MoveOn member, even though I disagree sometimes with its leaders (mostly over too-cozy relations with top Democrats).
And as a longtime proponent of independent media, I’m gleeful that liberal/progressive bloggers have seized a new medium to mobilize millions of activists and confront a Democratic elite that seemed unwilling to confront and beat Team Bush.
Given my glee, it’s difficult for me to have to pose this question: Are the Netroots a paper tiger - more roar than bite?
Despite being overwhelmingly opposed to the nomination of Hillary Clinton, the Netroots have so far done little to slow down her coronation. Boosted by celebrity-worshipping corporate media (and a maximum donation from Rupert Murdoch himself), Hillary Clinton keeps rolling on - allied with the corporate lobbyists and Democratic insiders loathed even by moderately liberal bloggers.
Meanwhile, Clinton has never been popular among the Netroots. She’s never moved out of single digits in the (unscientific) monthly straw poll of DailyKos readers, while John Edwards has averaged 38 percent in the last six months among Kossacks, with Barack Obama averaging 26 percent.
In an April straw poll of MoveOn members following a virtual town hall on Iraq, the results were Obama (28%), Edwards (25%), Dennis Kunicich (17%) and Bill Richardson (12%) - followed by Clinton in fifth place with 11 percent. Clinton did better following a July town hall on climate change, but finished in third place, 17 points behind Edwards.
The reality is stark: While it’s hard to find a MoveOn leader or respected progressive blogger who supports Clinton, they can’t (or won’t) stop her.
Several factors may explain why most Netroots leaders are not taking stronger action:
1) They “misunderestimate” the potential hazards of another Clinton White House.
While progressives desperately want a Democratic president, the last Clinton in the White House subverted the progressive agenda. Eight years of Clintonite triangulation caused the Democratic Party to decline at every level of government. Hillary today is surrounded by the same staff and would likely appoint the same corporate types to top jobs as Clinton I, where big decisions were often corrupt and calculated toward moneyed interests.
The toughest brawl Bill Clinton was willing to wage (besides saving his own hide from impeachment) was against the Democratic base: for the corporate-backed NAFTA. Through the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Bill brought us far more media conglomeration than George W. He pardoned well-connected fugitive financier Marc Rich, while leaving Native American activist Leonard Peltier to rot in prison despite pleas from Amnesty International and others.
Hillary’s contribution to Clinton I was her botched healthcare proposal, a corporate-originated “reform” that would have enshrined a half-dozen of the largest insurance companies at the center of the system, and was so convoluted it never came up for a vote.
What we’ve seen of Hillary Clinton in the Senate and on the campaign trail suggests that Clinton II would indeed be a sorry sequel. Today she’s winning the endorsement of Republican CEOs, after having had Murdoch host a benefit for her at the Fox News building in 2006. Just as Bill Clinton’s spine achieved a rare firmness while battling for NAFTA, we recently observed in Hillary a rare passion and firmness on a single issue: her YearlyKos defense of lobbyists, including those who “represent corporations that employ a lot of people.”
Like Bill campaigning as a populist and governing as a corporatist, Hillary’s stump speech proclaims she’ll end the Iraq war in January 2009, while she assures the New York Times of a long-term U.S. military presence inside Iraq. She’s tried to explain away her vote to authorize the war, but avoids mention of her even more dubious vote hours earlier against requiring United Nations approval (or, if U.N. approval failed, a second Congressional authorization) before war could begin. Her overall bellicosity on Iran and the Middle East wins praise from conservative pundits; her “Israel-right-or-wrong” stance could make Christian Zionists blush.
In too much of the liberal blogosphere, history begins with the Florida election theft of 2000, and events before that time seem ancient and irrelevant. There is insufficient grasp of how the Clintons’ rise to power was intertwined with the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council - set up 22 years ago to weaken the power of the grassroots (labor, feminist, civil rights) inside the party. Still on the attack in 2004, the DLC targeted new villains, like MoveOn and the Dean upsurge.
2) They want to be Democratic “team players.”
Matt Bai’s new book on the Democratic Party, “The Argument,” has a passing reference to Hillary Clinton’s courtship of MoveOn leaders in private meetings: “Her charm appeared to have paid off: while MoveOn’s members remained furious at Clinton for voting with Bush on the war resolution, its leaders refused to criticize her publicly.”
