Over the next few days, I’m going to point out some quotes from Nick Cohen’s book subtitled ‘How Liberals Lost Their Way‘, and then add some comments of my own. It’s a book that truly infuriated me as no book has in the last year. Why?
Because it’s one of the few books I’ve ever read that I genuinely wished I’d written. Edward Tufte’s books are there as well, but that may have to do with the fact that he can come to Los Angeles, give three canned five hour lectures, and walk away with a million dollars…
Seriously…it’s an excellent book about a subject that’s near and dear to me. Where the hell has my Left gone?? If you read this site, you ought to get the book. If you read this site and are nodding in agreement, get it and give it away as a gift. If you read this site and are pissed off at me all the time for not toeing the progressive line, buy the book, or send me your name and address and maybe I’ll even buy it for you.
Here’s a long quote that sums up the crux of the problem as he sees it…and so do I (from p 203).
..The previous thirty years had seen an estrangement between the classes. If the murderous fantasies of Shaw had vanished, the snobbery of Virginia Woolf was flourishing albeit in a more politically acceptable manner.
With the old factories gone, it became fashionable to talk as if the working class didn’t exist, even though millions lived in humble circumstances with nothing to sell but their labor. A priceless leader in the left-wing New Statesman, which had once seen the working class as history’s vanguard, announced in 2004:
Socially and culturally, most Britons feel more European than ever, being more likely to spend a weekend in Perpignon than in Harrowgate. Many could name the best restaurants in Barcelona and the best clubs in Rome [and] recommend truffle suppliers in rural France.
My colleagues on the New Statesman could indeed advise you on where to stay in rural France, and I may be able to answer your questions about the truffle market if you let me make a few calls, but I’m not sure those who continued to work in menial jobs after the collapse of heavy industry would be as helpful.
Other commentators accepted that the working class lived on, but were obsessed by identity politics and patronized the living daylights out of those who didn’t fit in. They failed to see that while it was commendable and essential to fight racism, sexism, and homophobia, taking account of diverse identities could strengthen the pecking order if they forgot about class.
…
Spotting trends and selling them was turning into a big business in post-industrial societies. But each new wave carried high culture further away from the working class. Rose quoted the opinions of young working-class men of theaters and art house cinemas. ‘Theater goers? Someone well off,’ said one. ‘It’s a class thing.’ Then he searched the Modern language Association of America’s international database of academic books published between 1991 and 2000. He got 13,820 hits for ‘women’, 4,539 for ‘gender’, 1,826 for ‘race’, 710 for ‘post-colonial’, and a piddling 136 for ‘working class.’ He tried the list of periodicals and couldn’t find one academic journal anywhere in the world devoted to proletarian literature, and concluded:
In Tony Blair’s Britain as in many other Western nations, professionals in the creative industries have successfully reconciled bourgeois and Bohemian values. Affluent and ambitious, profit-motivated and style-conscious, they are sincerely committed to women’s equality and genuinely interested in the literature, music, art and cuisines of non-Western peoples. But the boutique economy they have constructed involves a process of class formation where the accoutrements of the avant-garde are used to distance and distinguish cultural workers from more traditional manual workers.
From the theorists in the universities to the pundits in Canary Wharf, the intellectuals weren’t interested in the working class and the working class wasn’t interested in the intellectuals.
You could not have found a more lethal way to kill left-wing politics if you had tried.
Amen.
I have talked about ‘Skybox Liberalism‘ and pointed to articles about Bourgeoisophobia. It’s all the same process in which the intellectual workers manage to convince themselves that they are somehow above and apart from their grimy-fingered parents.
In so doing they sell themselves and their parents down the river.
I’ve asked in the past – in the last decade, what, exactly, has the Democratic Party done for a single mother in Los Angeles making $35,000/year or a working couple with kids making $50,000??
In either case they can barely afford housing, send their kids to mediocre schools, and are two or three lost paychecks or a serious illness from homelessness.
The Democratic Party neither appeals to their interests nor in many cases to their values – since the values that matter to the modern Democrats are all too often those of the folks snacking on exotic appetizers in the skyboxes.
Next, I’ll discuss his dissection of the antiwar Left – anti-World War II that is.
Just… one question, AL:
Once you take away the self-proclaimed Democrats on these boards who, like you, voted for Bush in 2004, are any liberals/Democrats/leftists listening to you at all?
Because I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that this post will be pretty much ignored by everyone who doesn’t currently hate the Democratic party – I doubt we’ll see any major liberal blogger pick up on it.
And insofar as major candidates like Obama and Edwards have put forth plans to address the working-class concerns you describe above, they’ve done it entirely without the “help” of guys like you and Nick Cohen.
I don’t expect to change your mind on this or anything, AL, but I do think it’s important for somebody to stand up and point out that this isn’t an effective or even valid critique of the Democratic party. Rather, it’s a chance for you to work out your anger that the Democrats didn’t play along with your pet war by convincing yourself – and trying to convince the rest of the world – that they’re not real progressives anyway.
Well, you and Christopher Hitchens have fun telling us how f&*ked up we are. We’ll be over here, doing our damnedest to take back the White House and enact, say, solid health care reform, while you’re bitching about the lack of academic treatises on proletariat literature.
Chris’ post (#1) makes a good preface to mine, because it supports my belief that modern partisan “liberals” have no interest in their own intellectual history (quite unlike conservatives and libertarians, who tend to steep themselves in it, as did older generations of liberals) and are almost repelled by it. They prefer to view their “ideology” as being a sort of vague and static thing, in which good, decent people have always stood up to bad people who want to do bad things. They define themselves not by a common set of principles, but by a tribal Will to Power that ignores the past and focuses on the issues of the momentary present.
So they have missed the biggest story in the modern history of their tribe, which is the collapse of the working class politics that was once the entire definition of the left.
Chris: There’s a few of us here who still watch AL. I’ll keep an eye out for this one, but I haven’t read much nonfiction since finishing the dissertation (I’ve become anemic to large words). I’ll put this down on my list for the next time I have a large chunk of introspective time free (sometime in 2008).
When the Left was obsessed with the (extraordinarily dishonest) phrase “working class” it was because they were supporting a different group of mass murderers than they are today.
One need look no further than the current Democratic party stance on the illegal immigration debate for a look at how the modern left has sold out its former self. Unions, once the champions of the American worker, are now selling out their own for a chance at new members and more power, not their indigenous workers rights. Caesar Chavez must be spinning in his grave.
Democrats love to play the class warfare card almost as much as the race card, but they have continued to do little if nothing for the people they claim to champion. The systems and institutions they have put in place, guarantees their positions of power (failing schools, lack of critical thinking, welfare state policies) and guarantees that a class of mostly ignorant low skilled masses will always worship and support them, primarily because they are too stupid to see that they’ve been being fleeced for decades. Your average poor inner city citizen has no clue that the policies championed by their Democratic leaders have done everything to ensure their position in life, and little if anything to help it.
Gabriel: Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair to single out just the democratic party? The Republican party, as example, has been railing at illegal immigrants harming the working class while simultaneously taking money from large corporations that employ such immigrants. Is this shocking? No not really, this is what politics have become in this country. Arguments are skin-deep and immediately betrayed by the blood.
The introspective members of each party are too small. I almost wish that these conversations were contained inside democrats (d and D), independents and republicans (little r only). Once someone has decided that the democratic party is a cesspool by nature, they don’t seem as interested in reform (as per LTEC).
alchemist:
Am I supposed to be shocked by hypocrisy within political parties?
I think its pretty safe to assume that maybe 10 or 20 members of Congress actually understand the harm done by rampant unchecked illegal immigration, the rest appear to be willfully ignorant or on the take.
One more reason for term limits if you ask me. The parties have become all powerful to the point that libertarians or reform minded individuals who want to go and attempt to change things, are forced to cozy up to one faction or another, lest they become all but impotent. What is really needed is a sea change, a mass removal of party hacks from both sides. I’d almost want a lottery to pick our representatives over the current system.
Can anyone think of a candidate running for President that isn’t totally beholden to their paymasters? Whose “ideology” isn’t shaped by opinion polls and the ramblings of unhinged activist donors?
Lets face it, the system is a lame colt that needs to be put down, its just sad that there is no one with a gun that can do it.
The middle class marxists have never forgiven the “Labor Proletariat”
for moving up,socio-economically and out to the ‘burbs,geograhpically.
The Left faced a loss power due to their own success and,more importantly,the economic boom that made this possible.
So “Noble Labor” became “Archie Bunker” almost overnight and were replaced in the caste system by the “Race/Sex/Gender Proletariat”.
The Left is in a never ending quest to liberate the oppressed,until the oppressed are liberated,then they become the new oppresses.
The irony of people who have spent the last 30 yrs denoucning America as a fundamentalist theocracy awash in racism,sexism and homophobia now standing,in various degrees,with a genuinely medieval theocracy that is homicidally racist/sexist/homophobic IS amusing.
But dangerous,to the left and the country as a whole.The left no longer has a grand strategy,it simply lurches from one point to next in a vain effort to avoid the friendly fire of it’s own hypocrisies and double standards.
The left has become a country club for rich white folk who openly despise other white folk not on their socio-economic level and view non-whites as abstracts.
It’s more affluent members see “Labor”,if they see it at all,as cheap nannies,maids and gardeners.
Oh,and this week’s trendy ethnic food,of course,appropriately served by natives in colorful costumes.
The rest are decor.
AL, It seems to me that if the left has done nothing for that single mother in the last decade, it did positive harm to her in the two decades previous to 1980. In fact, it’s arguable that liberal policies and new left cultural radicalism is responsible for her being a single mother in the first place. Fifty years ago (before the sexual revolution and the Great Society) if she were unwed, she would most likely either not have got pregnant or had a husband via shotgun wedding. If she’s single because of divorce, blame no-fault divorce laws and the attitude that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” I’m honestly amazed that anyone conscious in 1979 can call him or herself a liberal. The only political program I can think of that failed more spectacularly than American liberalism in the 70s is Soviet communism in the 80s. And from what I’ve heard, the Democrats want to take us back to the future. A case in point is the “comparable pay” act supported by Clinton and Obama even as we speak. It’s classic liberalism in that it defines all gender pay differences as necessarily resulting from discrimination and “remedies” the “problem” by direct intervention in the economy. And we all remember how well that worked–14% inflation, 8% unemployment, 20% prime interest rate, oil shortages as a result of “windfall profits” tax and the problems caused by wage and price controls (yes Nixon was Republican, but he governed–domestically at least–as a liberal). And those were just the economic problems. There were also epidemics of drug addiction, unwed pregnancy, and venereal disease. America’s international position was so weak a bunch of two-bit savages could hold American citizens hostage for 444 days, and the Soviets decided they had nothing to lose invading Afghanistan. How spectacularly does a political program have to fail before some people abandon it?
“Rather, it’s a chance for you to work out your anger that the Democrats didn’t play along with your pet war by convincing yourself – and trying to convince the rest of the world – that they’re not real progressives anyway.”
Amen. If the One-Armed Liberal-kind of Democrat voted for Bush/Cheney in ’04 (as you indicate), it is they who have abandoned the cause, not the reverse. It is unfathomable to think that any rational person could really believe that it would be to the benefit of their so-called “true progressive” causes to have these jokers at the helm for another 4 years, ESPECIALLY AFTER SEEING WHAT THEY DID WITH THEIR FIRST 4 YEARS IN OFFICE. Unless, that is, the strategy is one of those “post-armageddon phoenix-from-the-ashes” variety’s…in which case count me out as a participant in the self-immolation.
bq. Chris’ post (#1) makes a good preface to mine, because it supports my belief that modern partisan “liberals” have no interest in their own intellectual history (quite unlike conservatives and libertarians, who tend to steep themselves in it, as did older generations of liberals) and are almost repelled by it. They prefer to view their “ideology” as being a sort of vague and static thing, in which good, decent people have always stood up to bad people who want to do bad things.
Glen, ironically, I don’t completely disagree with you… especially once you take away the clear contempt oozing from your words.
My understanding is that American progressivism (if not European progressivism) has always had a significant practical, non-ideological component to it. A hell of a lot of it simply boils down to a bunch of people simultaneously saying: “things are screwed up, and the government can and should do something about it.” At least, I see far more grass-roots sentiment behind William Jennings Bryan’s reform proposals and the New Deal than a calculated, intellectual drive to “level the divisions in the class hierarchy,” or whatever.
Likewise, I’d say the big progressive causes today are dealing with the environment, fixing the health care system and figuring out what to do about runaway economic inequity. (And, Armed Liberal, nota bene: taking even a brief scan of the comments on this site makes it clear that your conservative allies are more than happy to deny that these are even problems to begin with, let alone take steps to fix them.) But Democratic efforts to fix these problems aren’t being driven by some grand unified theory on how the world should be – they’re just serious problems that Democrats are trying to combat by proposing wonky, technocratic, but largely non-ideological solutions.
And that’s ok.
Meantime, yes, conservatives have been drenching themselves in all kinds of ideology, be it grandiose neocon foreign policy visions or Grover Norquist’s “drown government in the bathtub” anti-tax crusades. And conservatives have been more than happy to ignore trivial details (violence and chaos in Iraq are increasing, the Iraqi government has no real coherence, our civil liberties are being eaten out from under us, the deficit’s ramping up again, etc.) in favor of grand mission statements (WE HAVE A MANIFEST DUTY TO OVERTHROW TYRANNY AND CREATE VIBRANT DEMOCRACIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST!).
And look how well that’s turned out.
So yeah, I’m more than happy to say that, as a lefty, I’m just trying to make things better, one thing at a time, rather than proclaiming myself as part of some grand progressive jihad, as Armed Liberal seems to want to do.
Look, there are seem to be alot of complaints about democrats in general, and not a lot of real insight here. REally, I think armed liberal is (has been) trying to start a real discussion on how to reform the liberal party, not bury it.
The great tradition of the mondern democratic party started with FDR, who wanted to make sure everybody had some kind of job to feed their family. I think this was a good idea, but others may disagree. However, I agree with what many have said/hinted at: the modern democratic party has tried to be overtly helpful, like the democratic uncle who gives out money at christmas and hopes people use it wisely. The problem with programs like “The war on poverty” and “Welfare” is that they are so big, the people that need the most help get financial assistance, but nothing to change the ‘cycle of poverty’. Only work/good parenting can make that change.
This is a good example of what’s wrong with the democratic party (and goverment programs) in general. I think on many occaions politicans draft programs with potential benefits, but they’re created by people distanced from the basic problems, who have no experience in schools, poverty, blue collar jobs etc. So alot of this legistlation ends up having the opposite effect.
Gabriel: Agree %100. As a lib on this site, I get attacked preety heavily, my first approach is to point out that both parties are deeply flawed, and work towards solutions that fit (some of) both ideologies. Doesn’t work very well in a hostile audience though…
Fred:_Fifty years ago (before the sexual revolution and the Great Society) if she were unwed, she would most likely either not have got pregnant or had a husband via shotgun wedding._
Yes, the good old days. Where women stayed at home and cooked while the men did all the thinking. Where spousal abuse was ignored because “it’s a family affair”. Where child abuse (physical and sexual) was ignored because the kid “probably did something to deserve it”. We definately have some social dillemas occuring today, but I’d rather not put these genie’s back into the bottle to create your ‘suburbia wonderland’.
