dagblog - Comments for "The Political Power of Cable TV Shock-Jockery "

From your article:"It now

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:04:19 +0000

From your article:

"It now falls upon Leon Panetta to put an end to discrimination in the military. While the formal end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will probably come sometime soon, it will not come before Defense Secretary Robert Gates retires. Gates did say that “a formal end to that ban on gays serving openly in the US military will likely come by late July or early August.”

This has to do with the IMPLEMENTATION of the new law, the repeal.

As for passing bills, Congress does that...remember?

Rachel's comment was that he

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:01:44 +0000

In reply to I don't know why it feels

Rachel's comment was that he opposed the NY decision. Remember? He also signed the law.

From your article:

"But is it true that Obama has to wait for Congress to act? Most legal experts agree that a president cannot simply change a law by fiat. “Obama is correct in the most general terms,” says Diane Mazur, a former Air Force officer who teaches law at the University of Florida. “Federal law can go away in one of two ways: Congress can repeal it or a court can find it unconstitutional.” And it would seem hypocritical for liberals, who complained during the Bush administration that the executive branch was arrogating too much power to itself, to decide suddenly that they like the unitary executive when their side controls it. “I would be unhappy to hear Obama reading his commander-in-chief power to ignore Congress,” says Robert Burt, a professor at Yale Law School."

"But you discount the

Desider — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:28:47 +0000

In reply to @Desider you

"But you discount the effectiveness of established organizations."

Please provide a quote or a reference. Even in the part you do quote there are words like "can be argued", "can be just as organized", "perhaps faster..."...

Nor do I say traditional orgs can't "use these tools" - I noted "built around" - i.e. social media comes first, it's not an add-on.

I'm not sure what progressives you think are working outside the system vs. Howard Dean working withing the system. They're all working with similar resources - some a bit more centralized, some a bit less. But Net Roots works closely with people like Bernie Saunders, Al Franken, Alan Grayson, and a number of other less controversial politicians. Jane Hamsher worked with Gordon Nyquist to get some accountability. Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon, a pretty mainstream publication where Joan Walsh is editor. Act Blue copied Dean's 50 State strategy at a time when Rahm was walking it back. OpenLeft and MyDD spent a lot of time trying to get polling to line up for accurate campaign predictions and use of resources. Howie Klein and Darcie Burner have spent their time trying to find more attractive progressive candidates to run for vulnerable congressional seats, typically on a shoestring of support but combining guerrilla and establishment sources where possible. Marcie Wheeler is friends with a lot of judges and other legal professionals by which she gets lots of good information on Gitmo, mortgage fraud, Wall Street malfeasance and other court cases. Even Michael Moore works a lot with unions, which once upon a time were considered within the structure of an organization, but now are being looked at with scorn and ridicule. (Though recent anti-union events in Wisconsin have brought this back a bit)

@Desider you

tmccarthy0 — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:11:07 +0000

In reply to The media is owned by huge

@Desider you wrote

Organizations have different behavior, and it can certainly be argued that a team built around Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Email/SMS can be just as organized and perhaps faster and more flexible than traditional political groups that hold galas and mailings.

Traditional Organizations use these tools to built their organizations, I wrote that above in my response to you. But you discount the effectiveness of established organizations. All I am saying is that these methods are tried and true because they participate in the system and are therefore heard and able to push for change. If you want to change the system, you have to be able to participate in the system.

Howard Dean worked within the system, and he was able to do this by participating in the system, he didn't do what he did by moving out of the system and trying to create all that on his own, he did it from within the party, within the structure of the organization.

I'd prefer to talk about the

Desider — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:45:36 +0000

In reply to This is a bunch of lefty

I'd prefer to talk about the current President of the United States and issues that affect us most today, but yes, Citibank's Robert Rubin was still around under the Obama Administration as a rather ill-advised advisor.

The media is owned by huge

Desider — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:39:09 +0000

In reply to @Decider, here is what I

The media is owned by huge corporate entities, so they get away with much more than we let them.

Organizations have different behavior, and it can certainly be argued that a team built around Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Email/SMS can be just as organized and perhaps faster and more flexible than traditional political groups that hold galas and mailings.

Fundraising is one aspect of this, and internet-based donations were huge last presidential cycle, as were traditional high-dollar-per-plate dinners with lots of bundling going on.

Of course there's been some fury with the rather conservative DNC in both how it operates and how it supports not very progressive candidates to the exlusion of those who push the status quo much harder. (Versus say Howard Dean's work with the DCCC promoting a 50-state policy that promoted grassroots participation and more local control).