In truth, MoveOn leaders have gone beyond refusing to publicly criticize Hillary Clinton - actually finding bizarre excuses to praise her on some of her worst issues, like Iran and Iraq. During the 2006 Democratic Senate primary in New York, it was not a shock that MoveOn’s leadership would not help Clinton’s antiwar challenger, Jonathan Tasini, an under-funded long shot. But what purpose was served by not criticizing her when she brazenly refused to even debate Tasini on the war - or by lauding her for a McCain-like critique of Don Rumsfeld’s war “mismanagement”?
With MoveOn avoiding criticism of Clinton in ‘05, ‘06 and half of ‘07, then when?
Netroots leaders seem almost mute today as Hillary Clinton makes full use of old media/old money advantages. Bloggers who loudly championed the Dean insurgency are oddly quiescent as the candidate of the party establishment gains ground. Have these young insurgents become Democratic Party elder statespersons - team players first and foremost? Has the courtship by Party insiders quieted them?
What animated the meteoric growth of MoveOn and progressive blogs was a crucial insight: that the Democratic establishment was too spineless or clueless to stand up to the Bush agenda. This insight has never been more relevant than now - with Bush an unpopular lame duck and Democratic leaders in Congress offering “little other than one failure after the next since taking power in January,” in Glenn Greenwald’s words.
Ancient history, from 1993-1994, teaches us that loyalty to party should never come before loyalty to principles - and that which Democrats hold power can be as important as whether Democrats hold power. I was a young(er) columnist when Bill Clinton entered the White House and Democrats controlled Congress. We didn’t get promised campaign finance reform; we didn’t get promised investment in the cities; we didn’t even get a vote on healthcare - since the Clintons had undermined and triangulated the 100 Democrats in Congress co-sponsoring a bill for nonprofit National Health Insurance. But we did get NAFTA.
And soon - inevitably and predictably -we got the Gingrich counterrevolution.
3) There’s no Dean campaign to unite them - just “Edwama.”
In the last three months of DailyKos reader polls, Edwards and Obama have combined for more than 60 percent of the vote - as against only 8 percent for Clinton.
Despite being hammered by corporate media, Edwards retains deep Netroots support as he pushes a progressive, populist message that evokes Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 campaign. Fueled by Internet fundraising, Obama has inspired a huge grassroots following, especially among youth and people of color. Both are tagging Clinton as the candidate of moneyed lobbyists. Either - especially Edwards - would likely appoint a cabinet quite different than the corporate Clintonites one would get from Hillary. At this stage, it looks like only Edwards or Obama can beat Clinton; polls of Iowa Democrats show a three-way race among them.
Were Edwards or Obama to drop out of the race today, Netroots support would likely galvanize behind the other. The current 63-8 percent “Edwama” edge over Clinton among Kossacks would become at least a 50-15 percent landslide for Edwards or for Obama. (And it’s hard to argue Clinton is more electable in a general election, since she provokes even more loathing among conservatives than wariness among progressive activists.)
The reality is that neither Edwards nor Obama is dropping out. There is no Dean candidate at the moment.
But that should not prevent Netroots leaders and progressive bloggers from speaking out loudly and clearly about their objections to Clinton’s policies and associations, and the negative consequences of her leading the Democrats in 2008 - in long-term electability, governance and movement building.
* *
Reporting the results of his July straw poll in which Edwama outpolled Clinton 7 to 1, DailyKos founder Markos gloated that he was among the 5 percent who voted “No Freakin’ Clue”: “I’m enjoying the campaigns without any emotional investment in any of them. It’s quite liberating. I wish more of you would give it a shot.”
Here was a key Netroots backer of Dean sitting on the sidelines four years later, encouraging a laissez-faire attitude over who is the 2008 Democratic nominee.
If 2004 taught anything, it’s that it matters mightily who the nominee is. Despite all the organizing, fundraising, phone-banking, canvassing and concertizing, it’s hard to beat even a discredited Republican with a Democratic candidate who comes across as a vacillating and calculating Washington insider.