Alchemist,
Is there more or less familial abuse nowadays when compared to 50 years ago? I grant you that ignoring/winking at it is a bad thing, but it’s not like single motherhood, welfare dependancy, drug abuse, gang membership, and rampant violent crime are good for kids, or at all likely to prevent the abuse of children/wives/girlfriends/”ho’s.”
That is, things might really have been better in some ways 50 years ago, even granting your complaints. Worse in others, to be sure, but it hasn’t been 100% progress since 1957. Nor is there any reason to think that multi-generational welfare and sexual promiscuity are necessary to prevent abuse or get women into the workplace
Chris:
Well, you’re part of history, Chris, whether you want to be or not. Believe me, I sometimes wish I wasn’t.
Every political position you support is something that evolved out of the past, unless you believe in Panspermia or something. And yesterday this day’s madness did prepare.
Here is a partial time-line for you – it’s very sketchy, but you’d better believe that all of these things are related:
1800s – “Left-wing” ideology takes shape in Western Europe, inspired primarily by the French Revolution. Secular “scientific” socialism wins out over religious socialism, Hegelian mysticism, and anarchism. The new socialism becomes an international movement, and its capstone is Marxism.
The American left rejects Marxism in favor of the Anglo-Saxon tradition: Democracy, political and economic liberalism, and philosophies like Pragmatism and Utilitarianism.
c. 1890 – Russian Marxists, beginning with Georgi Plekhanov, struggle to reconcile Marxist theory with Russian reality, in a country where capitalism is severely underdeveloped and a proletariat almost does not exist.
c. 1900 – Lenin resolves this problem with the notion of a revolutionary “vanguard”. He invents the modern professional revolutionary, who has no working class experience even if he comes from a working class background.
c. 1914 – World War I demolishes international socialist solidarity, forever. German Marxists support the Central Powers. Italian Marxists like Benito Mussolini support the Allies. Contrary to widely-held belief, the overwhelming majority of Russian leftists are pro-war, including the left wing of the Bolshevik Party.
c. 1920 – Having seized power, the Bolsheviks suppress all democratic elements of the Russian Revolution, including the worker’s soviets. At the same time, they claim that the soviets are actually the ones running the country.
In the west, labor unions become the first institutional enemies of Bolshevism. Governments (except maybe the French) and businesses regard communism as a benign and temporary phenomenon.
c. 1925 – The so-called Soviet Union ruthlessly attempts to subordinate European socialists, under the Comintern. European socialists rebel, beginning to renounce revolution and class struggle. The German SDP becomes a major enemy of the Soviet Union.
The Soviets rally left and right wing malcontents in Europe against the hated Social Democrats and “Revisionists”. In Germany, they play on resentment against the Versailles treaty. The Soviet Karl Radek calls this anti-SDP alliance “National Bolshevism”.
c. 1930 – National Bolshevism spawns National Socialism, drawing on worker’s parties, monarchists, nationalists, and pseudo-Marxists like Josef Goebbels.
In Italy, Benito Mussolini renounces Marxism in favor of Fascism, in which the dictatorship of the proletariat is replaced by an all-powerful state that supposedly resolves all class struggle – more of a semantic change than anything else.
c. 1950 – In the aftermath of World War II, European leftists come to the sobering realization that Nazism and Fascism were popular movements, not capitalist-militarist conspiracies. Ignoring the socialist precedents of fascism, they conclude from this that the working class is not to be trusted without firm leadership by leftist intellectuals. It becomes fashionable to think that huge numbers of people are insane, and schools are filled with personality tests. The era of “The Authoritarian Personality” begins.
c. 1970 – A new generation of American leftists openly turn against the workers, who are now characterized as proto-fascist rednecks and hard-hats. The new proletariarians are the Black Panthers, militant feminists, and – above all – white middle-class radicals. Rather than abolishing class distinctions, the New Left seeks to fan every grievance and widen every difference.
Distressed by the impotence of Americans liberals in the face of Soviet and radical aggression, ex-Marxist leftists like Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, and Irving Kristol join with hard-line Democrats in the movement that would become “Neo-Conservatism”.
c. 1980 – Huge numbers of workers defy their unions and vote for Ronald Reagan, as they did for Richard Nixon.
Today – Apparently, the new mavens of the American left have decided that the blue-collar worker no longer exists at all, and must be replaced by illegals. Their new friends are businesses that hire illegals, bust unions, and donate money to the Democratic Party.
The left has come to stand for stand for choice, that is for death, for medicine as a business of killing.
It was not always like that, though the trend was always in that direction. (High rates of abortion, supported and even enforced by the government are normal Communism.)
The change has flowed into Left attitudes to the value of life in general, with the right to life now depending not on humanity (which by itself is worthless) but on quality of life. Left sentiments on right, humanity and privilege have changed accordingly. Once it might have seemed dubious to the left to eliminate people with Down syndrome preemptively with systematic abortion, but not any more.
It’s not stopping. There’s never any end to the problems that you can solve once you accept the killing of innocent and defenseless human beings as a valid method, and put higher quality human beings in a privileged position over their inferiors.
It’s because people whose path through life depends on a university education and by implication on control of their fertility have a class interest in approving any means that will give them what they want. It’s no deeper than the self-interest that the owners of Negro slaves had in defining human beings as property.
If your movement’s base of support is murderously selfish people in love with their own privilege, people who would literally kill rather than shop at Best and Less and buy mayonnaise in extra-large jars, and your whole moral tendency is to support and empower that deadly selfishness and that love of privilege, your moral universe has changed, and nothing more is needed to justify skybox liberalism.
This is where the modern Left is.
Doesn’t this imply a class-based struggle, with elites looking down on the less educated “brute muscle” of the pro-life movement (I am quoting from a Mother Jones report than stuck in my memory for its withering expressions of class contempt) “getting exercised” over abortion? Yes. That’s what has followed.
Glen-
Thanks for the lecture, but for the most part you’re just backing up my assertion that:
bq. My understanding is that American progressivism (if not European progressivism) has always had a significant practical, non-ideological component to it.
Of course, your rant is only focused on European history right up until the 1970’s, where you bring out such delightfully non-biased gems such as:
bq. A new generation of American leftists openly turn against the workers, who are now characterized as proto-fascist rednecks and hard-hats.
Spare me, please. Look, you can play six degrees of separation with anything, but there’s a huge difference between being aware of a political or social theory, being influenced by that theory, and being a follower of an ideology. Unfortunately, even though half the conservatives I talk to consider themselves self-taught students of history, many of them seem completely unable to grasp that distinction.
Moreover, by continuing to spew truly weird stuff about Democrats busting unions and the like, you’re just reinforcing what I said earlier: that this board is chock full of people who hate the Democrats’ guts, and that AL’s supposed “reform-minded comments” simply give y’all a chance to shoot even more bile around.
I have a problem with this:
_With the old factories gone, it became fashionable to talk as if the working class didn’t exist”_
This can only be true if we equate the working class with the factory worker. Long before the factories were gone, Southern England had developed a post-industrial economy based on finance, trade, shipping, insurance, etc. Amidst this economy was a working class of clerks, chimney sweeps, maids, seamen, etc. They existed before the factories closed and they exist today.
Marx made it fashionable to romanticize the factory worker. I think this narrow focus is a large part of the identity issue.
#16 from Chris: “Look, you can play six degrees of separation with anything, but there’s a huge difference between being aware of a political or social theory, being influenced by that theory, and being a follower of an ideology. Unfortunately, even though half the conservatives I talk to consider themselves self-taught students of history, many of them seem completely unable to grasp that distinction.”
OK, let me try with this example.
The new left was always aware of “actually existing socialism” (or a sanitized interpretation of it), it was sometimes or often influenced by it (for example in deciding which western military moves were “provocative”), but except for small numbers of hard Marxists it was not made up of followers of the Soviet ideology. On issues like conservation of the environment, where Communism’s record is about as bad as possible, it’s easy to see that what the Right is often pleased to damn as “socialism” is a different animal, nothing like what “actually existing socialism” was (and in China what it still is). It is not a matter of the modern Left moderating its demands because it lacks the power to get everything that it wants, rather those merely aware of and sometimes influenced by Marxism want different things from followers of Marxism.
Chris –
No, I will not spare you. Read the Port Huron Statement. Look at the election campaigns of 1968 and 1972, especially the 1968 Chicago convention that millions of horrified Americans watched on television. Look at what Democrats were talking about in the 1940s, and look at what they talk about today.
Pretending that Democrats still stand for the same things “they’ve always stood for” is a bullshit dodge, and it’s the reason why you’re repeating a whole bunch of history that you didn’t learn in the first place.
European history, which you are into up to your neck. There was a time when American liberals knew the difference between themselves and people who despise liberalism, democracy, and freedom. They knew what “good” things were because they knew their values and their history.
I think part of the problem is that the abandonment of the manual working class by the parties of the Left – the Labor Party in Australia and the UK, the Democrats in America – has not been matched by an ability or willingness of conservative parties to take over the role of champions of the proletariat.
In Australia, you could see this in the last federal election: Mark Latham essentially dumped the working class for the Green vote, which is in line with new Left values, but John Howard went only as far as electoral / political tactics suggested in taking on the mantle of the champion of the loggers and other manual workers.
If your own political elite team dumps you and the other team won’t pick you up, you’ve got a problem getting adequate political representation.
In America, I’ll quote from David Frum in National Review Online:
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Immigration Thoughts
With the immigration * compromise * in the Senate, President Bush and the Senators have detonated the slow-motion trigger on a Republican debacle in 2008. Let’s count the ways:
1) The typical (median) American worker has seen his income stagnate under George W. Bush. Immigration is not the only reason for this wage stagnation, but it is certainly one of the reasons. With this immigration bill, the GOP is telling hard-pressed workers: Go look to somebody else to help you.
2) As complicated as this immigration deal is, it rests on a simple compromise: The Democrats get the amnesty they want – in exchange for the Republicans getting the guest-worker program they want. By identifying the guestworker program as the GOP’s highest immigration priority, the deal also identifies the GOP as a party that in the crunch puts employers’ interests first.
That hits the nail on the head.
And what progressive causes would that be Capotal C?
Would it be the attempt to exclude White Males from hiring, as the MA Dept of Labor head spoke of recently? Perhaps the cause of outlawing the single family home, or regulating how many squares of toilet paper used in the bathroom, or what sort of light bulb the little people may buy?
There is no “cause” that progressives endorse that do not meet one or more of these critieria:
1. Limit/block upward mobility of middle and working class whites so Progressives and their heirs maintain their sinecures. Affirmative Action which blocks middle/working class whites and substitutes non-threat Blacks and Hispanics are a good example. Now that Whites are in a minority in California will we get Affirmative Action? Of course not Progressives define Middle Class Whites as evil racists (excepting themselves of course as “enlightened”).
2. Punish/control social lives of ordinary working people. Light bulbs, toilet paper rations, anti-car, home owning initiatives from the tragically hip and socially powerful.
3. Anti-white racism. Every political and ethnic identity is good, except that of the traditional Anglo patriotic identity. I can wander into any Democratic caucus and find the Lesbian and Gay, Black, Latino, Women’s, Handicapped, etc. caucus but there’s nothing for me. Dems have told me for ages that straight white men should just drop dead (unless they are rich and famous and powerful) so my response is: you first.
4. The replacement of the largely White populace with a Latin American one, to maintain the hereditary hold on power by the rich elite. Yes the Teddy Kennedy attempt (along with Senate Reps like McCain and Graham) to replace America with Mexico is largely driven by the hatred and fear that upward mobility ala the Greatest Generation will threaten the hereditary privileges of say Barbara Ehrenreich’s son, who is a big cheese at NPR.
Progressive causes are all about maintaining and enforcing the control over the working and middle classes, with the obvious hatred you Progressives have for us ordinary folks. I am neither trendy nor hip, and certainly not tragically so. I well understand the hatred Progressives have for my very existence, and return it ten fold.
Progressives have always had a great dose of that: Sanger and TR and Earl Warren all helped get California’s eugenics/sterilization laws written because they despised the ordinary and “lower classes.” The bankruptcy of Progressivism can be seen in Teddy Kennedy collaborating with Lindsay Graham. They are a corrupt nobility and those leaders are the enemies of people like me.
I am a populist. I suspect most of America’s working and middle class are, which are still mostly white (and we understand you nobles want to replace us with compliant Mexicans). You are unlikely to be happy when the Populist revolt gets going, since the Graham-McCain-Kennedy lot are all the same in the end and deserve political oblivion. I would prefer Dems to be the home of the populists but that party is structurally incapable of reform; by contrast the Reps are openly courting populism as an antidote to the nobility laden Progressives.
Glen is quite right. See the movie “Joe” with Peter Boyle. Perfectly encapsulating the hatred you Progressives have for people like me.
I am not blind to the dangers of populism either. But an elite openly hating the people leads to no other path.
To answer the rhetorical question of the OP, one reason that the lower-middle class is two paychecks away from disaster is that it often doesn’t have health insurance when illness strikes. The liberals haven’t been very effective in remedying the situation, I suppose because of the influence of the hugely bloated insurance industry on both “centrist” Democrats and, through a vicious and inaccurate PR campaign, the electorate. But they tried. The right has not. Another reason that the lower-middle class is two paychecks away from disaster is misuse of debt, and what opposition there was to the recent Bankruptcy Bill, which all but guarantees profitability for banks that encourage excessive credit card debt, came from the left.
Now, I agree that there has been an estrangement based on interest group and identity politics. I think these various issues should be judged independently. The elite has been more tolerant of homosexuality for some time—although that’s an opinion that is rapidly spreading through the culture at large. I’m not ashamed, as a liberal, of standing against a return to sodomy prosecutions. On the other hand, the whole “comparable worth” issue dear to many liberals seemed to me to be a self-confirming denigration of manual labor—if that sort of work was really overpaid relative to “pink-collar” work, nothing was stopping the clerks and admin assistants from becoming truck drivers.
Sorry, but this is significant. I’d like to quickly note that I’m adding this to my short list of agreements with AJL.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
bq. No, I will not spare you. Read the Port Huron Statement. Look at the election campaigns of 1968 and 1972, especially the 1968 Chicago convention that millions of horrified Americans watched on television. Look at what Democrats were talking about in the 1940s, and look at what they talk about today.
Here let me translate this argument into a more direct form:
“SDS! Student radicalism! Boo! Scary! Vague but unarticulated charge that the Democrats have lost their way since the days of FDR!”
