You probably missed this in the news, since it's about as bold as a 90-pound weakling on Muscle Beach, but the Democrats this week unveiled "A New Direction For America." According to the Boston Post (registration required), "Though House Democrats bristle at comparisons to the Republicans' 1994 'Contract With America,' the wide range of domestic proposals represent an answer to the GOP's oft-repeated charge that the Democrats lack ideas for governing."And what are the "range of domestic proposals" that Dems will be running on this year? Get ready for these shockers: make health care more affordable, lower gas prices and achieve energy independence, help working families, cut college costs, ensure dignified retirement, require fiscal responsibility.
Russ Feingold warned Wisconsin Democrats at last week's state convention that even though the Republicans are down in the polls and in disarray, the Democrats could not take back the majority in the House or Senate by merely "running out the clock." Yet the "New Direction" is so trite and tepid that it is obvious the party leadership plans on doing just that.
Besides being trite and tepid, there's nothing in the New Direction that is actually new. Dems have been mouthing these non-threatening platitudes for years. Here are some examples of what would really be a new direction for the Dems:
*Instead of making health care more affordable, call for a single-payer, national health care policy.
*Instead of calling for lower gas prices, call for a reform of the auto centered, inefficient sprawl culture that got us in the energy mess in the first place.
*Instead of helping working families by calling for a rise in the minimum wage, call for making the minimum wage a living wage for all full-time workers.
*Instead of merely cutting college costs, call for free tuition for anyone who can make the grades.
What becomes clear when reading the "New Direction" is that the Dems are clearly part of the "culture of corruption" they have been lambasting for the last two years. To call for a real new direction would be to offend those wealthy interests that are financing both major parties. As a result the New Direction is only the Same Old Story. If the New Direction is the best Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership could come up with, and if Russ Feingold is correct in his assessment of the run out the clock strategy, 2006 could end up being a Dem Disaster.
13 comments:
*Instead of making health care more affordable, call for a single-payer, national health care policy.
*Instead of calling for lower gas prices, call for a reform of the auto centered, inefficient sprawl culture that got us in the energy mess in the first place.
*Instead of helping working families by calling for a rise in the minimum wage, call for making the minimum wage a living wage for all full-time workers.
*Instead of merely cutting college costs, call for free tuition for anyone who can make the grades.
I think the Dems are looking for good ideas...
Well I'm not real tight with Nancy Pelosi, so I can't really speak for her with confidence, but I beleive the "New Direction" refers, not to a radical shift from previous Democratic ideas but from the current Neo-con direction.
I don't think preaching to an SUV loving nation about leaving "auto centered, inefficient sprawl culture" is a realistic short-term plan. Nor is "free tuition for anyone who can make the grades" likely anytime soon no matter how much I might like that with 2 in college right now. "The minimum wage (as) a living wage for all full-time workers" is a huge shift from years of making sure that it's hard to survive on just one-income.
Not all Democrats agree on how to BE a Democrat, and I'd bet if we had inner access to the Other Guys party we'd find that there are serious disagreements on how to BE a Republican as well, but overall I'd think anyone to the lef tof Neo-con would think those were worthy goals. If any of those were acheived it would require HUGE amounts of work and feel like a fairly radical change from where we are right now.
Has the Democratic party ever been the Utopian party? I never saw it that way.
I feel a bit foolish though,in Democratic party meetings I have said that I think it is possible for Dems and Greens to get along, that the shreddign of each other is counter-productive and assures that we are all losers with energies spent on trading shots instead of trying to get anything done.
I have felt sorry for the Green party, I don't beleive I do any longer. We are in a serious mess as a nation IMHO and unless someone (maybe the Greens?) has a magic wand it's going to be a long slow road, requiring reasonable acheivable steps. That is how the conservatives have succeeded, by chipping away - not by standing up and screaming about world domination overnight. Their slow determined pace has succeeded.