I was never prouder to be a MoveOn member as when, after Kerry’s defeat, Eli Pariser of MoveOn PAC blasted corporate Democrats in a mass email: “For years, the Party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base. But we can’t afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers.” Eli’s email called for a “bold Democratic vision” - not a phrase typically associated with Hillary Clinton.
If Clinton coasts to the Democratic nomination without need of Netroots support, the “elite Washington insiders” denounced by Eli will be laughing - ad commissions in hand - all the way to the bank.
And they’ll be ridiculing the Netroots as a paper tiger.
Jeff Cohen http://www.jeffcohen.org/ is founder of the media watch group FAIR http://www.fair.org/index.php, former TV pundit/producer, and author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”
I wish I had a dollar for all the print\electronic space that’s been wasted trying to talk about the influence of the ‘netroots’.
It is what it is. Every time the world something goes the way the ‘netroots’ wants, its not a sign of a massive political revolution. And every time something doesn’t go the way the ‘netroots’ wants, it doesn’t mean the netroots is a useless imaginary thing that can’t do anything. Geez, I’m tired of the whole manic-depressive thing about the netroots.
The real problem is this, in order for the ‘netroots’ to have an impact on the Democratic nomination, the Democratic Party would have to be democratic. What’s incredibly obvious by now is that the Democratic Party is not democratic.
Whatever you might think of Hillary, you’d have to admit that the one thing she is is a skilled player and operative at the highest level of the Democratic Party. Having already been at the top of the pyramid once, she knows exactly how it works. You watch her campaign and its very well designed to take advantage of the way the Democratic Party really works. She’s concentrated on getting the backing of the major powers and leaders in the party, and of the major money behind the party. Hillary pretty much ignores the netroots, because she knows that in an undemocratic race like the Democratic Party, it doesn’t count for much.
In the Democratic Party of today, the only impact the netroots could have would be if it could suddenly raise more money for a candidate than the oil industry, the trial lawyers, the nuclear industry, the defense industry, the big pharma companies, the insurance industry, etc, etc, etc. That’s because the only thing that counts in the Democratic Party is money. The whole Party structure is built on that.
Now, if there was really a democratic Democratic Party out there where putting together ideas, small contributions and time and energy could combine to make a powerful race, then the netroots would count for something. But in the Democratic Party of today, where money talks and everyone else walks, the netroots can’t really compete against the deep pockets Hillary has already lined up on her side.
This is why the Kucinich campaign is a waste of time. And why trying to work within the Democratic Party is a waste of time. The Democratic party is a top-down party and the top only listens to big money. If you want a party that the netroots might influence and make a useful contribution to, then it ain’t gonna be the Democrats. As long as the netroots tries to work within the Democratic party, they are always in the trap of trying to outbid the trial lawyers or the oil industry or the other big funders of the party. It ain’t gonna work.
What is predictable about Hillary is that if/when she gets the nomination, and the right begins a continuous and heavy bombardment, she will take step after step to the right to try to placate the fascists who run the corporate media and the rubes in or influenced by the rightwing echo chamber, to no avail. So by the time of the general election I expect Hillary to be to the right of the Republican candidate, while still being pummeled from the right, even though by then she will have alienated everyone to the left of Dick Cheney. It is going to get very ugly for the Democrats, for the nonwealthy of the USA, for the constitution, and for the peoples of the world.
DREAM DEMOCRATIC TICKET FOR 2008? Clinton/Lieberman
Need anyone say more? A sure winner. Experienced and Tough!
Jeff, thanks for jogging our memory of the dreadful eight years of Clinton. I remember screaming abuse at them every single day at the time. For another example, he subsidized the Detroit auto industry for the vague promise to produce more fuel efficient cars “on their own” - which of course never happened.
I wonder how many viewers of Michael Moore’s Sicko will remember the scenes on Hillary who started out with a (flawed) health initiative, then shut up for 7 years, and is now the 2nd highest recipient of campaign donations from HMOs, apparently rewarded for not touching the subject ever again.
get naked and occupy the halls of congress
What Kivals says is true and as the wingnut hate machine cranks up their attacks on Hillary, liberals will side with anything she does to defend her against the right and any real movement for change will shrivel. It’s a “good cop bad cop” scenario that worked well for the corporatocracy before.