(Of course, since Glen explaining why Democrats have lost their way would probably involve a long, profoundly wrongheaded rant about why the War on Terror is exactly like WW2, we’re probably just as well of having dodged that bullet.)
bq. Pretending that Democrats still stand for the same things “they’ve always stood for” is a bullshit dodge, and it’s the reason why you’re repeating a whole bunch of history that you didn’t learn in the first place. European history, which you are into up to your neck.
Really? There’s a bit of European history where a massively incompetent boob brashly took his country to war, grossly mismanaged said war, undercut his country’s civil institutions and economic well being, all of which was followed by his political party’s complete loss of power through peaceful, democratic means?
Do tell!
bq. There was a time when American liberals knew the difference between themselves and people who despise liberalism, democracy, and freedom. They knew what “good” things were because they knew their values and their history.
Glen, I agree with you: that time is right now for American liberals. When American conservatives kick George Bush out of their club, maybe I’ll welcome y’all back to the ranks of those who know “the difference between themselves and people who despise liberalism, democracy, and freedom”.
Jim:
Incidentally, how many people here have seen that movie? It’s not a great movie, and doesn’t seem to rate much show on the cable movie channels, but it was made in 1970 and it faithfully reflects the new attitudes of the time.
A businessman has a run-in with the hippie boyfriend of his hippie daughter (Susan Sarandon, no less) and winds up killing him. Afterwards he meets and befriends a blue-collar hardhat named Joe. Joe is a dumbass racist with a beer gut and a basement full of guns, and Joe wants to kill some hippies, too.
Together they go on a tour of the counter-culture, with lots of drugs and sex (psychedelic sequences were obligatory in all early 70s films, as if there were some kind of law) and finally hit the mother-lode with a whole houseful of hippies, where the businessman accidentally shoots his own daughter.
It’s actually not as bad as it sounds – or as good as it sounds, if your tastes run to that sort of thing. Poor hippies oppressed and murdered by beer-swilling, flag-waving, gun-toting rednecks. That moral was considered very profound back then, and still is.
It perfectly stereotypes all the things that the new liberal despises, all of which happen to be associated with working class Americans. What an unfortunate coincidence.
Glen, I agree with you: that time is right now for American liberals. When American conservatives kick George Bush out of their club…
One of the major complaints that conservatives have is that liberals regard Bush as the “enemy,” while ignoring the 7th-century theocrats who, unlike Bush, genuinely “despise liberalism, democracy, and freedom.”
Whatever Bush’s faults–and he has many–opposition ot freedom and democracy is not one of them.
So Chris–I think you’ve made Glen’s point for him.
Well said Rob. BDS. Guys like Chris have genuinely no idea who the real enemy is. Isnt it enough to oppose Bush’s policies without projecting all these conspiracies of fascism on him? Particularly when we are in a knock down fight with an idealogy that is as fascist and anti-liberal as you could ask for? Seriously, if you had to invent the polar opposite of everything liberalism has ever stood for, could anyone have invented something more accurate than Al Qaeda and Islamo-Fascism in general?
But you see, Bush is a great deal more dangerous to what liberals perceive as important than Osama bin Laden. It’s a fantasy of conservatives that Commander Codpiece and his wiretapping program, suspension of habeas corpus [Padilla], Gulagtánamo, etc. are our only defense against imposition of Sharia Law. But that’s rubbish. The Taliban are not going to invade the USA in force, via the Mexican border or otherwise. A less hysterical assessment of the risks, minus the cloud of Bush Devotion Syndrome, suggests that Bush (probably, more accurately, Cheney) are illiberal far out of proportion to any improvement in national security.
AJL,
It’s a fantasy of liberals that Gitmo is a “gulag” or that any of Bush’s measures are actually dangerous.
Granted, that doesn’t mean I approve of all of them. As you know, I agree about Padilla’s right to a normal trial, and I share concerns about wiretapping. But Bush is hardly “illiberal,” and disagreement about assessment of the risks and appropriate responses doesn’t justify labling Bush as an enemy of freedom generally.
So again, we’ve moved back to a R’s vs D’s debate. What I was hoping to get out of this post is debating flaws within the ‘current’ democratic party, and how to move back towards an effective, congizant politics. Instead, I’m getting alot of “Well, liberals suck (period).” I keep writing out responses to some of the ludicrous things people have written about ‘liberals’, and then realize that the ensuing debate recreates that ‘us v. them’ mentality. If I get complaints from people who don’t like the party, and have never liked the party, and will never like the party, not sure how effective that communication is.
For example, Jim: have you ever thought the democratic party was a worthile endeavor? I don’t mean now, I’m talking historically here. If not, I’m unsurprised. If yes, that actually puts us into a good discussion of where many conservatives feel democrats could accomplish. (on the flipside, I have my own thoughts on what conservatives could accomplish that democrats are not proficient at).
AL, I am deeply passionate about this subject, and if I was in california I would try to buy you a beer somewhere. But in this audience, I’m not exactly sure what this discussion accomplishes. (Other than dropping bait between two schools of sharks).
The American Whig party spent thirty years in opposition to the domestic and martial law abuses of the Jackson administration and what did they ever get to show for it? Jackson never got reelected during their watch. I’m sure the Democratic party can likewise keep Bush from getting reelected again. But can they develop an identity to accomplish anything else?
As for Bush the illiberal, there is the matter of the prescription drug benefit, federalization of education, immigration reform, increased federal spending and the Wilsonization of foreign policy, including a focus on AIDS relief in Africa.
alchemist, I don’t consider myself a liberal or a democrat, but I have voted for Bill Clinton, Gore, Obama and Dick Durbin. I am open to voting for Hillary or Obama in ’08, but foreign policy might be the biggest issue, but that might best be saved for the next thread.
Generally, I would like to see the Democratic party move away from the underlying economic assumptions of the New Deal. Health care insurance needs to be affordable for everyone, not just union employees of legacy companies. That means portability and redistribution. The Democrats seem to be stuck on the notion that the labor unions negotiated good deals with major manufacturers and assume that expanding that to Wal*Mart and other large businesses is the right approach. But half of workers are employed by small businesses, many of whom might be be happier working there.
On the redistribution side, the larger the shift, the bigger the bill. I agreed with those that thought the Democrats should have taken Bush’s offer to increase the payroll tax on upper-incomes in exchange for private accounts. Unless the entitlement program can be brought under control, I don’t think any major health care initiative will be affordable.
What else? Affirmative action resources should be redistributed from relatively affluent minorities to the less affluent.
These policies seem to be consistent with the overall goals of equality and using the state to minimize the excesses of the market. Who could disagree? Well, organized labor, AARP, the Civil Rights movements . . .
Alchemist #12,
I think Rob responded to your response to my post at least as well as I could have. I really have nothing to add to it.
#30: It’s not just a matter of “liberals suck.” We actually tried to run the country the way liberals want in the 1960s and 70s and it seems to have failed miserably given the problems I mentioned above. The question is, can the liberal commenters here either a) prove, or at least provide evidence, that those problems did _not_ result from liberal policies and/or new left cultural radicalism or b) show that liberal policy recommendations have changed enough, or the situation in the country has changed enough, that liberal policies will not cause the same or similar problems now? I’m talking about the economic problems, the perception of American weakness that led to the hostage crisis, and large spikes in social ills like crime, drug use, sexual promiscuity, unwed pregnancy, and divorce. I realize that all those social problems have, unfortunately, survived almost thirty years of conservative government and they can never be eradicated completely, but why will the policies and attitudes responsible for their prevalence not make them even worse than they are? Or, again, has liberal policy recommendations or the social situation in America changed so that liberal policies and attitudes will _not_ aggravate the problems they caused in the 1960s and 70s? If so, how?
alchemist:
As a step towards that, why not ask why we have these particular political parties at all? Nothing in the constitution requires or guarantees the existence of a Democratic or Republican Party.
Of course we need something like parties, for the same reason that we need state and local government, a free media, an independent judiciary, and social institutions that are not under the control of the government. These things mediate between the individual and the State, and without them democracy would be a nightmare.
Suppose we scrapped the existing parties and created a whole set of new ones, each of which represented a particular broad interest, or different approaches to domestic and foreign policy. The voters could then choose according to their current moods, and would have some sort of vehicle for every mood.
None of these parties could be judged to be better or worse than any other party, since they are simply choices that the people can make. None could be judged to be morally superior or inferior. Assuming that all Americans have a right to live as they choose while being equal under the law, a farmer’s or worker’s party cannot be better than a business party. An isolationist party and an interventionist party are likewise just vehicles. Even an unpopular and marginal party would still be useful, as it would keep the interests and ideas it represents in play.
I’m not suggesting that this would work (it wouldn’t) but do you agree that, ideally, this is what political parties ought to do?
The only problem such a party could represent to the nation as a whole is if the party refused to subordinate itself to the system, and existed for its own sake, after the manner of a religion. If a party simply can’t get its candidates elected, that would be a problem for the people who support that party, not for everybody. If a party claims a monopoly on morality or good government and seeks to sabotage anything it does not control, then everybody has a problem.
In short, I think the Democratic Party is everybody’s problem right now. The rest of us need not ask that Democrats abolish themselves, or even reform their ideas, only that they stop putting the interests of their party ahead of everything else.
Since every criticism of either party is always answered by the claim that the other party is the same or worse, and everything degenerates to a war of anecdotes, here are some reasons why the Democratic Party is a problem, without reference to any particular issue:
1. People who think that the United States has no right to advance its own interests are much more likely to choose the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. This is not because the Democratic Party “stands” for the idea that America is nothing special, but since the Sixties history has made it a resort for those who think that way, and many who think that way now hold leadership positions. MOST Democrats do not think that America is a greedy, bigoted nation that exploits others and threatens world peace, but the number of Democrats who think precisely that is higher than it has ever been. The influence of people who want to exercise power over a country they don’t like leads to some bizarre results.
2. People who are hostile to traditional cultural and religious norms (not merely being gay or atheist, but militantly so) are overwhelmingly likely to choose the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. Such people generally view politics as the repository of their moral and ethical values, and they tend to view their political enemies in moral terms. While not all Democrats are of such a mind, those who are tend to put the party at the center of their moral universe.
3. Socialist parties have always languished in the United States, as many generations of socialists have sorrowfully noted. While marginal parties still exist, large numbers of people who belong in such parties are in the Democratic Party instead.
4. Since the Sixties, the Democratic Party has been saddled with a romantic view of less-than-peaceful protests and street politics. In other times and places, attempts to exert political influence by a public show of force have been recognized as undemocratic, if not communistic or fascist. AGAIN, not all Democrats like the angry protesters, especially since Democrats have been the number one political casualties of protests. The Sixties protesters destroyed Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, not Richard Nixon.
I’d go on (and on and on and on) but this is rather beside the point of whether or not the Democratic Party does a good job of representing labor. I say it doesn’t, just as it no longer pays any attention to the farmers and the rural Americans it once championed. It no longer represents the regional interests of the South as it once did, either, and one can admit all of these things without condemning the party itself.
Actually, I always thought health care was the best example of exactly what’s wrong with the current Democratic party.
What are the two alternatives Dems push for health care?
1) Force businesses to provide more/better health care (the stick it to big business approach).
or
2) National Health Care (Socialism R Us)
What I never see is the ‘use government power to help fix things’ approach.
What I always expected out of the Dems was something along this line:
Break the employer<->healthcare link, why are employers providing this anyway?
Force employers to take the portion of money they spent on per employee health care and add it to the paychecks. (Should only be temporary, once the market adjusts to the new numbers, government can take its finger off this, would be corporate revenue neutral)
Make the health insurance industry more like the auto industry, you’re required to have the insurance, but it’s up to you where you get it.
Add regulations to prevent companies from cherry picking healthy customers or overpricing sick ones.
Cover poor (or temporarily unemployed) people with health vouchers (ala food stamps) that can be used by said people at will to buy the insurance of their choice.
Mostly free market (just sets some ‘bumper’ style regulations and lets the market compete within the limits). Promotes individual freedom. Limited wealth redistribution to aid the needy without attempting to control them.
Why don’t I ever see anything like this proposed out of the Dem party? All we get are the ‘stick it to big business and to hell with poor people’ or the ‘we like bloated inefficient government’ approaches.
What’s wrong with the Dems that this kind of thing never even shows up on the radar? I’d like to see more creative capitalism and less knee-jerk socialism please.
#35:
Democrats have long ago abandoned reason. They are the mystics of our time, the dictators in waiting. They know what is best for you, they feel what is best for you, the tell you what is best for you.
To me it isn’t the idea of “Democrats/Liberals suck” so much as what Chris wrote above:
My understanding is that American progressivism (if not European progressivism) has always had a significant practical, non-ideological component to it. A hell of a lot of it simply boils down to a bunch of people simultaneously saying: “things are screwed up, and the government can and should do something about it.”
I do see alot of this very same kind of ‘thinking’. On the surface it doesn’t look too bad – the Dems seem responsive and problem-centered, with their hearts in the right place – but once the surface is scratched one sees the glaring problems.
sans Ideology, what guides the decisions any group makes? What the Modern Left has accomplished by their post-Ideological stance has weakened that party’s defenses against popular delusions, opened them to promoting charismatic/semi-insane would-be dictators, and has embraced mob-rule as a virtue. All of these are antithetical to Liberal values as grounded in the historical American or European experience.
What’s Left is not given to self-reflection, apparently, and is potentially quite dangerous to itself and the rest of humanity.
#35 from Treefrog: “I’d like to see more creative capitalism and less knee-jerk socialism please.”
Reasonable.
–
#36 from Gabriel:
“#35:
Democrats have long ago abandoned reason. They are the mystics of our time, the dictators in waiting.”
Unreasonable.
I know who I’m afraid of and it’s not the Americans. And yes, Democrats are Americans.
The “mystic” menaces of our time would be Muslims.
Real authoritarianism on the rise would be Red China.
Americans who vote Democrat aren’t either of these threats.
The lengthy rant on mystics is irrelevant.
#37 from urthshu: “sans Ideology, what guides the decisions any group makes?”
Men are guided by material interest, custom (of which religion is the taproot), and sometimes divine guidance. (Of course, scrap that last one of you don’t believe in any deities.)
Day to day, the strongest of these is material interest, especially class interest. Without “government intervention” on a massive basis, slave-owners as a class were never going to accept the abolition of slavery. Nor are those with an interest in redefining unborn human beings as not “life” or less than human going to stop pressing for what’s in their collective interest.
Custom gives us things like languages, numbering systems, and calendars, with dates such as “Christmas” marked on them. It also gives us social practices such as jihad. Someone once said that a rational army would run away. It’s custom that gives the defenders of the city the irrational or a-rational will to stand together that allows civilization to survive. Leonidas and companions at the Warm Gates embodied the triumph of custom over personal material interest. Unfortunately, so did Mohammed Atta on the plane.
Abraham Lincoln, who I admire and who I stole my three factors view from also thought there were better angels of our nature directly active in the struggle to end slavery, and I think this is also true with the pro-life fight today. I’m not interested to argue if these strong desires, sometimes strong enough to trump both interest and custom, have a purely Darwinian origin or not. We will all have our own opinions on that.