But in any case, it seems the argument here is that progressives work with more fleeting non-traditional organizations. In one way this is misleading, as many of these organizations were co-opted by the Obama nationwide effort in 2008, and discouraged from doing individual fund raising and such, rather were encouraged to push their donors to the Obama campaign. Post-election, the Obama campaign then folded up the local grassroots organizations with a faint promise to recreate it some time later, which never really happened.

But in any case, they're organizations, just not everybody's organizations.Since they're often built around particular campaigns, their longevity is typically limited, except where recycled say from Dean a bit to Kerry and then to Obama.

This is a bunch of lefty

brewmn — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:30:24 +0000

In reply to Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

This is a bunch of lefty agitprop that, of course, doesn't remotely prove what you're asserting, that there was a quid pro quo in which Obama agreed to take or not to take specific actions regarding Goldman Sachs in exchange for campaign contributions. Goldman's sweet deal under TARP was cut when George Bush was still president, and was supported by a vast majority of the Democrats in office at the time.

Now, if you're trying to argue that Wall Street has far too much influence in Washington,with that of course I agree. We can talk about Bill Clinton and Citigroup if you'd like:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/busts-keep-getting-bigger-why/

Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs:

Desider — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:17:27 +0000

In reply to How exactly did Obama "sell

Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

Goldman Sachs was also the end recipient of much of the bailout to companies like Lehman Brothers and Citibank

Campaign contributions:

Barack Obama (D)

Top Contributors

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.

University of California	$1,591,395
Goldman Sachs	$994,795
Harvard University	$854,747
Microsoft Corp	$833,617
Google Inc	$803,436
Citigroup Inc	$701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$695,132
Time Warner	$590,084
Sidley Austin LLP	$588,598
Stanford University	$586,557
National Amusements Inc	$551,683
UBS AG	$543,219
Wilmerhale Llp	$542,618
Skadden, Arps et al	$530,839
IBM Corp	$528,822
Columbia University	$528,302
Morgan Stanley	$514,881
General Electric	$499,130

Description of close ties between White House & Goldman Sachs:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92637/goldmans-connections-to-whit...

“At a time when Congressional hearings are set to call testimony from some Goldman Sachs employees, it is vital to understand how widespread that institution’s ties are to the Obama administration. This diary shows the pervasive influence of Goldman Sachs and Goldman created institutions (like the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution), employees and influence peddlers in the Obama administration,” FDL wrote on April 27.

It is not simply Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, Gary Gensler and Mark Patterson who are Goldies, but a long list of others. “But that’s just the tip of the Goldman Sachs iceberg. Here you will find, I believe, the most comprehensive list of people-groups yet available to show how Obama’s administration has really become the Goldman Sachs administration.”

Elena Kagan is merely the latest addition, although her ties to Goldman are downplayed if not completely ignored by the corporate media.

How exactly did Obama "sell

brewmn — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:03:40 +0000

In reply to What does this blog about a

How exactly did Obama "sell out" to Goldman Sachs again?

@Decider, here is what I

tmccarthy0 — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:01:37 +0000

In reply to The Political Power of Cable TV Shock-Jockery

@Decider, here is what I think about all those things you've mentioned before I went to work out. So I wanted to come back to you with as complete as answer as I possibly can.

I believe that some of the movements you mentioned are not in the truest sense organizations, which is why say, progressives lack organization.

As a member of the League of Women Voters (founded 1920), this organization has been around for very long time, it survives personality. The League of Conservation Voters is no different and in some sense nor is the Democratic Party, which on the whole has the same goals, but those goals encompass a wider area simply because of the size and scope of the party, which has many different interests.

The League of Women voters has lobbyists in Washington DC, they have organization at all levels, from the county to the state to regional to national. They are well established as an institution that fights for certain progressive issues. They have impact on the system. The organization itself is made up of liberals, conservatives and moderates. Each level of organization meets, they have policy discussions, ideas are introduced, consensus is built and principles and policies are adapted to the demands of our ever changing political goals. In short, people have taken their time to build an organization that has some positive impact on our politics. The internet is definitely used as a method of building outreach and consensus, but it is not the only method used. Regular old time mailing, telephone calls, dinners, etc are used to build the organization, which is nothing without a membership, and of course it has a long and well established membership, showing up to community events, passing out pamphlets, all of that and more.

I do believe the media has a motive too, not just evil politicians and corporate entities, they get away with as much as we let them. The media has great power to sway people, I think that is a simple fact.