If we’re serious, we need to build a real alternative party and support it’s candidate. The Dims aren’t going to run a progressive and we, netroots or not, can’t “take them over.” They are already owned.
Yes, netroots is a paper tiger.
Hillary is a republican, in my mind. She takes money from corporate-owned media giant Murdock; she takes money from health insurance companies. Two bigger enemies to progressives do not exist, and don’t think for a minute that they don’t expect payback.
Just for these two reasons alone, I am anti-Clinton.
And as an aside, it seems to me that this nation has had enough of the Bushes and Clintons in the last two decades. Their power, influence, and enormous wealth is just a concoction of poison for progressives.
Thanks COMarc & kivals for your very astute observations. Rather than just being negative in pointing out the obvious shortfalls of Clinton II, what positive constructive advice do you have? I’m serious here. I’ve seen a huge amount of posts between the two of you, and value highly your styles & opinions. We need workable solutions now, though, so what would you suggest?
The irony in having Jeff Cohen write this article is simply unbelievable. Cohen was in the vanguard of those who did everything they could to smear Ralph Nader in 2004 and convince progressives to vote for Kerry, who was one of the worst DLC-type Democrats to come along in years. To hear Cohen now saying things like “There is insufficient grasp of how the Clintons’ rise to power was intertwined with the corporate-sponsored Democratic Leadership Council - set up 22 years ago to weaken the power of the grassroots (labor, feminist, civil rights) inside the party” and “They ‘misunderestimate’ the potential hazards of another Clinton White House,” with no mea culpa whatsoever for his own shameful and destructive performance in 2004, simply boggles the mind.
Jeff: You and MoveOn are personally responsible for the ascendancy of conservative Democrats (and for the 2004 victory of George Bush, who won largely because he faced a Democrat who was no more than a faux Republican). If Hillary Clinton is a frontrunner now, it’s in no small measure because of millions of progressives like you who sold out your principles and let the Democratic Party know that your vote was theirs no matter how bad a candidate they might field. Until you’re able to see that, admit it, and vow never to repeat it, your main achievement will continue to be undercutting the causes that you say matter the most to you.
The whole so-called progressive movement is a paper tiger. You don’t get to be a progressive unless there is actually PROGRESS.
Sham campaigns and elections in the US are the ultimate Potemkin village.
I’ve been railing against the Clintons and the corporatist duopoly with the Bushes for months now. I have also been loudly speaking in support of Kucinich and the effort to take back the Democratic Party from within. As commentators like Thom Hartmann are fond of pointing out, the way our system is structured makes it really next to impossible for a serious third party effort to get off the ground. We’ve seen serious efforts in my lifetime at third party/independent Presidential candidacies from George Wallace to Ralph Nader, and none came anywhere near getting 270 electoral votes, or more than about 20% of the popular vote. Most never garnered a single electoral vote.
Truly, the way money and politics work in the U. S. at the beginning of the 21st Century makes it next to impossible for a third party to even make it on a majority of the 50 state/DC ballots. The Democratic Party restructured their rules after the McGovern revolution in ‘72 to make sure the “adults” really controlled the nominating process, even as the nominating process became more diffuse. Since the Carter years, no insurgent Democrat has been able to get the Party’s nomination for President. COMarc is generally right about the corporatist structure of the party.
However, I believe that stating the problem can be the beginning of dealing with the problem. We might not have a chance to control who gets the nomination in’08, but we can sure have a big voice in who wins the general election. By following our consciences, and refusing to vote for Hillary if she is the nominee, we send a message that the same-old, same-old is not going to fly anymore. The Neo-Cons spent 20 years tearing down the GOP and remaking it to their liking. Now, I believe we don’t have 20 years to achieve real reform if the U. S. is to survive as a viable, independent country. If the Democrats lose big next year in the face of an incredibly unpopular Republican administration, hopefully the power structure of the party can be weakened enough for a truly progressive grassroots insurgency to move in and take over - permanently.
I will not, under ANY circumstances, be voting for Hillary or Obama next year. I don’t care if the most onerous Rethuglican running is their nominee, I intend to follow my conscience and vote for the Green Party candidate as a protest. Not voting is not an option to me. Registering dissatisfaction with the other candidates by voting essentially for “none of the above” sends a message that is loud and hopefully clear to the establishment. We MUST break the Bush-Clinton-Bush cycle once and for all if democracy is to have a future in the U. S.