#37 from urthshu:
bq. To me it isn’t the idea of “Democrats/Liberals suck” so much as what Chris wrote above:
bq. My understanding is that American progressivism (if not European progressivism) has always had a significant practical, non-ideological component to it. A hell of a lot of it simply boils down to a bunch of people simultaneously saying: “things are screwed up, and the government can and should do something about it.”
bq. I do see alot of this very same kind of ‘thinking’. On the surface it doesn’t look too bad – the Dems seem responsive and problem-centered, with their hearts in the right place – but once the surface is scratched one sees the glaring problems.
I see a lot of this (“things are screwed up, and the government can and should do something about it”) too, and basically I agree with it.
My objection to the Left is that it has wedded itself to a bunch of bad policies and to social formations that support them with no end or remedy in sight, and the ills resulting from the bad policies are severe, and we’ve got a snarl, where some bad practices, like coercive political correctness make others harder to remedy.
Can we just live with the undesirable policies of the left? If we kill our children, gut our economy, dump our traditional and irreplaceable allies (the British and Americans, as well as New Zealanders and Canadians when available), and kow-tow to our implacable Islamic enemies, will all be well, or if not well then “good enough”? I don’t think so.
What I would like to say to the Left, in the Labor parties and the Democrats, is: “reduce your price”.
Sometimes I want to kick out the conservatives (Liberals, National Party, whatever) because they’ve gotten lazy, corrupt or silly. Left people, please make the price of supporting you not so high. Do not demand in effect that I have to be OK with abortion mills, euthanasia and things like the anti-American hatred of people like Mark Latham. Reduce your price, and you can have my custom, at least sometimes.
But the left will not reduce its price, because it wants to win on its own terms, just as I want my (pro-life) side to win on our terms.
#37 from urthshu: “sans Ideology, what guides the decisions any group makes? What the Modern Left has accomplished by their post-Ideological stance has weakened that party’s defenses against popular delusions, opened them to promoting charismatic/semi-insane would-be dictators, and has embraced mob-rule as a virtue. All of these are antithetical to Liberal values as grounded in the historical American or European experience.”
Is that really right?
Are the anti-democratic foreign leaders the Left favors really so charismatic, and is that really why – too often – they get a pass? Just because they are charismatic, and the Left, being post-ideological, is open to being won over by anyone who looks and sounds good?
I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s been happening like that at all.
Out of Pope John Paul II and Yasser Arafat, who would you say would better fit the role of the good-looking natural charmer and charismatic leader? But who had the Left running shepherd for him all the time?
Anti-Western and specifically anti-American terror leaders have been supported pervasively because they were anti-Western, anti-American, anti-freedom and because they were forces and faces of terror, and not because they were all so charismatic.
While the hard Left continues to have this bias, it is too costly to support it even sometimes.
I would submit that, without a coherent ideological purpose, or vision, to work towards, you’re reduced to Chris’s group of people standing around looking for stuff to fix. Government in search of a mission.
Add democracy to that and you get a group of people looking around for stuff to fix that will get them elected.
Add some time and that turns into a number of groups of one issue people loosely allied under a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back’ deal.
Also, without ideology you have no guidelines to answer the questions ‘How big does the problem have to be to merit government attention?’ and ‘How much money is it worth spending on the problem?’ (and a lot of the time that’s trying to balance money against some intangible like life, freedom, the environment, etc).
Add in the inevitable extremists who are willing to pay any cost and intrude anywhere their pet issue comes up, and who are always the ones willing to spend the most time/money promoting ‘solving’ that problem and you get…
A loosely knit coalition of one issue extremists loosely allied in a ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back’ trying to grab the biggest share of the government pie for their pet issue that they can while still staying electable.
The dems aren’t quite that far gone but they’ve been trending this way for some time.
Sorry, without an ideology you have no defense against the extremists (those WITH ideologies) from taking over the shop. It’ll happen simply because you can never care more than a fanatic does about their little one track issue.
David Blue –
Anti-Western and specifically anti-American terror leaders have been supported pervasively because they were anti-Western, anti-American, anti-freedom and because they were forces and faces of terror, and not because they were all so charismatic.
Well, they’re not charismatic to me, no, but that doesn’t stop these same dreary types from being charismatic to somebody. How else to explain it when an average young guy remarks approvingly on Ahmenijehad’s style as opposed to his policies? Or when George Galloway is lionized for smart-mouthing Congress? It has very little to do with substance, largely because the terms Western, American, and Freedom are viewed ironically at best, held subject to embarrassed derision generally. Post-Ideology has devalued it all.
And, of course, we’re not speaking of every Leftward-leaning sort, but enough are influential now to have unbalanced the Democrats, in my humble opinion. Possibly this is because the ones who still held these values dear formed the Reagan Dems then the Neocons, but I couldn’t say.
bq. One of the major complaints that conservatives have is that liberals regard Bush as the “enemy,” while ignoring the 7th-century theocrats who, unlike Bush, genuinely “despise liberalism, democracy, and freedom.”
bq. Whatever Bush’s faults–and he has many–opposition ot freedom and democracy is not one of them.
bq. So Chris–I think you’ve made Glen’s point for him.
Rob, I’ve said this before:
bq. Bush is a creature of the United States policial system, and as such can be dealt with (to some extent) by verbal and written criticism, protests, etc. Bin Laden, being a sociopathic nutjob hiding in the mountains, cannot really be dealt with in the same way.
Or if you prefer, use this analogy: Bin Laden, Al Qeada and the like are a cancer – they cannot be reasoned with, only eradicated. Bush, in this scenario, is the doctor whose job it is to cure the cancer. If he screws up this job – presribes dangerous, ineffective medicines, botches important surgeries, etc. – then it would be ludicrous and insipid for him to say, “Well, what are you getting upset at me for? The REAL enemy is the cancer!”
Likewise, it’s foolish and insulting to conclude – as many on this board happily do – that because liberals don’t like Bush, they must like Al Qeada, or that in the absence of Bush, they would do nothing to combat AQ. And, more importantly, those making such assumptions should realize that the ’06 elections pretty much mean that the time where the voting public could be swayed by such twaddle is long since past.
bq. It’s a fantasy of liberals that Gitmo is a “gulag” or that any of Bush’s measures are actually dangerous.
bq. Granted, that doesn’t mean I approve of all of them. As you know, I agree about Padilla’s right to a normal trial, and I share concerns about wiretapping. But Bush is hardly “illiberal,” and disagreement about assessment of the risks and appropriate responses doesn’t justify labling Bush as an enemy of freedom generally.
I think this quote from John Yoo, via Sullivan’s blog, is pretty germane to this point:
bq. “Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
bq. Yoo: No treaty
bq. Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…
bq.Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that…”
Bottom line is, this Administration boldly roclaims that the President may take virtually any action he wishes, regardless of what anybody else says, if he decides that action is in the country’s best interests. To me – and, I suspect, to a substantial majority of people who are against the president – the question of whether he’s actually taken any of those actions is secondary to the fact that he thinks he can. And yes, that’s a profoundly illiberal position, and one that I feel is a danger to the Republic.
All that said, I should point out that the comments on this thread pretty much vindicated my point that these supposed “reform” posts of AL’s are entirely ineffective. So mission accomplished for me, thanks – time for dinner.
To be honest, Chris, if I was deeply concerned about the ‘effectiveness’ of my critique, I’d probably want to complete it first.
As it is I’m happy to be a part of a larger movement – like the Euston one – that is trying to figure out the moral basis for a left that can matter in ways other than making the privileged feel good about themselves.
It’s an interesting thread, and yes, I’m sorry that there aren’t more people interested in a real dialog about how to make the Democratic party matter more to the people it ought to. I’m so depressed I think I’ll go have breakfast and start working on the next post.
A.L.
Chris, John Yoo should have ducked the question, which was asked in bad faith, in order to give you and others a talking point. There is something more serious going on here, other than Democrats and Republicans eliciting responses designed for direct-mail campaigns.
Are you, Chris, asking for enforcement of existing treaties? What are your motivations for enforcing said treaties? Will they be enforced differently if a Democrat is in the White House? Remember, Democrats were cool with President Clinton’s policy of rendition. When Bush continued it, Democrats started howling. Given this evidence of bad faith, I take anything Democrats say with a grain of salt.
What worries me is that Senator Coburn offered an amendment to the immigration bill asking for specific laws to be enforced. A majority of Senators don’t want current laws enforced. Democrats are indifferent to some minorities, who are citizens, and have to compete with illegal aliens for the “jobs Americans won’t do”. Yes, they won’t do them at the depressed wages offered . Why should they? After all, it isn’t a “living wage” – something that progressives say concerns them.
And this is the crux of why Congress is not trusted. Lack of interest in enforcing current laws? I simply don’t want any changes in existing laws – I want the current ones enforced.
I’m not a devotee of Michelle Malkin (although she _is_ hot), but I have to say I agree with her – deport the criminals, enforce existing laws. After the elites have convinced me they are serious and acting in good faith, then I’ll allow them to make a few changes. Linsey Graham’s smears of people who disagree with him do not indicate to me that the Democratic and Republican elites have any desire to make positive changes, but only want to institutionalize their own selfish desire for cheap labor from people who can’t complain.
Of course you will, AL. Because, as I’ve been saying, your posts aren’t about actually changing things, are they? They’re about grandstanding and making you “feel good about yourself.”
bq. Chris, John Yoo should have ducked the question, which was asked in bad faith, in order to give you and others a talking point. There is something more serious going on here, other than Democrats and Republicans eliciting responses designed for direct-mail campaigns.
Dale, understood: we should ignore John Yoo’s response, because it came from a “bad faith” question.
If we expand that reasoning, then we can disregard virtually all criticism of the president, because such criticism comes from Democrats, the “MSM”, the left, etc., all of whom are by definition acting in bad faith towards the president, right?
So we don’t need to worry that the Bush admin thinks it can act without taking laws passed by Congress into account! Whew! Thanks for clearing that up, I feel much better now!
Some points:
1. Too many of “the left” have turned to “intellectual jewelry” causes such as greenism. With these causes, you can have your Gulfstream and eat it, too (as long as you drive to the airport in a Prius and buy a few carbon credits). Other causes like this are Darfur (after all, anyone think if Bush sent in troops who produced the usual bad TV of Americans bombing third-world types that these Hollywoodniks wouldn’t be the first in opposition?), anti-Walmart campaigns, etc.
They key to “intellectual jewelry” causes is that they are required to be “worn” to show that you are a member of the Nice Crowd. They’re just as ornamental as any other bauble, and just as meaningful – except that they hurt far more people.
2. Support for “organized labor” now means support for government unions, not private sector workers. But you still get to pretend to support workers…
3. And since few illegals work for the government, you can support “immigration” (read, illegals) while supporting “organized labor” and not have it be a contradiction.
Chris:
Whereas your comments seem to be all about how poor liberals get criticized so much. According to you anyone who disagrees with Bush gets accused of being a communist, and anyone who disagrees with liberals is a Bush-worshipper.
Those self-centered histrionics are another legacy of the Sixties. They’d go much better with a blond wig and tear-streaked mascara.
The far left doesn’t belly-ache so much. Seems more of a center-left, Alan Colmes kind of thing. The far leftists at least generally know who they are and what they believe in.
So here’s some sound and constructive advice for Democrats, which you could really use: A little more Harry Truman, a little less Paris Hilton.
Glen-
bq. Whereas your comments seem to be all about how poor liberals get criticized so much. According to you anyone who disagrees with Bush gets accused of being a communist, and anyone who disagrees with liberals is a Bush-worshipper.
_Shrug._ Post-2006, I don’t think liberals are getting criticized so much… except by die-hard Bush apologists, such as most of the folks here at WoC. And I don’t expect any different from you guys, but I won’t always be silent when I encounter some of the more ludicrous representations about liberals, either.
So, no, not everybody who disagrees with liberals is a Bush-worshipper… but especially when guys like Dale try to spin away the meaning of John Yoo’s comments, I don’t have any problems in the least calling most you Bush apologists.
And as for “anyone who disagrees with Bush gets accused of being a communist”, it’s ludicrous that you, of all people, should try to make that out as some kind of unwarranted persecution complex, when your comment #14 took great pains to trace the supposed current ills of the modern Democratic party to Marxism and the Soviet Union. Hell, I never even used the word “communist” in any of my posts – that’s completely been your obsession, Glen.
I actually have to admit AL, this post has really taken a turn for the better. I find myself agreeing with alot of people I didn’t expect too.
#42 Treefrog: The greed you’re talking about is a bipartisan problem with bipartisan abuse. For example: Bridge to nowhere. McCain, for all of his issues, has always pointed out these addendums even from his own party.
David Blue: I agree with alot of your points. I think one thing the democratic party really needs to work on is using their passion towards functional programs.
For example: There is a dessert factory in New York (sorry don’t know the title) that is essentailly a non-profit that employs many people below the poverty-line. People who work there over 6 months get rental assistance, day-care, healthcare, job & managment training, in-house schooling, interview training training (etc). The catch is that this factory is run like a factory (and not a handout). There are high expectations of success, and if you don’t meet them, they’ll take someone else instead. Still, alot of people who previously had no skills are now working management in culinary arts all around the states.
All in all, practical liberal activism that’s well managed and holds itself to a high standard. Maybe private firms are the only one’s who can do that anymore.
On that note, I think the best thing democrats could do (for the short term) is not neccessarily change their political views, but start by gearing their energy towards non-political issues. For example: Democrats could be the party of better management.
(wait… hold your laughter until you hear me out).
They could start by:
-Requiring all bills to have authors for every addendum. Or, addendums could just be removed all together (unlikely).
-Requiring all senators/congress to publish a webpage that details: Funds recieved, bills/addendums written and complete voting records.
-Change the reputation for ‘goverment jobs’ away from cushy positions to positions with good benefits from high expectations.
-Change the beaurocracy for construction work so that only companies with a history of high quality construction (or a history of on time/on scedhule if preffered) will get grants (although this is often more of a state/city issue).
I think there are alot of basic, non-partisan issues that could be fixed, and whatever party starts to work on them, people will follow. I realize the list above (and other ideas) are pipe-dreams, but it’s a nice thought.
Re: #52 from alchemist. I’m surprised and pleased to find us partly in agreement, though I don’t quite know in what. Except this:
bq: “I think one thing the democratic party really needs to work on is using their passion towards functional programs.
bq. For example: There is a dessert factory in New York (sorry don’t know the title) that is essentailly a non-profit that employs many people below the poverty-line. People who work there over 6 months get rental assistance, day-care, healthcare, job & managment training, in-house schooling, interview training training (etc). The catch is that this factory is run like a factory (and not a handout). There are high expectations of success, and if you don’t meet them, they’ll take someone else instead. Still, alot of people who previously had no skills are now working management in culinary arts all around the states.
bq. All in all, practical liberal activism that’s well managed and holds itself to a high standard.”
That’s magnificent.