When I think of the people I sat with at the Democratic party meeting last night, and their exahusting efforts to roll back Republican influence - people who are sacrificing and go around regularly with red-bleary eyes from lack of sleep - well I think you sound mean.
Frankly my dear, I am a Democrat.
It's really incredible to me how even progressive Americans will now use terms like "radical" and "Utopian" and "screaming about world domination" to label ideas that to the rest of the industrialized world are considered quite conservative (e.g. national health care, rebuilding cities vs. sprawl, free or minimal cost college tuition).
There was a time, not too long ago, when equal suffrage, ending child labor, and the 8 hour work day were labeled "radical" and "utopian" even though the masses of the population wanted them and basic decency dictated them. Yet the major parties would not get on board for many, many years.
In 1906 the United States was mired in social injustices that the major parties would not address realistically until the Great Depression of the 1930s. Did we finally get at least some sanity in tihs country because people sat bleary eyed at Democratic and Republican party meetings? Or because activists working outside the establishment parties created platforms and mobilized citizen action that the established parties could no longer ignore after the system they had created and presided over finally bottomed out?
Today in 2006 it's not the Greens who are being "mean" to the Democrats, its Democrats like Feingold who are saying that if the party does not start taking bold stands it ain't going nowhere. Feingold and Ed Garvey have said that the Green platform should be the Democrats' platform--an acknowledgement that the party's baby steps just won't cut it anymore. The "New Direction" is not bold, is not new, and really woudln't even roll back Republican influence if enacted because it does not disagree with the Republicans over ENDS, only MEANS. Jeez, you'd think with all this fixation on "framing" over the last two years they would at least come up with new ways to label the issues we face.
"Screaming about world domination" referred to the REPUBLICANS. I was making a comparison to the technique that has worked for the Republicans in winning "hearts and minds" - kind of a necessary step.?!
The Republicans did not stake out their long range goals overtly to the public - they have chipped away. A close look at the conservative agenda shows they DO want a complete restructure of the US and the rest of the globe, yet, they did not state those extreme and to them likely Utopian goals outright. Smaller more acheivable steps happened first, or so it seems to me. Those steps were then built upon, slowly and methodically until we find outrselves enmeshed as were are today in a firmly ultra-conservative web.
I beleive a successful extraction from that web is dependent on equally slow and methodical (realistic too, given the amount of opposition any leftward movement is likely to face) steps that reverse the neo-con damage.
As to the Hearts and Minds. Deibold and hanging chads and Jeb Bush are all factors in the current state of affairs but let's face the truth - it is 95% the result of what the Average American thinks.
While I do not relish the thought of someone taking this analogy and running with it - there IS a comparison (functionally at least) between the responsibility of the Good Germans and the role of the post 911 Americans.
Leftists and liberals are NOT the average American and few venues encourage critical thought among the "masses".
What is to be done -
"We have read a book that has convinved us that urban sprawl is bad - we will dictate to those others of you now about total life-style changes because WE have read a book." No time is given by such atop-down, elitist and arrogant a position for the "growth" of awareness or the analytical thought processes of of anyone else.
Extreme (what will be perceived as extreme by most Americans) positions hurled out in anger that makes people feel belittled turn off the people whose support we need. In-fighting among those to the center and left of the currently powerful seems foolish to me in what I feel are serious and dangerous times.
Also - now you use Russ' words to back your position and you were crawling up his ass as inadequate not that long ago...what gives?
(seemingly off topic, but not)
I am "communicating" with Ron Kind's staffer about Kind's (now MY congressman since I moved) disgusting Net Neutrality vote. Yup, some Democrats suck you-know-what.
But a lot of them don't. Some of them are trying to bring the party back to where it should be (with the people and not the corporations)and I have every intention of defending those people from unkind attack.