Your problem, Mr Cohen, is your affiliation with and expectation from Move-On. Move-On itself does not reflect the base via their own agenda and when we have publications like “The Nation” setting the stage and setting up attacks on Cindy Sheehan, there are few outlets to get the message out there when efforts to actually represent the interests of the majority of Americans are actually undermined by the “progressive Left”.
I noticed this recent campaign anticipating the netroots to fold due to lack of alternative–or the alternative always cast as non-viable. Fool me once….ABB tactics won’t work again. at least not on CommonDreams.
These progressive columnists are running a business themselves, just like Limbaugh and O Reilly. It was in vogue to attack Nader in 2004, and they quickly forget how Kerry caved in within 10 seconds of the vote. They spin the news their own way.
Most blogging is an exercise in navel-gazing. The problem is that blogging doesn’t actually change anything. The only way to change ideas on a mass scale is through collective struggle–not posting one’s rants online (yes, I see the irony of this post).
The ideas in our heads are shaped by our material circumstances. You’re not going to convince a CEO that he should give up his millions for the sake of his workers, the environment, etc… Mere words won’t convince a single mother working two jobs that she should vote for a do-nothing Democrat. However, when you get people organized and they fight for their demands, ideas can change rapidly–especially during the course of the struggle when the ideas in our head butt up against reality. When the authorities crack down on protesters, or politicians betray a movement it opens people’s eyes to the truth in a way that no blog post can ever hope to achieve.
PaulMagillSmith,
Thanks for the kind words. I am extremely pessimistic about the future, particularly with a Republican or Hillary in the White House (acknowledging that “Hillary in the White House” appears far-fetched). I think it likely that the US faces hard times in the next few years and that will create extra pressure on the governing elites. Given the evolution of the Republican Party, and Hillary’s apparent evolution, if such hard times do occur with a Republican, or Hillary, as president we face a very significant probability of hard fascism in the US and more resource wars, quite possibly leading to worldwide thermonuclear war. So I would support an Anybody-But-Hillary movement within the Democratic Party, though I know such a position is not popular with the CD crowd, particularly since an ABH Democrat would most likely allow further consolidation of corporate control.
We need time most of all and ABH might give us that. Real change in the US will require a much greater awareness by the general population that will take time to develop, through the Internet and other means (likely accelerated by economic hardship, if the Internet and free speech survive). And whether one believes that the future lies in the Green Party, or in taking over the Democratic Party, or even in building an international labor movement, time is necessary, and if time is allowed, all manner of social and political evolution is possible.
Truthteller says “…make it next to impossible for a serious 3rd Party effort to get off the ground.”
This is true. It would take an enormous amount of time, organizational skill, committment, media savvy and, of course, money to build an alternative.
It would also take those same things to “take over” an existing party that has no intention of being taken over and, as COMarc so astutely points out, is NOT a Democratically run organization.
I think it might actually be easier to build a 3rd Party. It would free up time/resources that would otherwise be spent fighting the leadership or even having to deal with the likes of the grotesque Hillary Clinton.
The only way the Dems might reform is for them to LOSE.
Time? Let’s see it’s been something like 25 years since Viet Nam. Any real change?
I don’t think time makes any difference at all.
Time? Let’s see it’s been something like 35 years since Viet Nam. Any real change?
I don’t think time makes any difference at all.
Dean proved that money can be raised to wage an insurgent campaign against the power brokers. The power brokers proved that they can take an interloper out through sheer manipulation of the levers of power. In this case, the media bombarding the public with the “Dean scream”, characterizing him as some raging loon. The tactic of framing any true representitive of the people’s interests–Nader, Sheehan–anyone who steps out of line, is a successful tactic.
The candidates running ABH are not as successful at generating excitment or $ because they are compromised in one matter or another.
Clearly Obama should drop out. He’s an arrogant prick with no real political experience and thinks a nice speech about worshiping an “awesome god in the blue states” at the 04 convention actually ment anything in substantive terms. Edwards is the Democratic Party’s best hope. Save Kucinich and Gravel, He has more courage than the rest of the feild combined.
