Liberals News

The New Republic, Who Gets Everything Wrong, Opposes Occupy Wall Street

1:38 pm EST October 12th, 2011 | Liberals | 77 Comments

If you haven’t been playing along at home, you’ll remember the New Republic as the opinion magazine that:

* Supported Joe Lieberman for President
* Supported the Iraq War
* Consistently supported the corporatizing of the Democratic Party
* Publishes the hate tracts of Marty Peretz
* Is wrong on everything

So it should come as no surprise that TNR opposes Occupy Wall Street. It’s main argument is along the lines of the traditional TNR argument, that some elements are just too radical, too left-wing for a mainstream liberal to be in favor of.

Much like Fox News’ opposition to Occupy Wall Street, this should be seen as a well-earned endorsement by the protest movement. TNR is almost always wrong on everything as an institution (they do have the occasional smart writer who breaks out of its DLC-neocon box, but that’s the exception to the norm).

The left, and specifically the Democratic Party, failed America when it adopted Republican-lite economic policy. The New Republic was one of the chief cheerleaders of that folly. Consider the source.

Hey, Occupy Wall Street, I Was Wrong

4:37 pm EST October 7th, 2011 | Liberals | 135 Comments

I was wrong about Occupy Wall Street. Well, sort of. I still think that the protesters need to do more to appeal to non-activists out there in the vast middle of the country, but on the flip side they’re doing the right thing by getting out in the street.

The people that caused our recent economic crisis and the economic disparity that preceded it are right out there on Wall Street. They are the 1% who have lorded over the rest of us for way too long. In America you ought to have a decent shot at moving up, and increasingly that avenue is being cut off. Their message may be varied, but I know many of those occupying Wall Street would like to see a return to the American dream. I’m all for that.

The other, less substantive reason I know that Occupy Wall Street is on the right path is due to the intensifying attacks from the right-wing cheerleaders who helped lead America to the brink. When Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Glenn Beck are pounding their fists — the opposing side is almost always in the right. The team that brought you the Iraq War, the Financial Crisis and the Lost Decade is not to be trusted.

If they’re against Occupy Wall Street, I’m for it.

Hey, “Occupy Wall Street”… Dress With Some Dignity

5:58 pm EST September 22nd, 2011 | Liberals | 52 Comments

A couple days ago I tweeted a link to this Reddit post that said the following:

You Want to Change the World? Dress with Some Fucking Dignity.
“Right here is some sincere guidance to US protesters: dress much better. I’m not kidding. You may possibly think you are paying homage to the peace-loving hippies, but the masses of America–the people whose help you’re going to need–fucking hate hippies. Take a lesson from the protesters of the 20s and 30s. Dress cleanly and neatly. Hell, wear a tie. Bear in mind, our great-grandparents have been the ones who effected true social change, e.g, the forty hour function week. Our pot-smoking mother and father failed in which our suit wearing excellent-grandparents succeeded.”–Some guy on Youtube

I present some pictures from the ongoing “Occupy Wall Street” protest:

Now, let us compare this to Civil Rights protesters in the 1960s, who actually accomplished something:

If you dress up like a dope-smoking hobo, expect to be treated like one and not be taken seriously. Get a haircut. Wear a nice shirt. Carry a sign with a message that makes some kind of sense to an average American.

It might work.

21st Century Progressive: How Do We Get There?

1:03 pm EST September 14th, 2011 | Liberals | 13 Comments

One of the things I admire about the modern conservative movement is that they have an internally coherent value system they use to gauge conservative politicians by. It doesn’t make sense outside of conservatism, but they have what they believe is a value system that conservatives should abide by. On the left, any such system is – at best – a haphazard hodgepodge. We need to change that.

But first, let’s go back and look at what worked and what hasn’t worked.

There are, for my purposes here, three distinct progressive movements in the last century worth looking at that had long-term effects.

The Original Progressive Movement. This movement, at the turn of the century and extending into the 1920s has a huge legacy – including but not limited to worker’s rights, environmental conservation, and most importantly women’s suffrage.

The Civil Rights Movement. The most successful progressive movement of the last century, this changed the face of America and the world.

