dagblog - Comments for "Progressive Walkout"

Thanks, Aaron, for digging

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 19:46:01 +0000

In reply to Progressive Walkout

Thanks, Aaron, for digging back into the archives.

Though it reminds of how many people no longer post here.

That's a little sad.

Obama's stimulus package was

Aaron Carine — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 15:16:39 +0000

In reply to Progressive Walkout

Obama's stimulus package was hardly laissez faire--and it didn't work.

When the Republicans (R )

Resistance — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:04:44 +0000

In reply to I think, bottom line, unless

When the Republicans (R ) come to power they take care of their base, in that way their donors are flush with cash. The Republicans also attack the infrastructure of the Democratic machine.

Obama and the democrats (r) come to power and the bankers get bailed out and the poor middle class Democrats, are busted and left to fend for themselves.

Unless we can swell our numbers more substantially or become huge money donors,

Obama the General on the Potomac wants to lead us in singing Kumbaya and bipartisanship, telling us how he’s the President of all the people, even those adamantly opposed to his policies.

A weak general who cant recognize the enemy and allows them the opportunity to regroup; allowing the republican machine to regroup, so it can launch more attacks, so that now Obama has to watch his flanks.

Now he has multiple fronts. He must protect the independants he must protect the republican swing voters. All because he failed, to deliver the decisive blow when the Republicans suffered devastating losses in the first battle.

History records; when the Army of the Potomac failed to pursue the retreating Confederate Armies,, the war lasted much longer.

It makes me believe, both the democrats( r) and the Republicans (R) love this war, this "class war"

WAR PROFITEERS?

One party the (R ) assures they have the funds to support their troops and run a campaign, and the other uses fear tactics because their troops are cash strapped, their broke and losing their homes. Democrats didn’t protect their lines of support.

We need a new General.

I think, bottom line, unless

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:11:55 +0000

In reply to Progressive Walkout

I think, bottom line, unless you're walking out to go somewhere...you aren't really going anywhere.

If you're trying to push Obama in a more progressive direction, that's fine, but there are some considerations. While progressives were important to his election, there weren't enough of us to put him over alone. He needed the independents and defecting Republicans.

For example, we weren't enough, or enthusiastic enough, to keep the House and Pelosi as Speaker.

Obama's very aware of this, and thus always has to walk a line between progressives and independents. So while he "has" us, we and the other members of his coalition "have" him. He can't really move too far to the right or left and expect to get re-elected.

Unless we can swell our numbers more substantially or become huge money donors, then there is a limit to our sway. Becoming a smelly irritant just isn't enough, IMO. And allowing him to lose by not showing up, giving money, or campaigning is really just a way to shoot ourselves in the foot. We already did that with the House. Let's not do it again in 2012.

Having read this thread, I

Tintin — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:56:52 +0000

In reply to Dan, with due respect, I

Having read this thread, I think you're basically correct. The underlying ideology or conventional wisdom about how the economy works, etc., has to be changed.

I'm not sure you're right about the money argument, however. In reading Invisible Hands, it is clear that it was hard to get Goldwater-style conservatism off the ground. And it is true that much of the corporate world saw itself as non-political and had to be scared into participating by a dark vision of unions taking over commerce.

But those early pioneers DID have some deep pockets on their side. The AEI and Heritage were funded by wealthy people. And they were funded by wealthy people the public didn't know. Today, this is much harder. Soros, who was once an obscure-to-the-public trader, is now a household name. Hollywood types are, by definition, well known.

So I'm pretty sure that a parallel progressive movement couldn't incubate in the dark for a decade or more the way movement conservatism did. For one thing, they were speaking to an elite; we'd have to speak to big numbers. And, of course, they didn't have the Internet--which is a plus for us, but also means we'll have to play heavy defense even as we try nourish tender shoots.

Stepping back a little, though, movement conservatism was and is an ideologically pure movement. But its strength is also its weakness, as I think we're seeing now. Growing a less ideologically pure movement will make it harder to steer, but also stronger politically.

I've spent the last year or so "talking" with old high school mates on FB about politics.Toggling between that conversation and ones like this reminds me that, even though we claim to speak for ordinary people, the ordinary people I run into have very different mindsets and a very different take on what is true and isn't true about the economy and politics in general.

And I'm not talking even about policies, but about views on the bedrock reality that underpins policies. For example, questions like "are we broke?" Or "is the debt an immediate and pressing problem?" Or "can we afford a tax hike?" "Is it fair to ask the rich to pay even more given that they're paying the lion's share of the taxes now?"

Most people will answer these questions the way a conservative would answer, but not because they are ideologically conservative. They just think that that is the way things are. They know these things to be true much the way they know it tends to rain in the spring. This is where the real challenges lie, IMO--displacing this conventional wisdom with a different one.

That SOUNDS easy, AD. But

Tintin — Mon, 16 May 2011 01:13:16 +0000

In reply to So you explain to the public

That SOUNDS easy, AD. But when one side is winning the ideological war, simple and straightforward arguments and policy proposals don't really work, in my experience, until straits become desperate enough for enough people.

If this argument were as easy as it sounds, I think more meat and potato Democrats would be making it. It fits with their original conception of their politics and harkens back to a time of liberal hegemony.

But a lot of Democrats learned the hard way at the polls that these kinds of arguments--or rather the liberal ideology underpining them--simply wasn't pulling with voters the way it once did. This is an ideological struggle, IMO, not so much about policy.

At bottom, I think Genghis is right. There is no shortcut to building an ideologically based movement ("extremism in defense of liberty is no sin") that is also based on different and demonstrable economic ideas. Unless and until you have the numbers on your side and a clearly articulated ideology, you're always on the outside looking in or getting squashed by the larger group within the party.

If everyone basically accepts Milton Friedman, none of this will go anywhere. You end up sounding like your calling for "temporary serfdom," if you see what I mean. Hard to sell.

Someone in The Nation wrote an interesting article about how we need to recaste government as a source of personal liberty--tap into basic symbols--rather than as a limitation on personal liberty as it's now portrayed. I'm not sure he got much beyond this in terms of how to go about it.

So you explain to the public

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:26:36 +0000

In reply to You might be right about

So you explain to the public that this is a temporary measure to help the overall economy recover, and lay the essential groundwork to grow the economy more effectively and produce more good jobs going forward, as well as help those individuals and families who, through no fault of their own, have lost their livelihoods as a result of this economy and are in many cases in desperate straits.

You might be right about

Tintin — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:20:47 +0000

In reply to I think the word "jobs" in

You might be right about jobs. But we still have to counter the intuitively sensible ideas that 1) the federal budget is like a household budget and we can't afford to spend more than we take in (even on a jobs bill) and 2) the intuitively correct idea that the private sector is the source of sustainable jobs, not the government.

After all, the average person doesn't feel like he's supporting FEDEX with his hard-earned dollars. It appears to operate, sustainably, on its own with people paying for it only when they personally need it. But he DOES feel like he's supporting the USPS when it runs a shortfall, even if he doesn't use its services.

He DOES feel like he's personally supporting federal infrastructure jobs by taking money out of his pocket and paying it in taxes, which then go to pay contruction workers.

This arrangement doesn't appear sustainable to him because it appears to require constant hand-outs in the form of spending of tax dollars.

Thank you, Bwak. T

Tintin — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:13:21 +0000

In reply to Good to see your name here,

Thank you, Bwak. T

Good to see your name here,

bwakfat — Sun, 15 May 2011 18:32:53 +0000

In reply to I've just through this entire

Good to see your name here, tintin.