And this:
bq. “On that note, I think the best thing democrats could do (for the short term) is not neccessarily change their political views, but start by gearing their energy towards non-political issues. For example: Democrats could be the party of better management.
bq. (wait… hold your laughter until you hear me out).”
I’m not laughing. At all.
I think that works. Your happy dream examples are reasonable. Incomplete, I think, because your single greatest problem in America is the corruption of your electoral system by subtle forms of incumbency protection, including McCain-Feingold, and you have got to take that democratization issue on. But as far as they go, your ideas are laudable.
Robert Hawke did something like this in Australia, and it did work. The key words were consensus, and then competition or efficiency, often meaning about the same thing, as without opening up the economy to some foreign competition, efficiency was not going to happen.
This did not involve big, transformative ideas like Tony Blair had in the UK. (Or not till Paul Keating overthrew Hawke, and did bring in some really big ideas, such as Australia having to become Asian. That invited the successful Howard reaction of Australia remaining OK with its Western culture and historical roots (“not choosing between geography and historyâ€), and building ties with America rather than continuing to chase after Asian nations that had rejected us for lacking “Asian faces.”)
Hawke was a star (labor union) negotiator, and economically literate, and those are qualifications you want in a leader if this is your preferred model.
You should emphasize issues with a large practical and boring component where results have been poor due to ideological deadlocks and petty sensitivities, and go for workable large scale compromises that make the numbers add up and ride roughshod over really petty objections, plus you need some exciting pilot programs, like the one above, to test out new ideas.
(Serious Social Security reform should be a left, not a right issue. Do you think if you get it in shape where it’s decently efficient and reasonably bullet-proof against an aging population, that with no vital stimulus to act the right would be able to unpick a reformed “least worst consensus” just to save money? It would never happen.)
A lot of people may damn me for saying this, because Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems to be some kind of bogey-man, but his example is mostly a good one.
And I’d like to say “but you’ll have to do it without a political genius to lead you, and fortunately that’s not too hard.” Only I think you do need a touch of genius.
It looks like it should be easy, because the horribly self-absorbed, lazy and corrupt late, unlamented Republican federal legislative majority threw the “efficiency” card in the dust, and why not pick it up? Surely that should be easy.
George W. Bush is still there to remind people how voting Republican can lead to cronyism, chronic inefficiency, and a vast, persistent gap between results promised and results delivered.
If you say “Alberto Gonzales is a useless crony and it’s not right to appoint people like that to positions of serious power,” you are not being partisan, you are articulating the national consensus. If you address this in a serious way rather than merely as an occasion for (justified) scalp-hunting, you will get Peggy Noonan penning pieces saying “when the Democrats are right, they’re right.” If you plausibly, convincingly promise to do better, you are half-way home, politically.
But the other half of what you have to do to get into a position to demonstrate your capacity to negotiate workable consensus solutions and fund hopeful pilot programs (apart from having people to the years of spadework to generate them) is where that indispensable touch of genius comes in.
You have to have the empathy and sensitivity in dealing with cultural issues to know when you can just smack down objections as petty, to get to your big solution, and when that will be accepted after a while, and when on the contrary people aren’t kidding, when they are morally serious, and when they are not going to change their minds short of being morally destroyed as individuals and communities.
Republicans have been a bit ham-fisted on this. I’ll use George W. Bush as an easy example. It’s obvious he doesn’t get up every day thinking about Green issues. And he thought that the limbo status of the bad Kyoto status was idiotic, which in my opinion it was. And most Republicans seem to agree. So the attitude was: ride roughshod over objections, and soon people will get over it. But I know a lot of people who are Green, and they are as serious about that as I am about being pro-life, and there was no chance they were going to forget that. They were always going to remember it bitterly, as they have. George seems to be waking up to the sensitivity needed on Green issues … s-l-o-w-l-y.
Just because you think someone’s moral opinions and symbolic issues are silly and they should get over it doesn’t mean that they agree or that they will.
Robert Hawke had a touch of genius for this, a feeling for what ordinary Australians think that let him know when not to back off. On all sorts of petty issues like the government promoting condoms and needle exchange bins, he just smacked the religious right, saying AIDs is a matter of life and death, debate over. And he won.
An American friend visiting Australia (and staying over with all her online friends here) was boggled: here was the statue of “the great goddess Queen Victoria” and here was the statue of her dog, and the Queen Victoria Building, and conservative monarchist David Blue (meeting monarchists was like meeting cave men face to face for her – she kept substituting the word “royalist”), and here were the needle exchange bins for druggies, in the great imperialist goddess’s building, with no sense of contradiction. Where was that Victorian morality?? But it’s amazing how much progress you can make, over what howls of moral condemnation, if you have an accurate sense of when the “issue” goes about as deep as the “outrage” over Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, and when it’s really serious and won’t blow over.
About half the time (with Whitlam and Keating), Australian top left wing political leaders have not known when to back off.
I think the left in America has been worse than that.
(And I don’t necessarily count William Jefferson Clinton as a full success, because he did not demonstrate the gifts to press ahead with fundamental reform while respecting key sensitivities. His key reform, entitlement reform, was if anything right wing, while he gave the right genuine offense over symbolic issues, like what sort of example should the President set to children with his personal conduct and honesty.)
A huge part of left political rhetoric is damning your enemies as hypocrites and bigots – much the way George W. Bush likes to do to the right when he is balked over some issue like putting a crony on the Supreme Court – and setting yourself up by contrast as today’s face in the progressive gallery of history’s heroes – which also seems to be what George W. Bush is doing as he lines up his legacy.
The more evil and backward your foes, the more brightly you shine with them as your background. So paint ’em black, fairly or not.
If you do that, you had better be smart enough to know when you are lying, and have a Plan B in case your malarkey gets called, as George W. Bush got called over the alleged sexism and elitism of those who balked at Supreme Court Justice Harriet Miers. George W. Bush hasn’t been that smart. Nor has the American left.
Three examples.
(1) Roe Versus Wade was a constitutionally rootless exercise of raw judicial power, but one that had in a sense a good intention at the root of it. It was supposed to settle the issue, and settling issues can be seen as what judges do. The decision’s justification would have arrived when people “got over it,” and the national consensus settled where the judges read its settling point into the constitution.
This was never going to happen, and what happened instead was the creation of a third of Ronald Reagan’s new right. (Along with “small government” and a big and fierce military and the anti-Communist ambitions to go with it, the other two thirds.)
Taboos on killing infants are the most serious ones people can have. They are needed, and they need to be vigilantly enforced (as the history of infanticide shows). And when people disagree on whether the taboo has been violated, the spur to violent emotions is intense, and the problem of “who counts as human?” is one that can’t be settled by any objective, material test. The judges had no idea of the fight they were setting up. So lightly, by comparison with what they were doing, they went ahead.
At that point, the pro-choice left had a poisoned gift in its hands. It ought to have been thinking how to trade in the endless bitter fight in prospect for modest gains supported by social consensus. Likely that would have proved impossible anyway. But nobody thought that way at the time.
The left line was and is that the right was and is motivated by mere misogyny, archaic Catholic dogma and brute hostility to women having fun and being independent. Tactically, that line would have been effective if it had gotten pro-lifers to hide in shame like Nazis. But it didn’t work.
The battle froze there, like World War One trench lines. We can see not too far in the distance now the fiftieth year of bitter political struggle over Roe.
In some ways, this benefited American pro-lifers a lot. Your coalition can’t fracture over compromises if no compromises are on offer, and it’s obvious how much stronger the pro-life movement is in America than it is in Australia, and how America’s fertility is better than Australia’s.
But from the point of view of getting to a tacit consensus, just or not and workable in the long run or not, the American political process was inefficient.
My point here is that the same approach been also inefficient over any number of other issues.
(2) Gay marriage is a crazy issue. If this was to happen, it should be the last step of a process where every possible advantage was given to gay partnerships, and generations had grown gray arguing the subsections of arcane legislation. It would be the last step after everyone was bored to death with their grandfathers’ petty disputes over living arrangements that had long been legally and socially equivalent to marriage in every way that mattered.
But as it is, improving the practical circumstances of gays in stable relationships has been made Step B of a process where Step A is taking away from straights a symbol that people feel all the touchier about because they often fail to live up to it even though they want to and agree they should.
People on their third and fourth marriages still hope that this will be the one. The ideal still shines for them.
Or if they are cynical, thinking that marriage as a series of games of “who’s fooling who?” is as good as it gets, the children of their wrecked homes may pine for an ideal they’ve longed for but never experienced.
Should improving the legal and material circumstances of gays in stable relationships wait till all those wounds sting no longer and all those hopes and ideals are forgotten?
If you see gays mostly as a legal and social battering ram to break up the repressive patriarchal institution of Western marriage, that might be rational. But if you think that “let’s get the goodies” is a more rational basis for political practice and one that can more readily be accommodated in increasingly rich societies, this is not so smart.
(3) The fence. Is it really that big a symbolic issue? For those who don’t trust their elected officials to enforce the law, the lack of a fence is that big an issue.
It should have been addressed years ago, to build trust for a more productive debate than the one that started when George W. Bush smeared about nine out of ten Republicans as people who don’t want to do what’s best for America.
It’s not important that most illegals in America overstayed their papers rather than running across a border. It’s important that when you’ve given people a lot of reason to think they can’t trust you, and there is something they want you to do, a tangible sign of sincerity that they need, you do it rather than balk at it and revile them.
Too often, symbolic, prestige victories are treated as being of greater than material ones (the wedding not the legal goodies for gay couples), and prestige victories are seen as incomplete unless the right howls in woe (unless “enforce the border” conservatives are stuck with damning labels), with the left laughing and rubbing in salt by calling the right bigots and hypocrites. Possible compromises like baby dumping stations and more government support for adoption are ignored in favor of twisting the knife.
The disputes don’t end, because what’s demanded of people, often needlessly, is something they can’t in good conscience accept, either a practice they regard as abhorrent beyond all ordinary bounds, or a label of shame that they won’t wear, or a redefinition of community, of “us”, that is being pressed coercively and without the trust without which there is no “us”.
Lots of political energy goes into making people do things they feel will stain their souls (“I will not pay for an abortion, that’s something I would never do.”) or wear masks they reject (“I am a Democrat, not a Stalinist.”) or identify with “communities” whose definitions they do not accept, and accept collective blaming and shaming.
Real, practical matters are made subordinate to these fights. It’s not whether Aboriginals are getting enough help, it’s whether enough “Sorry Books” have been signed, and whether the Prime Minister has taken on enough White guilt.
From the point of view of creating a political practice designed to empower the proletariat politically and improve their material conditions, this is perverse.
By the way, I’m using George W. Bush in my examples not to define him as not a conservative (or as Mark Steyn says 90% of the time like Tony Blair with a ranch), but because I hope that any Democrats and left inclined people who see that George W. Bush and the left have often pulled the same rhetorical stunts will be taken aback a bit. If George W. Bush does something, that doesn’t prove it’s wrong. He has a great marriage by all accounts, and nice daughters, and he gets his pants on successfully every morning. But if you are reading from the same hymnal as him politically, and if you feel about him the way many people on the left do, that might be enough reason to ask yourself: “Might this be a dumb idea in the long run?”
My examples aren’t clear enough. A slight do-over then:
1. The Roe fight began in ignorance. Damning pro-lifers with false labels was a tactic to make the decision stick. So far, fair enough. (In the sense hot topics provoke hot reactions. I’m not claiming pro-lifers have maintained an angelic calm either.) But when the tactic did not work, there was no Plan B.
2. The gay marriage fight began in societies that were heading in the direction of more acceptance of diverse sexualities (bi, gay etc.) anyway. The goodies were and are there to be had. But ignorant armies blundered into each other: gays, academic radicals, and believers in ideals of marriage now honored mostly in the breach but still, darn it, honored! Plan A was to damn the falsely described motives of the third group. The results of Plan A were not nothing, but on the whole inadequate. Plan B was to repeat Plan A.
3. The fence fight came about in the form that it did because of the ignorance of George W. Bush. If he was in the habit of being briefed by principled opponents of illegal immigration, so he knew what the arguments and sensitivities were, everything might have been different. Time went by, and George W. Bush did less than nothing to build the credibility he would later need. When he blundered into a fight, George W. Bush’s instinct and, worse, his habit, was to damn his opponents, and things got worse from there. George W. Bush has yet to show whether he has a Plan B on this issue other than the one he used with Harriet Miers and is still using with Alberto Gonzalez: repeat Plan A till you have so little support left that persistence is almost academic.
(We know that George W. Bush does understand the idea of a Plan B because he has one for Iraq: “double or nothing!” A reasonable plan if you’ve got nothing to lose.)
It’s like a political version of the tactics of Cold Harbor. It’s as likely to promote fruitful dialog as the religious rhetoric of Richard Dawkins, of the teen witches who start by accusing baffled Christians of burning however many millions of witches in the Inquisition and then take affronted disbelief as proof of bigotry.
There’s a certain number of quick, rewarding victories you can win like this, fairly or not.
And if your grand narrative of progressive history tells you that you too can join the list of heroes who had spectacular, good vs. evil wins by getting enough people to accept a story that damns your opponents as familiar villain, then the incentive is tremendous to give Plan A another try, and another, and another.
But really, what happens is the list of bitter, festering decades old fights and even centuries old fights that will never be resolved this way grows longer.
Not too many struggles internal to our civilization are really intractable, the way Marxists thought that the class struggle and its offshoots (that is, everything, the whole of history) was. But if you’re playing out a Marxist or retard-“progressive” script that says Plan A is to hit below the belt and Plan B is repeat Plan A, then yes everything is insoluble within the system. (As, to a Marxist, it should be.)
To get past this growing backlog of bitter tangles to worthwhile reform, history says that we need politicians with enough human sympathy and insight to know when people are really serious, enough cunning to know when an “illogical” bargain will stick, and enough moral authority to call off fights when people have invested way too much face in making the other guy lose face or worse. (I have in mind King Henry IV of France.)
And when the Great Man says “go back, wrong way,” you need a whole lot of alternatives, produced by the patient spade-work of people who weren’t in the running to have their faces in the picture galleries of fame.
Chris: Dale, understood: we should ignore John Yoo’s response, because it came from a “bad faith” question.
If we expand that reasoning, then we can disregard virtually all criticism of the president, because such criticism comes from Democrats, the “MSM”, the left, etc., all of whom are by definition acting in bad faith towards the president, right?
So we don’t need to worry that the Bush admin thinks it can act without taking laws passed by Congress into account! Whew! Thanks for clearing that up, I feel much better now!
Dale: Well, Chris, haven’t you made my point? So respond to my questions in the second paragraph of #46. But maybe you aren’t interested.
And no, not all critics of the President are Democrats. I actually know quite a few conservatives who are deeply disappointed in Bush. But my point was that there are critics who aren’t interested in being constructive. You are one of them. So are almost all Congressional Democrats.
Back to topic: I don’t think AL hasn’t gone far enough. The two parties seem to be broken beyond repair. Time to start over.