This is truly the land of DENIAL. Nobody on Common Dreams remembers when commenting on any article that we still have massive voter fraud in this country. And, because of the coming on line of even more touch screen-no printout machines, even more fraud in 2008. Thank the Goddess that at least in California, Sec’y of State Debra Bowen has banned the damn things. It is as if there were no voter fraud in the primaries, which is complete baloney. Reports on Democracy NOW! in 2004 of fraudulent voting in the Iowa Caucuses are still in the archives, if you care to look them up.
Yes, the MSM has huge power in persuading people to go their way, but absent election fraud in 2004, never mind 2000, the voters selected the Democrat not Bush. The election day polls of people who just voted showed the vote going for Kerry, but the MSM squelched that fact, and the public accepted the MSM/gov’t line that Bush won legitimately. (Ohio still has 2004 election fraud cases in court.) Yet our government supported a second election in December 2004 in the Ukraine because of the vote of November 2004 having had the same type of problems that we had ourselves in November 2004.
Yes, it is likely Hillary will be the Democratic nominee and even the winner in the general election. Why? Because she is the chosen candidate of those people who fix the elections. How can one tell? Because the big contribution money is flowing to her, and the Republicans are down in total contributions from the past two elections. In other words, the Big Boys are going for her. She is the best Republican-leaning Democrat running, just as Jeff Cohen states so well. And she will govern in the interest of her contributors not the voters.
[Sen. Wyden has sponsored S979, with co-sponsors Kerry & Obama, a bill to make all federal elections 100% by mail, like Oregon’s high turnout system. The companion House bill by Susan Davis is HR1667, with co-sponsors: Barney Frank, Eleanor Holmes Norton, James McGovern and Shelley Berkley. 100% mail voting does not cut out all the possible fraud, but it does cut out intimidation at the polls and touch-screen machines. It would be up to us to properly oversee the handling of the ballots between the USPS and the count to be sure there were no substitutions and that the counting software were legitimate.]
Lots of whining and self-excusing going on here! Take it from this long time Dem activist now a committed Nader voter:
Hillary will be nominated, and the Republicans will again take power in the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office. Bush is right now pulling the anti-war rug out from in under the Congressional Dems, and is moving to lead on the immigration issue. If the Dems were either smart or competent they would have seen this coming.
I’m with truthteller.
I won’t vote for Hillary.
Based on anything like what I’ve seen to date, I won’t vote for Obama.
And I’m sure as hell not gonna vote for anybody the Repugs are likely to nominate.
I’ll most likely vote Green. Call it a protest. Or, call it a misplaced hope that enough other folks will vote Green for the pols to get the message.
It’s still true that, unless you’re part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
It’s interesting how cozy relationships with “the powers that be” are destroying the netroots movements.
In contrast, the people’s localism movement does not develop cozy relationships with any “powers that be”, but rather, we starve them into submission to the public will, by denying them our exchange/association.
Moveon and the other netrooters are playing the same tired old game of triangulation - pretending that they can gain the dual support of two mortal enemies - the people, and the people’s oppressors.
The people don’t need these triangulating schemers.
fuck Moveon.org …it’s an easy way for guilt-ridden bourgeoisie progressives to clear their conscience from a safe distance.
Read about Hillary’s right leaning religious convictions in the current issue of MOTHER JONES Magazine. She is not triangulating. She is a true believer—in power for the elite and in their God-given right to rule.
Dennis for president!
The corporate DLC and the M$M will get Bush-in-drag nominated. On election day I will vote for Dennis Kucinich. If the democrats lose, maybe they will run a more progressive candidate the next time. There are lots of third parties that have been around a long time. We hardly ever hear anything about them. The M$M has way more power than the netroots.
Clinton/Lieberman ?
DREAM DEMOCRATIC TICKET FOR 2008 ?
Unfortunately, that is a formula for more bombing of the innocent.
Given their base, I would expect them to nuke Iran and then the Palestinians, as part of the “war on terror” of course.
C’mon, folks! This simply will not do! Go do something concrete and consequential that will make some small positive difference and stop indulging in the luxury of fatalism. You sound like you’re ready to hand the whole world over to the fashists.