The Vietnam War Protest Movement. In my view, this is the most problematic movement. It was undoubtedly a mass movement, but I believe its legacy is one of more failure than success. The popular conception is that people massed against the war and it ended. In fact, the war raged on for years while the protesters continually upped the ante. It didn’t work. The war didn’t end until casualties began to mount.

The perceived success of the Vietnam War protest movement has, I believe, hobbled a lot of progressive movement in the 20th and 21st century. People believe the idea that you a mass of people will simply convince those in power to concede. This doesn’t work in America.
While mass protest movements are unusual in the Middle East and had success, they are – as currently constructed – practically useless in America where corporate clients can just as easily assemble a “protest” as Code Pink. To the average American, they are “priced in.” Someone is always protesting about something and no matter the inherent value, the impact is negligible.

The protest movement faced a test in the war on Iraq and it failed, miserably so. The protests against the war did not change public opinion; they did not create a threat for elected officials to be afraid of. The protests against the Iraq war were a failure.

I don’t believe all mass protests are a lost cause; they just have to work differently. The protests in Wisconsin got national attention because they were not rote and they involved organized labor. It isn’t an everyday occurrence for people to occupy a state capital. That said, they didn’t break the back of Gov. Scott Walker’s assault on labor. Conservatives got the laws they wanted on the books.

We have to throw away the idea that simply protesting – the simple act of “getting out into the streets” without a real message or plan of action — will effect change or should be the central organizing activity in a progressive outreach effort. It doesn’t work, it probably never really work, and it won’t work.

We need to go back to what worked, the early progressive movement and the civil rights movement, and refine what did work and combine it with 21st century persuasion and engagement techniques.

There has to be a core idea, most important of all. I think the left has failed at this, partly because liberalism has often gone with what I deride as the “cumbaya” approach: the idea that if everyone has input, ideas can be rolled up together into something that can be sold.

That doesn’t work. There is a reason why past progressive movements solidified around leaders with defined ideas and goals. You had Mother Jones organizing labor and against child labor. You had Martin Luther King arguing for passage of the civil rights act. You even had the President, Theodore Roosevelt, agitating against the trusts and in favor of federalizing massive tracts of land in order to protect them.

There are some current progressive campaigns that have their hearts in the right places, but insist on asking everyone for input and produce a laundry list without a core.

We need goals, and we need targeted measures of success. It isn’t about what “feels right” or “feels good” but rather “what is accomplished?”

There is also the idea about what it is to be a progressive. I think it means we believe in forward thinking solutions that make life better for the most possible people. I don’t think it means being opposed to profit or personal enrichment, nor do I believe it is solely about one’s pet causes.

For myself, a Progressive America means one in which everyone has a decent shot at the American dream, that we can enrich ourselves and our communities without engaging in practices that suppress others or harm the world around us.

This seems to me an idea – with possible modifications — that a political movement could coalesce around and enact as a litmus test for leaders on multiple levels. I believe the way to get there is to integrate what has worked in the past, and bury what didn’t work – despite a collective belief otherwise – while constantly adding on new technologies and techniques as their success is proven.

Do Liberals Understand American Politics?

12:46 pm EST August 10th, 2011 | Liberals | 76 Comments

I’ve been going around in circles with people on Twitter arguing about President Obama. The odd thing is, these people and I are both supporters of him. The problem is, I feel, many of them are simply satisfied with his presidency so far while I feel he has – intentionally – missed many opportunities.

A football analogy.

You’re down by four points. You get the ball to the 50-yard line. There’s time for one more play. The way Obama has operated, you just take the knee. The justification is that the odds are against a hail mary pass and they could intercept it and run up the score. Plus, its only one game and not that big of a deal in the standings. He figures, based on the way you’re playing you could go 9-7 and qualify for a wild card spot in the playoffs.

What I and many others are arguing is this: Go for it. Try for the long bomb, try the pass that seems improbable. Sure, you could lose, but you could also win!

And when you go for it, you tell the fans and your team that you don’t quit, that even when you lose — you were trying to win big.

President Obama has repeatedly offered concessions to the right which have often resulted in the passage of important legislation. It has certainly advanced the ball down the field. But the touchdowns have been far too infrequent.

But we don’t have the votes for a progressive wonderland, comes the counterargument.