And I meant that my similarly minded red and bleary eyed friends do NOT get those glowing orbs from sitting in bullshit meetings (which in truth tend to be short and to the point, but "meetings" have a time-wasting connotation. In EC monthly meetings usually end in 1 hour, not excessive by any means), but they get those red eyes by putting in workdays that often end around 1 a.m. and then start again at 8 the next morning.
Some people, some DEMOCRATS are making genuine and often personally uncomfortable efforts to re-align our political direction. They do not deserve (I do not deserve) such bitter derision and contemptuous ridicule.
Hey,that's clever--protest "bitter derision and and contemptuous ridicule" at the same time caricaturing the anti-sprawl plank as: "'We have read a book that has convinved us that urban sprawl is bad - we will dictate to those others of you now about total life-style changes because WE have read a book.' No time is given by such atop-down, elitist and arrogant a position for the 'growth' of awareness or the analytical thought processes of anyone else."
Opposition to sprawl development is hardly "elitist." It is true that the movement to halt development that produces congestion, pollution, destroys wetlands and downtowns is not as widespread as it should be, but compared even to where that movement was five years ago I think it is fair to call it grassroots, though it has had limited success at forcing establishment party politicians to respond (because oil, real estate, construction, etc. wield equal influence with both major political parties). For what it’s worth, I’ve never read a book on sprawl (heard of a few, but never quite actually read one yet).
I don't share the belief that the Republicans chipped away and did not state their goals overtly. In 1964 Barry Goldwater was very clear that the Republican Party needed to stand for Big Defense, Tax Cuts for the wealthy, more prisons as a solution to crime, work instead of welfare, market solutions to health care, etc. Goldwater was blown out in 1964 and derided as a fascist, but Republican candidates at just about every level since then have staked out similar ground in one way or another.
In 1972 George McGovern ran as a Democrat on a bold platform that was derided as "socialist" because it included such “radical” policy stands as a guaranteed annual income and universal health insurance. In fact, compare today’s “New Direction” of “making health care affordable” with what the Democratic Party platform of 1972 said:
“Establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans with a comprehensive set of benefits including preventive medicine, mental and emotional disorders, and complete protection against catastrophic costs, and in which the rule of free choice for both provider and consumer is protected. The program should be federally-financed and federally-administered. Every American must know he can afford the cost of health care whether given in a hospital or a doctor's office.”
McGovern got blown out in 1972 (in part because he a victim of what was probably the dirtiest campaign in the history of the United States), yet whereas the Republicans remained true to Goldwater’s “big ideas” and eventually prevailed, the Democrats have spent the last 34 years running away from McGovern, disowning the dreaded “L” word, and watched as their candidates became increasingly Republican-lite to the point where the McGovern platform has pretty much been completely dismantled (he was actually calling for an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and a 37% cut in defense spending even as the war raged on in 1971).
BTW, Ron Kind was terrible on the LaCrosse referendum for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq--yet even without his help it passed by a 55-45 margin.
Yes, we (myself and my Democrat friends)are disgusted with Kind for that and also for the bankruptcy vote. There is to be a democratic challenger to Kind and many defections are planned, beleive me.
But it's more basic than that. The uber-snotty and senselessly rotten crying baby image on this post, designed by neo-cons no doubt...
You just don't care who you hurt do you. We should all find such obvious correctness in each of your opinions that such ridicule is our own fault. YOUR bad experience with Democrats becomes MINE if I am rational, and if not then I should welcome the requisite correction and re-education process. I should welcome your judgement and ridicule. If I posted an equally offensive image of the Green party you would hemmorhage and everyone knows it.
But you're Tony and you can say want you want and not listen and insult your friends and we should all just suck it up.
Jody,
Jody, Greens and other non-establishment parties have been ridiculed, mocked, derided as spoilers, called "twisted" (see the blog post on Michael Berg)and otherwise treated badly since day one, often by people who can dish it out but can't take it. For third party activists, being equated with a whining baby and told our platform was "old" would be among the more mild criticisms. We get trashed JUST FOR PARTICIPATING. As a Democrat you can be upset at a whining baby image, but your candidates are still guaranteed public financing, still guaranteed a ballot line, and still guaranteed mainstream media coverage just because they are Democrats and for no other reason. The same is true for the Republicans, of course.