The problem is that the two party system is deeply embedded in the voting and campaign finance system at the local, state, and federal level. Third party campaigns are unlikely to succeed at the federal or state-wide level, so Congress and White House are out of scope for a third party.
David Blue: #57 & #58 are really spot-on.
_The disputes don’t end, because what’s demanded of people, often needlessly, is something they can’t in good conscience accept, either a practice they regard as abhorrent beyond all ordinary bounds, or a label of shame that they won’t wear, or a redefinition of community, of “us”, that is being pressed coercively and without the trust without which there is no “us”._
Unfortunately, people like Chris just don’t get it. They prefer to howl over John Yoo and Gitmo. I wonder what they will do in January 2009.
bq. Well, Chris, haven’t you made my point? So respond to my questions in the second paragraph of #46. But maybe you aren’t interested.
Dale, your “point” is the truly odd idea that the truth of a statement somehow depends on the motives of the person saying it. And I hate to break it to you, but it just ain’t so. It doesn’t matter if I love Bush or hate him – the ramifications of what it means for his administration to publicly state that it thinks it’s above the law should be the same. As for your questions:
bq. Are you, Chris, asking for enforcement of existing treaties? What are your motivations for enforcing said treaties? Will they be enforced differently if a Democrat is in the White House? Remember, Democrats were cool with President Clinton’s policy of rendition. When Bush continued it, Democrats started howling. Given this evidence of bad faith, I take anything Democrats say with a grain of salt.
Yes, I’m asking for enforcement of existing treaties, because those treaties, once ratified by Congress, have the force of law. My “motivations” for enforcing said treaties are irrelevant, and no, they wouldn’t be enforced differently depending on who’s in office. Your “gotcha” falls flat on its face for several reasons, firstly because Clinton’s rendition program (which was also used by Bush I and Reagan, if memory serves) might have been objected to, had it been more widely known about.
But more importantly, what those earlier administrations did was far smaller in scope and far less harsh in kind than what Bush has done. Earlier administrations also knew the value of diplomacy, so at least some of the time those renditions could count on a blind eye being turned by friendly governments when needed… but no longer.
bq. And no, not all critics of the President are Democrats. I actually know quite a few conservatives who are deeply disappointed in Bush. But my point was that there are critics who aren’t interested in being constructive. You are one of them. So are almost all Congressional Democrats.
Dale, reread what I said – I never said that all criticism of the president came from Democrats. (Use a dictionary to look up the words “virtually” and “etc.” if you like.) But that said, it doesn’t particularly matter – it’s not like Bush apologists like yourself are any more likely to accept criticism from the likes of Andrew Sullivan, Greg Djerjian or Dan Drezner, even if they were once considered conservatives in good standing.
I’m 99% certain this won’t get through to you, Dale, but your idea that you can pigeonhole criticism of the president into “constructive” and “non-constructive” criticism is a fallacy; it gives you an excuse to ignore any criticism you don’t like, which in turn gives you the illusion that everything is great, because no “valid” criticism exists.
Which is how you find yourself trying to spin away the import of a US Presidential administration saying it can crush a child’s testicles whenever it feels it necessary to do so. Pathetic.
#61: I am not a Bush apologist. And yes, I do believe I can tell when someone is trying to score cheap political points on me. Your assertion that it isn’t possible to tell is…dumb? Obtuse? Bizarre? Words fail me.
Reports of rendition appeared in the WaPo in the 90’s; I remember reading them. Congressional Democrats were not interested. So _your_ argument falls flat on its face, not mine.
I didn’t spin away anything. I never said the guy was right, just that the question was asked in bad faith. John Yoo’s response was dumb and wrong. Go find something else to complain about.
Dale, if you’re not a Bush apologist who disagrees with the substance of what John Yoo said, then you’ve done a piss-poor job of saying so. That is to say, in the future, you might do better to immediately condemn such remarks before going on to explain why anyone who’d bring them up is acting in “bad faith.”
Is it possible to tell when someone is trying to score cheap political points? Sure, and I never said otherwise. I do have serious doubts about your ability to do so, however, based on what you’ve written here.
Finally, as I said before, the rendition program might have been more objected to had it been more widely known about (as opposed to “known about at all”) and had it reached the levels of excess that Bush’s has. Deal with all of my objections, and I’ll concede the point, rather than just offering up a quick nitpick and suggesting I drop the subject entirely.
#52 alchemist
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree, that’s one of the big reasons the republican base is rapidly approaching all out revolt. But this is a thread (despite certain posters ‘Look, Bush’ posts) about the Dems. The republicans deserve their own, ‘What the hell is wrong with them’ post. (Actually, I’d say the repubs problem is the mirror image from the Dems, they sold everyone on a philosophy – 1994 Contract with America – that they haven’t been following recently).
I think Chris was correct in his initial post, that the Dems have no ideology underpinning them (or rather they have probably about a dozen). What they are is a coalition of about a dozen different special interest (one issue groups) hammered together into a whole.
How else explain what happened to Lieberman? You only need to shoot escapees if you’re afraid more would escape if they could. Iron discipline to hide the hollow core.
The dems desperately need an underlying ideology, without it, they’ll be eaten alive but their own extremist elements.
For that matter, they couldn’t win the 2004 election on the “We’re not Bush” platform, exactly what the heck makes them think they’re going to win 2008 on the same platform, especially when a grand total of 0 republican hopefuls were involved with the Bush administration?
And with the repubs in serious disarray now is the time…
Some suggestions:
First, the do NOTS:
No communism, socialism or anything that smacks of either. Seriously, it’s dead. It’s been dead for quite some time. The next time the commies put together an ‘anti-war’ coalition. Tell them to go swim to Cuba, we can handle our own anti-war campaigns, thank you very much. Free 10 point electoral boost.
No big government programs. Also quite dead. Carter killed it. Reagan put a stake through the heart. Bush is trying to reanimate it and everyone is remembering why it sucked so bad in the first place.
No environmental moralizing. The whole Al Gore, ‘Repent lest ye burn’ thing gives most people the creeps. You’d be hard pressed to find people who don’t want to improve the environment, most of us would just like to see some cost/benefit numbers. The whole Kyoto ‘sure it won’t actually do anything, but it’ll show we care’ routine makes us wonder where all that money is actually going, and we start looking for the con artist behind the curtain.
Drop race baiting. Also dead and increasingly rotten. Even the ‘oppressed minorities’ find it increasingly silly as time goes on. Address imbalances by working the supply side, not the demand side.
Don’t condescend. The whole stupid, fat, superstitious American thing signals weakness and self loathing in those who say it. Weakness and self loathing are benefits for third rate artists, not political leaders.
The DOs:
Show some pride in America. Real pride. Get through an entire speech praising America without inserting any of the following: ‘but’, ‘if only’, or ‘in spite of’. All those people waving flags on the 4th of July, none of them think the United States is perfect. Seriously. It’s okay to admire greatness that isn’t perfection.
Run a clean house. The dems took congress aways from the republicans because the republicans quit running a clean house. It can go back just as easily.
Be pro-capitalism. It works. Really. And where it doesn’t lead quite to the ends you’d like to see? Bend it. Gently. All attempts to force capitalism by brute strength have either failed or incurred massive negative external costs. All attempts to replace capitalism with various schemes have failed. Attempts to gently steer it by carefully shaping the competitive playing field often have worked. Encourage a perception of government as neutral referree, turning the wild world into a fair professional sport, for the benefit of all. Avoid the increasingly stupid separation of business and worker. We’re all players in the same game, we all benefit when the game is played well.
Clean up taxation. Understanding tax law shouldn’t be harder than understanding quantum physics. I think we’ve actually gotten to the point where people care less about who pays more taxes than they do about just simplifying the mess to the point where it’s easily understandable and above board.
Bash dictators. And that’s not George Bush (he’s incompetent not a dictator, he’ll be gone in another year and a half anyway). Making nice with tyrants makes people wonder if you actually see anything wrong with being one…
Acknowledge conservative arguments. They are not sheeple. They are not evil. They are not brain washed. Understand their concerns. Address them. Agree to disagree. Be classy. It’s the difference between a leader and a rabble rouser.
Define yourself in positive terms. Be for things, not against the opposite. Being positive sounds like leadership material, confident and strong. Being against things makes you sound like a whiny teenager.
The Dems should be the party of small, but effective government. Using government power in carefully controlled amounts to expand the liberty and welfare of all. Not the free for all minimalist government of libertarianism, and not the hodge-podge small/big government of the repubs. For positive social change, but in small practical steps, not large ram-it-down-their-throats lumps. For the enviroment, but effectively, not fanatically. For freedom and democracy, but in steady measure, not large invasions and then drifting attention spans. More owl, less tigger. For a fair, even business playing field, benefitting no one, and therefore all. For aggressive enforcement of fair laws. The party of balance and moderation and common sense.
There is plenty of philisophical material out there to undergird this. And plenty of Americans out there who’d love to vote for candidates along this line. People want to believe that we are and can continue to be a (largely) free, egalitarian, prosperous nation of independent, mature adults. We just wish a few of our politicians agreed.
Throw a big party starting Inauguration Day and invite the whole world.
This crystallizes for me, as a long term Democrat, the problem that I have with many on the left. They hold the opinion of foreign nationals higher than that of most of their fellow citizens. I trust folks to lead this country who are Americans first, second, and always. To the extent that the Democratic Party is beholden to interests that do not uphold this principal, the less I can feel at home there.
How things are breaking in the illegal immigration debate shows that this is not just a problem with the Democratic Party.
Chris conflates those who voted for Bush in 2004 with those who “currently hate the Democratic party.” That’s a classic call for immoderation. You’re either with Chris or with Bush, nobody that has concerns about either need speak out.
The second mark of immoderation is in the legalization of policy. Some historians have argued that the American tendency to constitutionalize their arguments on slavery, fugitive slave laws, the Missouri Compromise, etc. were a large source of the divisions which brought about the civil war. If one’s position is the only permissible constitutional position, then there is no need for compromise, let alone the development of sound policy.
John Yoo was asked for an opinion on what is legally permissible, not what policy should be employed. It is the difference between finding that the President has authority to kill members of al-Qaeda and whether or not it is wise to kill a particular member.
As to treaties, Yoo’s position is that the executive has the authority to interpret and enforce them, including the right to sanction members of the Executive branch who violate them. If Congress wants to pass a law which enforces the treaty through the judicial system, it can do so. This was essentially the view taken by the 90 members of the Senate that passed the McCain Detainee law. The Geneva Conventions are not enforceable or a source of rights, the McCain Detainee law is.
There is a traditional and important liberal principle upheld by Yoo’s view on treaties. Many treaties are written in broad, generic language, attempting to provide basic principles between states that range from democratic to totalitarian. In our system, individual rights of citizens can only be taken away by judicial proceedings subject to due process requirements that laws “be reasonably definite as to what persons and conduct are covered as well as the punishment for any violation.”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_for_vagueness Specific laws addressing what is meant by “cruel and unusual” treatment of enemy combatants upholds that principle.
That’s not what Yoo found, or at least it’s only a small and relatively uncontroversial part. Yoo also admits that under his theory of executive power, the President can order interrogators to crush the testicles of a suspected terrorist’s child in order to get him to talk (if the President has a “good” reason). Yoo basically holds the President above the law. His views are un-American and anti-American, and he would be a pariah except that Bush and Cheney love to hear about their limitless powers.
Moreover, the Geneva Conventions are most certainly enforceable, as they were, even before the McCain Act, incorporated into the UCMJ and other laws; likewise the International Convention Against Torture. If Bush and Cheney were leaders of a small country, they’d be worried about command performances at the Hague.
The Yoo Theory got another blow today, delivered by the Fourth Circuit, which is as far to the right as the Ninth Circuit is to the left.
A relevant thought from Instapundit:
June 11, 2007
AUTHENTICALLY KRUGMAN: In his latest column — link here for Times $elect subscribers — Paul Krugman complains about the cult of “authenticity” in politics, and how it makes people like John Edwards come across as phonies. FDR was a rich guy who cared about the poor, he says, so why can’t John Edwards be?
Well, John Edwards is no FDR. But the answer to Krugman’s complaint is found in the post 1960s political zeitgeist. Back before identity politics, and the notion that “the personal is political,” the idea of a rich guy representing poor people was entirely plausible. He could be rich, but still have ideas about poverty, and care about them. But now that we have identity politics and the like, that’s impossible: If only a woman can represent women, only a black person can represent blacks, etc. — Barbara Boxer even suggested that Condi Rice couldn’t understand mothers becaue she was childless — then obviously only a poor person can represent poor people. And since there are no poor people in American political office, poor people perforce go unrepresented. Thus, the “progressive” causes of identity politics and personalization mean that the progressives’ key clients can’t get “authentic” representation. This is probably bad for the country, but it’s certainly a bed that the progressives have made for themselves.
David…as is more typical than not, Instaputz manages to mangle, purposefully or not, the main point of Krugman’s article. It is not a “complaint” about how the “cult of authenticity” makes “people like John Edwards seem like phony’s”, its about THE PRESS and their false application of this self-defined notion when it suits their ends….character assassination of Democrats.
Employed, as is also typical of Instaputz, to take another feeble potshot (that’s all he’s capable of) at progressive or democrats. What a yahoo….his comments are pointless electronic grafitti on the blogosphere.
Here’s a more lengthy and thoughtful commentary on the same article from The Daily Howler, if you care:
HEIR TO CLASS TRAITOR: In today’s Times, Paul Krugman’s discusses the mainstream press corps’ love affair with “authenticity.†As you know, John Edwards is “inauthentic†because he owns a great big house. By contrast, Fred Thompson is highly “authentic†because—well, because they just say that he is! At one point, Krugman notes the role this fuzzy concept now plays in our quickly devolving “public discourse:â€
KRUGMAN (6/11/07): Talk of authenticity, it seems, lets commentators and journalists put down politicians they don’t like or praise politicians they like, with no relationship to what the politicians actually say or do.
And yes, that’s pretty much all there is to it. “Authenticity†became the press corps’ favorite buzz-word in 1999, along with its silly handmaiden, “comfortable in his own skin.†And let’s state the obvious: When the press corps adopted such subjective markers as key standards of measure, they were giving themselves the right to tell whatever story they choose. It’s perfectly easy to shape a narrative in which any candidate is most “authentic.†As long as our standards of measure are so subjective, there’s no real process of assessment being conducted at all.
But let’s understand a further point that’s lurking inside Krugman’s column. Today, John Edwards is called “inauthentic.†But back in the day, FDR was called something else, Krug recalls:
KRUGMAN: [T]hat’s not how the political game was played 70 years ago. F.D.R. wasn’t accused of being a phony; he was accused of being a ”traitor to his class.” But today, it seems, politics is all about seeming authentic. A recent Associated Press analysis of the political scene asked: ”Can you fake authenticity? Probably not, but it might be worth a try.”