No kidding.

Right now on issues like taxation, America plays on GOP turf despite poll after poll saying Americans believe the rich should be paying more. Why? Because the right decided some time ago to be the anti-tax party. They passed legislation with no chance of success that cut taxes. They primaried Republicans that were insufficiently anti-tax. They elected Republicans at the county, state, and federal level that supported their core tax-cut ideology.

Then, after taking over the House, Senate, and the Presidency they were able to cow Democrats into passing tax cuts. What seemed to be tilting at windmills became the reality we deal with today.

So it isn’t that I expect President Obama to have been able to pass health care reform with a public option, or allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire, or pass a debt ceiling bill that actually raised some revenue. But I would like him to fight for those things. Progressive politics do not end with Barack Obama’s presidency. He’s part of a movement far larger than his 4-8 years in office.

If he wants to help create an atmosphere where the big, important issues can be addressed he has to stand up for the right solutions even when the cause is unlikely to win for the moment.

This is what Obama told me to my face when I met him in the White House:

“There are some core principles that I think are important for not just me to stick with but for the country to stick with. So if the Republicans say we need to cut our investments in education, at a time when we know that our success as a nation is largely going to depend on how well trained our workforce is, I’m going to say no. And there are going to be areas where, after working very hard, we just can’t find compromise and I’m going to be standing my ground, then essentially we debate it before the American people.”

I’m just asking him to live up to that.

Topic: President Obama

The Grand Crap Sandwich

7:36 am EST August 1st, 2011 | Democrats, Economy, Liberals | 101 Comments

Obama The Republican Party was able to enact more conservative cuts on the government with a Democratic President and Democratic Senate than they were with a Republican President, House, and Senate. That’s how much of a massive failure the debt ceiling “deal” is.

It is a massive failure, not only of progressive politics, but of American politics. The legislation will hobble the economic recovery while hurting the poor and middle class. Anybody who believes in progress for America should loudly vote against this monstrosity.

Everybody should share the blame here.

The Republican Party, for its dogged dedication to policies that enrich the already rich at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Congressional Democrats, for being listless and directionless and spineless at practically every opportunity. Given the reigns of power by the American people, they dithered and dithered and watered legislation down. While in the majority, they allowed the GOP to wield far too much influence, while also making the party’s own conservative wing overly influential. Those choices helped lead to a loss of power in 2010, and even weaker leadership in 2011.

President Obama, who has now shown himself to be a terrible negotiator of epic proportions. With just the House, he gave the Republicans the least terrible of their demands. The right demanded no revenue and all-cuts, and Obama gave them just what they wanted. Sure, they would have rather had even deeper cuts — but Obama played the entire game on GOP territory.

I wish someone would show the President a thesaurus and explain that “capitulation” is not a synonym of “compromise.”

In 2010, Democrats ran on a platform of “the Republicans are worse” and as a result suffered at the midterm elections. You cannot run a strong campaign on that kind of message. People need a reason to vote for you, not just against the other guy.

Democrats have now compounded their 2010 problem. If the bill passes, a Democratic president, along with a Democratic senate, will be enshrining conservative policy as law. While overall it’s still better to have Democrats in power — the Democrats themselves have undercut progressive policy. That’s a crappy way to motivate your progressive base.

And again, besides the politics and the optics, the deal is just bad for America. It is wrong for our country. It hurts an already bleeding nation. And the Democrats helped.

In the past progressives like myself said we needed “more and better” Democrats, please. Now we truly realize that its far better to get better Democrats because a majority with a Democratic president simply unwilling to push forward and do the right thing clearly isn’t getting the job done.

This is a massive failure.

Topic: President Obama, U.S. Senate, US House

Needed: The Great American Reboot

9:55 pm EST July 14th, 2011 | Liberals | 51 Comments

After the devastation of WWII, western Europe had to decide how it was going to reconstitute itself for the new post-Hitler world. They largely decided that in addition to capitalist based economies, they would also have a large and generous social safety net. America also faced a fork in the road, but our homeland didn’t suffer the mass wreckage Europe did. Besides repair to Pearl Harbor, our infrastructure was solid (in fact, our capacity to manufacture was key to victory) and we went with a system that emphasized more growth and less safety. It was a very American thing to do – roll your dice and the reward can be worth the risk.