Awaken,
Experience suggests that significant changes often come unexpectedly and dramatically, though that does not mean the likelihood is independent of the presence of destabilizing factors. The same processes repeat themselves for a period, reinforcing themselves and strengthening or disentegrating and losing momentum, and eventually the processes reach a tipping point and dramatic change occurs, in ecosystems, in societies, and in governments. There are many possible sources of dramatic change in the US within the next few years and a tipping point could well be imminent.
No matter how much the Dem leaders want to rig it , the Primaries require winners to get the most votes. So far Hillary has not won any electoral battles with real voters. Hilary is solidly on record for the war machine and for the religion of corporatism and that is why the media love her. The heart of the anti democratic influence is the corporate media. This is the true battleground for the future.
TO THE COMPOST HEAP WITH MOVE-ON. MOVE-ON SOLD OUT THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT (WHICH WAS THE BASIS OF THEIR SUPPORT) MONTHS AGO. THE PREMISE WAS FLAWED . THERE MAY BE A FEW ANTI-WAR DEMOCRATS, BUT THERE WILL NEVER BE AN ANTI-WAR DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Can’t you people understand that Demos and Repubs are the same god damn thing? FUCK!!!! Get it through your fucking heads, breath some fresh air. Fucking Stooges…. prepare to defend yourselves!!!
There is only one political party in the nation now, the Business party. Virtually all national-level political figures are rank and file members. Of course, they craft their statements to appeal to their particular voter demographics but they exist to serve their real constituency. Although attempts are made to disguise this through rhetorical flourish, it becomes patently obvious through the bills and measures that they propose and support.
Netroots was a good idea, but just like everything else, it relies on centralized organizers and “personalities” rather than real activism. Once you start seeing YearlyKos with celebrities bloggers giving keynotes, the shark has been jumped. Even good people can be suborned and enticed into a docile state if one can discern the proper inducements and it isn’t hard to see that the key to their compliance is notoriety and becoming a part of the established political system.
If netroots wants to be something more than another component of contrived public discourse, they need to realize that celebrity and things like ‘controlling the message’ are the enemy of real progress. The Internet is only a force multiplier for real activism on the ground, it can never be a substitute.
I gotta agree with margalo. The easiest example of the truism “follow the money” is now electoral politics. I noticed, if no-one else did, the beginning of the defection of corporate money to the dem. side of the column on or about the November ‘06 election. Carl Rove was pleading at the bleeding when he denied the coming defeat before the election. Capice?
Corporate money does not support principle, conviction, or values, it supports electability. Find out who’s electible and go out and buy them, fer cryin’ out loud. A simple business deal.
I imagine they are all secretly shitting in their pants at the prospect that she might really be UN-ELECTIBLE, but hey, they’ll easily gather in the forlorn Rebuglican survior.
You mean Hillary Bush?
When I show up in that proverbial location and it is frozen over is the day I will vote for this person.
I don’t understand her appeal to the electorate. In my area, I know of no one except the Silicon Valley CEOs who support her. Of course these are the same people who gave megabucks to Bush and off-shored lotsa jobs. Maybe they’re expecting more tax cuts for the rich.
whatever! the aristocrats in america own everything, well not EVERYTHING, they leave 1% for the rest of the 99% of everyone else! what makes anyone think that the office of the president, the most coveted position on the planet, would ever be dictated by the public? voting is a scam. america is a scam. when the current president opened his desk drawer in the oval office after becoming president, he found a letter addressed to him by his father, congratulating him on becoming president. the job of president is too important of a position to be determined by mere commoners. hillary will be the next president and i won’t even have to vote. why? because the free masons want to see her in office. i’ve already been told that if she ran for president, she would win GUARANTEED!!! let’s see if they’re right.
hellodarling, you’re no offense intended, but you’re a twit. If you really think Freemasons run the country, you’re sadly deluded. Freemasons are having trouble keeping their doors open much less secretly running anything. Take your meds, go talk to a therapist, do something.
Clinton I was a republican dressed up in democratic clothes. Clinton II is more of the same. She will extend NAFTA-like trade treaties with more and more countries in order to keep all of us in line for the corporate masters of the US.
I will never, under any circumstances, vote for a republican like Clinton.