Yep! When FDR considered the interests of average people, he was called a “traitor to his class.†But in a democratic system, that’s a stupid way to trash a pol—and today, our ruling elites are much better at playing this political game. Today, our plutocrats don’t denounce Big Dems as “traitors to their class.†Instead, they hire a bunch of worthless creeps—and these overpaid hirelings proceed to call these Big Dem pols “inauthentic.†As such, “inauthentic†is direct heir to “class traitor.†In reality, this is the very same game, played in a much smarter fashion.
Let’s get specific. In the 1990s, Jack Welch didn’t call the Clintons and Gore “traitors to their class.†Instead, he made multimillionaires of his famous “Lost Boys of the Sconset,†and these three Lost Boys did his name-calling for him. But uh-oh! They didn’t say that Gore was a class traitor—they said he was inauthentic (fake, phony).This same slick process continues today, and its shape is abundantly clear. But it’s still the rich asserting their interests—this time, through the intercession of a group of store-bought, scripted boys (who love to talk about the way they come from the working class).
Sadly your liberal journals won’t tell you about this; their writers are happily standing in line, hoping to be “Lost Boys†themselves.
“Class traitor†then, “inauthentic†now. In a word—the same ball game.
_Moreover, the Geneva Conventions are most certainly enforceable_
This is the provision I am talking about:
bq. (a) In General- No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.
“Military Commissions Act of 2006”:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:4:./temp/~c109MFCwoK:e103188:
The Act buys into the view that the conventions are not self-effectuating treaties, but Congress must pass laws defining its obligations and penalties. (The Act also recognizes that the executive has the Constitutional authority to interpret the treaties) One cannot simply get into court by complaining that treaty obligations are being violated. One has to argue that the Military Commissions Act is being violated (and exercise its remedies). That is wholly consistent with Yoo’s views.
And no Democrat voted against it.
The idea I want to pass along is that “the “progressive” causes of identity politics and personalization mean that the progressives’ key clients can’t get “authentic” representation.”
_The Yoo Theory got another blow today, delivered by the Fourth Circuit, which is as far to the right as the Ninth Circuit is to the left._
I’m not Yoo’s water carrier, but I don’t recall him saying anything about citizen or resident alien enemy combatants other than to say their status is indistinguishable from the NAZI saboteurs in Ex parte Quirin. Still strikes me as true, even if radicals like Justice Scalia think Quirin should be overruled.
OTOH I also believe the Bush administration should do a better job of avoiding Constitutional fights. Whether it has a good or bad argument that al-Marri can be detained indefinitely, I don’t think a firm Constitutional rule is anybody’s interest. He should have been indicted or thrown out of the country by now — not as a matter of law, but of policy.
BTW/ The two Fourth Circuit judges were appointed by Clinton, although Judge Gregory was a Clinton recess appointee that Bush kept. This is not the most conservative wing of the Fourth Circuit.
PD-
bq. Chris conflates those who voted for Bush in 2004 with those who “currently hate the Democratic party.” That’s a classic call for immoderation. You’re either with Chris or with Bush, nobody that has concerns about either need speak out.
Actually, I said that, once you take away the “liberals” who voted for Bush in ’04 on these boards, there’d be nobody left reading AL’s stuff who didn’t hate the Democrats. Insofar as we’re talking about WoC, I stand by that statement, based on the overwhelming tone of the “I used to be a Democrat but now they’re all nuts” posts I’ve seen here.
But by all means, if you have concerns with anything or anyone, please do speak out – I never said otherwise. I just want to point out the absurdity of a guy whose commitment to the Iraq war outweighed his commitment to “progressive” principles trying to “reform” the party by bitching about it to a bunch of people who think the Dems are fundamentally wrongheaded to begin with.
And AJL capably rebutted the rest of your post, but I did want to bring this bit up:
bq. The second mark of immoderation is in the legalization of policy. Some historians have argued that the American tendency to constitutionalize their arguments on slavery, fugitive slave laws, the Missouri Compromise, etc. were a large source of the divisions which brought about the civil war. If one’s position is the only permissible constitutional position, then there is no need for compromise, let alone the development of sound policy.
This is a fascinating piece of rhetorical jujitsu, actually – you’re ignoring the fact that, prior to the Bush admin, virtually everyone would have agreed that what Yoo was proposing was profoundly against all sorts of laws, traditions, and precedent. But, PD, you’re implying that such differences are merely a matter of “policy”, and that it would only be hurtful and destructive – “immoderate” – to worry about what the law says, or to make laws which better delineate what’s acceptable.
Fascinating, truly. Completely nuts and profoundly against the ideal of “a nation of laws, not of men,” but fascinating none the less.
_prior to the Bush admin, virtually everyone would have agreed that what Yoo was proposing was profoundly against all sorts of laws, traditions, and precedent._
I know, the laws that prevented Andrew Jackson from declaring martial law in New Orleans and detaining the judge that tried to stop him; the laws that prevented over 30,000 military arrests during the civil war and uncounted incidents of torture against foreign agents, the laws that prevented Wilson from arresting the political opponent that might have cost him the Presidency and the laws that prevented FDR from detaining 120,000 Japanese-Americans by executive order. What law was that again?
_But, PD, you’re implying that such differences are merely a matter of “policy”, and that it would only be hurtful and destructive -“immoderate” – to worry about what the law says, or to make laws which better delineate what’s acceptable._
My wife laid down the gauntlet this week for our 5 year old. No longer may she ask “can I have more squash, please.” She must ask “may I have more squash, please.” A bit much perhaps, but its important for one to understand the distinction by adulthood.
bq. I know, the laws that prevented Andrew Jackson from declaring martial law in New Orleans and detaining the judge that tried to stop him; the laws that prevented over 30,000 military arrests during the civil war and uncounted incidents of torture against foreign agents, the laws that prevented Wilson from arresting the political opponent that might have cost him the Presidency and the laws that prevented FDR from detaining 120,000 Japanese-Americans by executive order. What law was that again?
Ah, yes… since other presidents in the past have also grossly overstepped their power, then there is no such thing as the law at all, right? It’s all just nature red in tooth and claw, do whatever you can until someone else forces you to stop.
Thanks again for laying out the moderate, compromise position, PD!
(Incidentally, I still fail to see anything in that list that suggests Jackson, Lincoln, etc., thought they could torture the children of their enemies to force compliance. But that’s just a “policy” decision, and it would be wrong and bad to try and pass laws against it, because otherwise we wouldn’t have the freedom to decide if it’s sound policy or not. Yep, makes sense to me…)
I’m surprised nobody’s stepped into deal with the chronic thread-derailing going on. Anyway it’s obvious the thread is dead, so I’ll try to sum up my view on the topic.
From the theorists in the universities to the pundits in Canary Wharf, the intellectuals weren’t interested in the working class and the working class wasn’t interested in the intellectuals.
I agree. Therefore, in my opinion:
Focus on class and material conditions, not identity politics, and seek material improvements through practical, workable ideas and compromises, not status victories, especially after years have proved that the targets of your shaming attacks won’t and maybe can’t quit the field.
Afterthought: I reserve the right to be inconsistent on that. I can’t see how pro-life issues can be advanced without changing the moral playing field. And when too many innocent human beings are being killed, you’ve got to do what it takes. The moral status of the unborn has to rise, and the moral status of abortionists has to be less.
Mr Blue:
I find your thinking worthy, and your tone generally civil. I thank you for both of these things.
Speaking as only one of the WoC Marshals, I figured you were doing a fine job of holding your own. 🙂
Cheerio,
Nort
David Blue:
Your remarks about Plan A and Plan B is spot on.
The 1960’s Civil Rights revolution is a noteworthy example where Plan A worked. I think part of the problem with the liberal position on Woman’s Right to Chose, Gay Rights, Mexican immigration and perhaps some other deep societal issues is the belief that they all rise to the level of the Civil Rights struggle and that Plan B treatment represents moral cowardice.
I once was puzzled by Mao’s Cultural Revolution and by Maoist doctrine of Continuing Revolution. Mao’s Communists had their revolution in 1948 and established a Communist State. Wasn’t this all of the revolution you needed under Communism?
Without getting into the fine points of recent China history, I have come to the view that the American Founding has been one of more than one revolution as well. The first revolution, of course, was the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War. If you leave out the Shay’s rebellion and the Jacksonian era, the second revolution would have to be the Civil War that happened four score and seven years later. To my reckoning, the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s constitutes the third American revolution. Each successive revolution built on the ideals and principles of the preceding one but came to be on account of the contradictions or unresolved questions of that earier event.
Revolutions or perhaps civil wars are definitely Plan A kinds of matters; there wouldn’t be a revolution or civil conflict if people were receptive to Plan B solutions.
Also, if Roe vs Wade was a Plan A type action, the case could be made that Brown vs Topeka Board of Education was Plan A. Like many of Lincoln’s actions 100 years earlier, Brown played fast and loose with the Constitution as it was understood at the time. But try arguing the scholarly and technical fine points of Brown before a Senate committee during one’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court as Judge Bork found out. You may as well criticize the Emancipation Proclamation along with the Northern victory in the Civil War.
But the Brown decision was not a magic wand that cured all Americans of their racism – it was more in the form of the Federal resistance at Fort Sumnter that initiated a long and bitter struggle. While having legally segregated schooling would be odious and put our beloved United States on the same level of apartheid-rule South Africa, people are still resisting Brown as judged by the way people continue to segregate themselves in where they live to avoid sending their kids to racially-mixed schools.
There were Plan B solutions offered in the 1960’s, but to prefer the Plan B solutions to the Plan A approach has become taboo. What was the Trent Lott remark about “things being better if Strom Thurmond had become president than the way they turned out”? At the risk of being charitable to Trent Lott, one can reason that the days of Jim Crow were numbered, but Strom Thurmond would have advanced a Plan B approach that was face-saving to the white South, and in some alternate Universe could have had a better outcome than what we have now, where racial hate remains but has been pushed underground.
But for better or for worse, we went the Plan A route on Civil Rights, so much so that I risk being taken to the woodshed for even raising the issue on this forum. People who supported Plan B back in the day were racists and bigots. Suggesting symbolic face-saving for Southern (as well as many Northern) whites because what would have been added to the self-esteem of whites, even if only symbolic, would have been demeaning to blacks.
But that is the whole point. Civil Rights was waged as a revolution, a Plan A campaign, and the moral victory, at least in polite society, has been complete. But as a Plan A effort, there is a deep underground undercurrent of resentment that may need yet another generation to heal; people accept Diversity and Affirmative Action in public meetings but harbor other sentiments deep in their hearts. Based on moral, historical, and other imperatives, Civil Rights may have required Plan A, but we are still living with the consequences of Plan A.
There is a body of thought, call it liberalism or call it something else, that regards Gay Rights, Woman’s Right to Chose, Mexican Immigrant Rights as morally equivalent and on the same plane as black Civil Rights. As such, there is no Plan B, because all of the advocates of Plan B were Plan B people back in the day on Civil Rights, and these same Plan B people would roll back Civil Rights given half a chance.
One of the Powerline dudes (can’t remember it was John, Paul, or Scott) remarked that there are a few principles so fundamental that even the Constitution needs to bend to accomodate them, and that Civil Rights from the days of Lincoln forward is one of them, and that these core principles need to be small in number because of the consequences of making everything else in government and society conform to them. The essay whimsically suggested that the Hugh Hefner Playboy philosophy, that there is no overriding social interest in the personal sexual conduct of consenting adults, has risen to the level of one of those core principles.
I don’t think the abortion question is all one of hedonism; the argument is that women in our society don’t have total control over their getting pregnant on a continuum ranging from stranger rape to date rape to social pressure and bad choices of boy friends, and to force a woman to bear a child under all circumstances without exception is a form of slavery. A total abortion ban from the moment of conception forward with no exceptions for rape or medical condition of the mother doesn’t poll well, and the pre-1973 abortion regime was permissive compared with what many pro-life activists advocate.
But there are many who serve in the Senate who equate a rollback of Roe as a return to back alleys and equivalent to a rollback of Brown, although pre-Roe was a permissive environment that certainly had rape, and medical exceptions, de-facto abortion on demand with spousal consent owing to the way the law was enforced, and varying degrees of abortion on demand with restriction on term in some states. So we deal with the Kabuki dance of Supreme Court nominations.
David Blue:
One question I have on the Pro-Life position regards what in politics I call the “Susan Engeleiter Award.” Mitt Romney is perhaps a person whom I would nominate for this year’s Susan Engeleiter award.
You have probably heard of Senator Herb Kohl representing Wisconsin. Senator Kohl, serves on the Judiciary Committee and had figured prominently in the appointments of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court. You have probably never heard of Susan Engeleiter.
For Herb Kohl to have been elected to the Senate as a Democrat, someone had to have lost as a Republican, and that person was Susan Engeleiter. Susan Engeleiter is an otherwise energetic young person with a lot of passion for politics who perhaps didn’t run the best focused campaign. She tried to make an issue of Kohl’s Foods selling the Army a coffee cake for 4 times the price of a coffee cake in Kohl’s Supermarkets until Herb Kohl got on TV, coffee cakes in hand, and said “here is the coffee cake from the store; here is the coffee cake we sell to the Army. The Army coffee cake costs four times as much, but it is more than four times larger because it is meant to feed a larger number of people, and it is actually a better value per ounce.” Ouch.
As you know, in politics, you are either Pro-Life or Pro-Choice — there is not much room for compromise. Susan Engeleiter announced that she was against abortion (I think she was stronger in the against than the Clinton-Gulliani “finding abortion abhorent and women should not have them”), but she was for public funding of abortion because if under the current system people were having abortions, we should not put the burden of not having abortions strictly on poor people.
The Susan Engeleiter Award is for the politician who manages to antagonize both sides on the abortion question. If she was solidly in the Pro-Choice Kate Michelmann camp, at least she would win or lose as a Rudy Guilianni-style Republican. But she managed to fall through the cracks of both camps and lose the election and her opponent got to help shape the Supreme Court.
Some on the Pro-Life side are pushing Plan B solutions — restrictions on late-term abortions within the framework of Roe, which was not informed by current scientific knowledge about viability outside the womb, parental consent, spousal consent, banning of inhumane abortion procedures, even rolling back Roe, which would not of itself ban all abortions. Many on the Pro-Choice side see this as the nose of the camel under the tent and are all Plan A in opposing any and all restrictions on abortion on principle.
Others on the Pro-Life side support the various restrictions as an interim measure, but regard anything short of Human Life amendment, banning all abortion under all circumstances from conception forward, anything short as an unacceptible moral compromise.
Were I to run for office on the platform of “States Rights, appoint judges to overturn Roe, overturning Roe would not end the world because we had a permissive abortion environment that struck a balance between forcing a woman to bear a child under bad circumstances and the wanton taking of human life of unrestricted abortion,” I know I would catch heck from NARAL, but would I also get it from the Pro-Life movement?
Lincoln eventually, after years of war, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but for all of this House Divided speech, he was trying to be Plan B on slavery until history dragged him to Plan A. Is there a Plan B aspect to being pro-life, or is this a Plan A question?