Speaking of intellectual discernment rather than socioeconomically, the appeal of the Republicans in the last few elections has been to the lower classes. To the rabble. To the milling crowds, so easily formed into a mob
Arrogant much?
I'm not going to defend anyone, especially people I can't stand to listen to. I have no clue why I even need to.
Your "we lost because the people who voted against us are just stupid" attitude is most certainly arrogance.
This "blindly follow" b.s. gets old real fast. That label is thrown out WAY too quickly by liberals. If I disagree with you, in isn't necessarily because I'm blind to the fact.
I'm not Republican. I most closely resemble libertarians, but I wouldn't say I am one. For a long time I felt that I was an economic conservative and a social liberal, but it's tough to agree with any fiscal policy put forth by conservatives today.
What I find are that (seemingly) most liberals have an unmistakably condescending attitude and view themselves as being better than everyone else. The "you're stupid if you disagree with us" attitude along with the "blindly follow" montra sits on par with the crap spewing from Rush, Hannity, and O'Reilly (though admittedly not on the level of Coulter). True, people who get their information from the far-right radio hosts and Fox television are getting spoon-fed a load of crap. But so too are the people who get their information from Comedy Central, The Huffington Post, Paul Krugman, Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo
bumper stickers, many college professors (present company not included :))... From my vantage point there isn’t much difference tactically between the two sides, though both will argue ad nauseam that there is.
Well well well...I see we have delusions of grandeur coupled with liberal demagoguery. Your banality is demonstrable to the point of egregiousness. Yes, we get it, it’s all Bush’s fault. The neo-con termites have gutted your liberal federal bureaucracies and you wonder how you’ll ever have any power again. Well, you won’t. Take your cut and run ideas and your piss-on-the-Patriots propaganda creating your desultory scuttlebutt to redundant original state. Die, if you want to, like misguided martyrs. You have no ideas, no direction, no leaders, no hope. You WILL lose the next election in November so badly it may spell the end of you socialist organization you once called The Democratic Party. You convoluted ideas displayed with mercurial satisfaction only serve to demonstrate lugubrious intent. What a pitty.
Citizen 'Cat -
Look at it this way dear, at least you don't have to type with only one hand because you're holding a dictionary in the other. The Bard of Stratford-upon-Winnebago seems to have spoken.
So - I was at the Public Library book sale last week. Bought a book that turned out (I realized after I got home) to have Auden's thing on the death of Yeats, like you mentioned way back...
And at the Neighborhood Association party tonight a guy I thought I would NOT like, but did, told me he thinks we carry every person we meet with us from then on for the rest of our lives. Not a real strong inducement for me to expand my social circle (imagine!)but I got what he meant.
So you join those two bits together somehow and combine that with the idea that I'm trying to re-align my head and my means of self-expression. To do an extreme blog make-over. Don't do The Girlfriend Thing and say "there's nothing wrong with your means of self-expression now", because honey, there IS. Terribly wrong.
They say habits die hard but sometimes they just fall away like dead leaves, you don't notice the change until you hear them crunching under your feet. And yet, a leaf or two still cling to the tree. Citizen, you can be one of those leaves. Your call.
There's nothing at my new blog now, but once in a while stop over at halfmoongazette.blogspot.com
That's where I'll be.
A few friends of mine (and me) have started an alternative publication here in Eau Claire. The next issue has a rant about proto-fascism in America and other stuff. I plan to have a full online PDF copy available from a link on the above listed blog. Next week I think. I expect improvement with each issue and at some point we will kick some serious butt.
Stop on over, and take a look, 'K? Maybe leave a pawprint once in a while...
Had it not been for King Fustian's blog, I would have sworn he was fishing.
Scary...
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