Long Live the Pessimists! They alone can see what’s happening. Cynics like Hillary Clinton and Obama control the Democratic party. Behind them are the Pigs at the Trough who are single-minded in their selfishness as well as heavily armed and will put the blast on anyone who makes a peep about the peep. Registered Democrats are indeed stupid enough to nominate Clinton who will then get 50 feet burned off her tail by the pimps of the MSM. We will then be stuck with some knuckle dragging strutz like Giuliani or Romney. As the Bedouin keep noting in the film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, “It is written.”
When her husband was in office, Hilary Clinton never spoke out against criminal embargo Bill led against Iraq — it killed more than 500,000 children.
When George Bush was about to invade Iraq and millions of people around the world were protesting the illegality and immorality of such an act, Hilary Clinton provided support for the invasion. It has now led to the deaths of about a million people, at least half of them children.
That’s the tip of the iceberg of the vileness that is Hilary Clinton.
I just thank God I am addicted to Impotent Rage.
Whew, what a bunch we have on this blog. FREEMASONS! Hellodarling, I really think you need to rewrite your hard drive.
But the Clinton coronation is a major problem to America’s future. I will not argue that she isn’t a Republican, she is, as was her husband. And Kucinich has the ideas, but no major sponsor. Surprised? I’m not. This country is owned by the corporate elites, there is no difference in the parties, yada, yada, yada… But this goofy government cannot last long in its current state. IT has made itself obsolete. What will follow it is anybody’s guess. I have read that the Canadian Maritime Provinces wanted to join the US a few years back, now maybe the Northeastern and Great Lakes States may wnnt to consider joining the Canadian provinces instead. After all, we have the water, maybe a quarter of the world’s fresh water and we let it go tto sea to help some importers? Not a drop should go out the seaway!!
But it is only a dream. It should be on the progressive platform though. WE HAVE THE FRIGGIN’ WATER!!!!
I added the above because there is nothing we can do to block Clinton coronation and if a blogger can bring up the Freemason’s, anything goes on this blog.
Why aren’t Republicans fielding a real strong candidate?
Because they already have Hillary running.
What’s the difference between a Hillary and a Republican? Zero.
I had stuck with MoveOn may be for a year. It became pretty clear to me that they are Dem-enablers, who in turn, are Bush-enablers.
I bailed on MoveOn after they sent out their phony poll about which ‘Out of Iraq’ strategy to support in Congress. I don’t, however, feel that Hillary is a lock. Edwards could win in Iowa. Instead of whining why not get on board with his campaign and do some local volunteering? It would make a difference. From Edwards website blog today…
Yesterday at a Labor Day rally, The United Steelworkers (USW) and the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) endorsed Senator John Edwards for president. Following the Thursday endorsement of Edwards by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners in America, these two endorsements give Edwards the largest bloc of union support so far–combined, more than 1.8 million members and retirees–among any of the presidential candidates.
Neither the Democratic Party nor the US is democratic. It is all about money. Not 1 person = 1 vote, rather $100,000 = 1 vote. If anything, we have the “best democracy money can buy”.
Solution?
1) compete public financing of election
2) term limit
3) instant runoff voting
I’d offer this instead:
1) Whether public financing or no, we need to reign in the MSM. Entertainment, sports, celebrity “news”, etc. should be free game. But the line should be drawn with science, government and politics at the very least. No more propaganda passing as news. Even if we were to limit every candidate to the same $X dollars, some would be given extraordinary air time, whereas others would be totally ignored. As one person accurately concluded: the Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.
2) We have term limits already (at least, for the executive). you mean for Congress also?
3) Range is better than IRV. But I’ll concede that IRV is better than no change at all.
As for Netroots, it certainly has been a paper tiger. Bush, and his father and Reagan before him, have proven that power does indeed issue from the barrel of a gun. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the gun is mightier than the pen. We should be so lucky to be even paper. At least that still qualifies as bricks & mortar.
Paul Bramscher
Reigning in the MSM will only be possible if we have the appropriate laws. But that will not happen until we can elect the right politicians. So, to me getting free and unbiased media is one of the outcomes of other steps I listed above. Of course once we have free and unbiased media, it will help preserve our democracy.
Term limit for Congress will hopefully reduce influce of lobbyists.