Re: #81 from Nortius Maximus: Thanks. 🙂
Re: #82 from Paul Milenkovic: great post, much food for thought.
I would add a failed “revolution”: the domestic anti-Communist struggle. We also had this in Australia. (It did not play out to the bitter end in Vietnam in the same way because the UK did not go to war with America in Vietnam – which in retrospect looks a prudent decision.)
The anti-Communist struggle involved an immense amount of framing and blaming, using terms like “fellow-traveller” to condemn people for ideologies they did not always adhere to. It did a lot to poison politics, all the way down to the face to face level within families. In the face of a real threat, far too much conformity was demanded of people.
Some successful reaction was necessary, to throw off excessive demands for conformity and control. But reasonableness did not work well in the face of the implacable and self-interested stupidity of people determined to read Communist influence into any unwelcome assertion of union power, contrary personal interest, individual empowerment and freedom or casualness, or just fun. Too often, the bounds of what was accepted as “reasonable” were successfully constricted.
(When a discussion of fair wages for the cattle-hands on grand-dad’s farm takes an abrupt right turn into accusations of Bolshevism, things have gone too far. But there was no effective penalty for crying “Commo!”, so people kept doing it, even thoughout the Vietnam War.)
The successful reaction, unfortunately, was irrational, bitter, more mocking and socially destructive than constructive, and routinely untruthful. The successful answer to “You suck!” was “No you suck!” Or rather: “You’re Commos!” “You’re Nazi racists!”
Tactics reward by success invite invitation. This contributed to the “Plan A, Plan B” problem that you describe, and which we basically agree on.
Re: #83 from Paul Milenkovic: Very good post, which with your previous post I think should have its own thread.
I would rather reply there than in post eighty-odd of a thread about “what’s left?”
Sorry, this paragraph was jumbled:
bq. “I would add a failed “revolution”: the domestic anti-Communist struggle. We also had this in Australia. (It did not play out to the bitter end in Vietnam in the same way because the UK did not go to war with America in Vietnam – which in retrospect looks a prudent decision.)”
What I meant to say is, the UK did not get this fight to the bitter finish, because the UK wisely stayed out of Vietnam.
That the UK, and a lot of places that did not experience the Cold War in the way the English-speaking peoples did, still wound up with unhealthy amounts of political correctness and identity politics shows there is more in this than a reaction to the right’s unsuccessful effort to consolidate a restrictive social regime by creating taboos about what you can say.
David Blue-
We’ve tangled before on questions of “thread hijacking,” but you’ve yet to explain to me why it’s off topic to point out that somebody trashing liberals to a predominantly conservative audience doesn’t qualify as effective reform.
At the time, you also suggested Armed Liberal would “reprocess” his ideas based on GOP losses in ’06, and come up with “new, improved” ideas. I’ll suggest that if this post qualifies as his “new, improved” ideas, then it’s entirely germane to point out how even further off the rails AL’s gotten with his claim that the left has “sold themselves and their children down the river.” To claim that such criticism of AL shouldn’t be brought up invites the question of whether any of AL’s premises can be questioned, or if all such questioning qualifies as “thread hijacking.”
As for your recommendations for how the left can improve:
bq. Therefore, in my opinion: Focus on class and material conditions, not identity politics, and seek material improvements through practical, workable ideas and compromises, not status victories, especially after years have proved that the targets of your shaming attacks won’t and maybe can’t quit the field.
Well, insofar as Democratic candidates have offered up their reform proposals for health care, the environment, and economic divisions, I’d say they are “seeking material improvements through practical, workable ideas.” I don’t doubt that you might disagree with their methods, but I suspect the proposals will be palatable to most Americans.
And as for your denunciation of “status victories”, followed by your caveat that you reserve the right to be “inconsistent,” it should be self-evident that you’ve completely undermined your own argument. It’s certainly the case that there are those on the left who give gay marriage the same importance that you give to pro-life issues; you don’t have to agree with them, but it is the case that they feel just as strongly. And insofar as you try to pitch the “status victories for me, but not for thee” line to them, you’re just blowing in the wind.
#86 from Chris: As for your recommendations for how the left can improve:
Therefore, in my opinion: Focus on class and material conditions, not identity politics, and seek material improvements through practical, workable ideas and compromises, not status victories, especially after years have proved that the targets of your shaming attacks won’t and maybe can’t quit the field.
Well, insofar as Democratic candidates have offered up their reform proposals for health care, the environment, and economic divisions, I’d say they are “seeking material improvements through practical, workable ideas.”
This part I agree with.
I also think we might talk more about John Edwards, who seems quite willing to talk about have and have not.
–
#86 from Chris: “And as for your denunciation of “status victories”, followed by your caveat that you reserve the right to be “inconsistent,” it should be self-evident that you’ve completely undermined your own argument.”
I object to status battles being placed above practical struggles. Life, survival, flesh and blood issues should be more important than shaming others, even if you think those others have got it coming.
The inconsistency of placing an alteration of the moral playing field to the forefront in this case derives from the special nature of the case.
When human beings are given a status so low that they can be and are killed by the millions, then to save them from slaughter, you have to change their moral status.
–
#86 from Chris: “It’s certainly the case that there are those on the left who give gay marriage the same importance that you give to pro-life issues; you don’t have to agree with them, but it is the case that they feel just as strongly.”
That’s true. And I disagree with that, for the reason I gave above. Status on its own ought not to be given the priority that improvements in material conditions should get.
–
#86 from Chris: “And insofar as you try to pitch the “status victories for me, but not for thee” line to them, you’re just blowing in the wind.”
I’m not looking for status victories, I’m looking to save innocent and defenseless human beings from slaughter. If giving every abortionist a Nobel peace prize or a gay wedding would stop the killing, I would be all for it.
David-
bq. I also think we might talk more about John Edwards, who seems quite willing to talk about have and have not.
I agree – I voted for Edwards in the ’04 primaries, and I’d love to see him take the nomination this time around. But insofar as at least one of the three major Democratic candidates is talking “Two Americas” and the like, doesn’t that suggest Armed Liberal would have been better off talking up John Edwards rather than talking down the left in general?
bq. I object to status battles being placed above practical struggles. Life, survival, flesh and blood issues should be more important than shaming others, even if you think those others have got it coming.
…
bq. I’m not looking for status victories, I’m looking to save innocent and defenseless human beings from slaughter. If giving every abortionist a Nobel peace prize or a gay wedding would stop the killing, I would be all for it.
Again, you’re missing my point here. Pro-gay marriage people would reject the idea that their struggle for what they see as a fundamental right amounts to “shaming others.” Now, you don’t have to agree with them – you don’t even have to be ok with the fact that they see the world that way – but you do have to recognize that they do see the world that way. And that being the case, you gotta recognize that they’re not gonna give up their fight for full gay marriage just because you dismiss it as a mere “status victory.”
Think of it this way – what you’re proposing is equivalent to two opposing sides in a war agreeing to ban the use of certain weapons or tactics, even as the broader conflict continues. Each side is convicned that they’re right and the other’s wrong, but if the ban is ever to be reached, then they have to realize that the other side will never agree to arguments in the form of “you should not use X, but our use of X different and/or more important, or maybe doesn’t even count as using X, so therefore we shouldn’t have to stop.”
In other words, if you want the left to admit that full marriage rights for gays is just a “status victory,” then you have to also admit – whether you agree with it or not – that getting people to recognize a 1-week-old embryo as a full human being is likewise just a “status victory.” But since the chances of either side doing so are vanishingly small, this is, as I said, a largely meaningless argument.
Actually, Edwards’ campaign is one I’m following with great interest. I’ve got three intersecting measures I’m tracking this on – and yes, they contradict (and I’m working on a longish blog post on it).
1) what will they do for my hypothetical single mom or working family? What real impacts will their policies have on their lives? 2) what will they do to break down the current insanely corrupt political system and restore transparency and power to the edges? 3) how will they deal with the outside threat of violent Islamism?
Of course the problem is that people who are good on 1) tend to be bad on 2) and 3) and vice versa.
But I’ll do something longer about that soon…
A.L.
#89 from Armed Liberal: “Actually, Edwards’ campaign is one I’m following with great interest. I’ve got three intersecting measures I’m tracking this on – and yes, they contradict (and I’m working on a longish blog post on it).”
Good.
I think that here below we can sum up years of our agreements and disagreements as to essentials.
#89 from Armed Liberal: “1) what will they do for my hypothetical single mom or working family? What real impacts will their policies have on their lives? 2) what will they do to break down the current insanely corrupt political system and restore transparency and power to the edges? 3) how will they deal with the outside threat of violent Islamism?”
Me: 1) What will they do to protect and nurture innocent and defenseless human life in our states, and what real impact will that have? 2) How will they deal with the threat of Islam, and will they exhibit mateship and solidarity in dealing with our category 1 allies? 3) what will they do for battlers, for our hypothetical single mom or working family? What real impacts will their policies have on their lives? 4) what will they do to improve the integrity of our political system, install something like the code of conduct John Howard couldn’t get his party to accept, and bring power to the margins?
States, categorized:
1. “Mates” states who will be with us and we with them through thick and thin.
2. “Favorably inclined” states that are persistently inclined to cut us some slack as long as it costs them nothing.
3. “Dead even” states that will do what they think is in their interest without any charity or malice to us.
4. “Unfavorably inclined” states that are persistently inclined to be unhelpful or worse in a crisis, or that have persistently negative or hyper-touchy reactions.
5. “Inimical” states and non-state actors that will do us and our mates what harm they can.
I believe in fighting for ourselves and our mates and at a stretch for favorably inclined states, never for an alleged universal love of freedom, or international law, or so that if we help our enemies they will cease to be their enemies. We should never give inimical states and populations a break that is not their neck.
I believe in standing by our mates because that’s our bedrock value as Australians and so that we will know who we are: true Australians, like the generations that came before us. It is not so a bunch of foreigners (even the best ones) will remember and do something for us, even though that is a strongly desired outcome. If it is said “we may do X for the British or the Americans of the New Zealanders of the Canadians, but they will not remember or be grateful,” I don’t care. This isn’t about them, it’s about us.
#89 from Armed Liberal: “Of course the problem is that people who are good on 1) tend to be bad on 2) and 3) and vice versa.”
My items 1) and 2) are the life and death items, my items 3) and 4) are the very important not not life and death items. I put our politicians on a simple grid based on how they deal with the life and death issues.
Innocent Enemy
Kill * *
Spare * *
Political types on life and death issues:
A: Kill innocent and enemy alike, the Al Qaeda death cultist and the babe in the manger too. Example: Rudy Giuliani. There is use for men like this in war, and we are in a war. But I do not love them.
B: Kill the innocent, spare the enemy: a dingo that is of no use and even undermines us against our external enemies, and sneaks into the tent for babies to eat, and will struggle fiercely to get at that innocent flesh. This is the normal liberal position: close “Gitmo” because that’s taking hostilities too far, but pay for endless abortion. I’m morally horrified by and I get angry at people like this, even though I prefer not to be angry, and I think it’s counterproductive to be angry. To fairly discuss the good points of people like John Edwards (and he has important good points) I have to bracket out what he wants on every issue where life and death is at stake.
C: Spare the innocent, kill the enemy. This is the herd beast wall of thorns approach: predators are kept outside, kept from getting at the calves. Example: George W. Bush. I have a vast willingness to forgive guys like that, even when they’re wrong, wrong, wrong. (Forgive, and like – but not prefer them to other leaders who are not, e.g., so addicted to appointing untalented cronies to important positions and pursuing bad policies.)
D: Spare the innocent, spare the enemy. This is the cicada strategy: lots of little cicadas, so many that even though they are defenseless against the birds that pounce on them, the birds won’t eat them all. There are no serious examples of guys who still think like this, and the reason is, they all go into the parties of the left – naturally, being anti-war – and get converted to being pro-choice. Example: Dennis Kucinich. Guys like this always sell out, and that is why I don’t even bother having a reaction to people in this category any more before they turn.
Jesse Jackson was always going to sell out…
bq. “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life … that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.”
bq. “What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?”
What indeed? Jesse, you rotten-hearted … eh, let it go.
That’s it, A.L., I think that’s where we are agreed and where we are in disagreement.
#88 from Chris: I agree – I voted for Edwards in the ’04 primaries, and I’d love to see him take the nomination this time around. But insofar as at least one of the three major Democratic candidates is talking “Two Americas” and the like, doesn’t that suggest Armed Liberal would have been better off talking up John Edwards rather than talking down the left in general?”
If that’s a problem, it’s Armed Liberal’s problem, and at the moment I’m not interested to make it mine.
My interest is that two Americas is not many Americas intractably divided and embittered by race, gender, sexual orientation and so on. John Edwards’ old-fashioned way of looking at things lumps together all the categories into two, diminishing the importance of other occasions for conflict – and these two are defined in a way that mean their problems can reasonably dealt with, by compromise and constructive social and government action, with no “culture war” required. I think that’s probably the most hopeful and constructive approach on offer.
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bq. I object to status battles being placed above practical struggles. Life, survival, flesh and blood issues should be more important than shaming others, even if you think those others have got it coming.
…
bq. I’m not looking for status victories, I’m looking to save innocent and defenseless human beings from slaughter. If giving every abortionist a Nobel peace prize or a gay wedding would stop the killing, I would be all for it.
#88 from Chris: “Again, you’re missing my point here. Pro-gay marriage people would reject the idea that their struggle for what they see as a fundamental right amounts to “shaming others.” Now, you don’t have to agree with them – you don’t even have to be ok with the fact that they see the world that way – but you do have to recognize that they do see the world that way.”
Yes. For example, Andrew Sullivan is stuck on Plan A – shaming others – when it comes to gay marriage, but he regards this as a fundamental moral necessity.
#88 from Chris: “And that being the case, you gotta recognize that they’re not gonna give up their fight for full gay marriage just because you dismiss it as a mere “status victory.””
Yes to that too.
#88 from Chris: “Think of it this way – what you’re proposing is equivalent to two opposing sides in a war agreeing to ban the use of certain weapons or tactics, even as the broader conflict continues.”
I’m genuinely open to a discussion on whether pro-life and pro-choice disputes could be more “Plan B” or if this is basically a “Plan A” type conflict.
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#83 from Paul Milenkovic got my full attention.
Paul, the only way I can think of to get your thoughts the attention I think they deserve is to make a new thread, which I or someone else would post, crediting you. (This was how my first threads at Winds of Change happened too.)
Your post as it is wouldn’t stand completely by itself, because outside the thread you would need some explanation of where the “Plan A” “Plan B” terms come from.
So could you write that up, and add stuff from your other posts and freely from mine if its useful to you, then send it to Joe or Armed Liberal or me at Winds of Change dot net, and then one of us can post it as a discussion thread and credit you?
I’d just say “send it to me”, but I haven’t done this before, whereas I know that Joe has successfully done this before for me, and Armed Liberal is already watching this discussion, so either of them might be a more reliable way for you to get your thoughts out.