The problem with that is that increasingly the rewards are being limited to a few, yet more of us are taking on the risk. It simply isn’t sustainable.

We need a system that duplicates the best ideas from around the world for the safety net, in addition to a system that still has many of the rewards of traditional American capitalism. Right now we operate in a patchwork system that has effectively seized up. It isn’t going to all collapse overnight, but instead the gears are grinding against each other and production is slowly going down.

In some ways, it transcends party. From where I’m standing there seem to be two camps: The conservatives, who seek to protect the fortunes a few have been able to hoard from the system, and the establishment Democrats (including President Obama) who make changes but begin from a position of weakness. I’d rather Democrats (or, liberals) started out shooting for the moon, and it would make the eventual agreement seem like it at least began life without corrupting influence. Instead, Democrats/Liberals are so cowed by the way things are (and the media’s reinforcement of these ideas) that they begin with a slightly positive, yet bland product which eventually becomes even more watered down.

I think liberals have to stop settling for gruel.

Some unpolished thoughts/proposals:

1. Tax Code Reform This means a return to higher taxes for the ultra-wealthy. Somehow during the economic booms of the 1940s, 1980s, and 1990s, a higher tax rate for the very rich didn’t impede economic growth. Over the course of the Bush Recession, the ultra-rich have had historically low taxes, yet this hasn’t helped the broader economic picture at all. If we can raise needed revenue, and we know it won’t hurt growth, we should do it.

This also means an end to corporate loopholes, like offshore havens, and the elimination of loopholes that allow megacorporations to pay far less in taxes (as a percentage) than many of us.

2. Single Payer Health Care In America, you shouldn’t have to strike some sort of grand bargain in order to get decent health care. The Health Care Reform law was a great step forward, but there is much to be done here. There are also economic benefits to be gained — if we take the cost of health care off the business ledger, it provides safety and security for businesses.

3. Radical Education Reform The biggest danger to America’s leading role isn’t the military or the economy. If America wants to have a shot, let alone the human capital to lead the world, our entire education system must be torn down and reformed. This means overhauling school curriculums from coast to coast, employing and engaging the best and brightest to be educators. And it means throwing out ideas that fail to deliver a return on education for children. In this area, more than any other, we have to get rid of the sacred cows.

4. Energy We have to find an alternative to fossil-based fuel. We can’t just throw our hands up and say it’s too hard. It has to be done. We need to follow the path of the Apollo project or the Manhattan project and come up with a viable, environmental, cost-effective fuel source. And in the process, begin working with the technology we have now to create massive projects that pay off in the long term.

5. Civil Rights We have to always err on the side of freedom. America’s civil rights movements – women’s suffrage, minority rights, gay rights – have never been about “waiting” until your turn, or putting constitutionally guaranteed freedoms up to a popular vote (“Brown vs. Board Of Education” wouldn’t have passed a vote in many states, but the Supreme Court decided it correctly).

6. National Security We need to stop being the country that supports oppressive regimes out of a need for global stability and cheap oil. Being a trusted superpower gives us more power than a superpower everyone is skeptical and cynical about.

7. Real Regulation Industries cannot be trusted to voluntarily police themselves. It simply doesn’t work. Megabusiness will almost always find a way to collude and manipulate, putting their own profits far ahead of the well-being and health of their customers and communities.

I probably forgot something, but this is just a scratchpad for what I was thinking about.

Undercover Conservative Brother (And Sister)

2:28 pm EST June 20th, 2011 | Conservative, Liberals | 3 Comments

Elon James and Cheryl Contee from Jack And Jill Politics snuck into RightOnline as black conservatives. Hah!

Topic: RightOnline

Netroots Nation Goes To The Jerk Store

11:40 am EST June 17th, 2011 | Liberals | 23 Comments

The interview with White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer at Netroots Nation 2011 was a cringeworthy joke. Interviewer Kaili Joy Gray (a front-page poster at Daily Kos) did a horrible job in communicating the frustrations felt by many on the left about the work done by President Obama so far.

Gray embodied the snark so many associate with the internet, a brand of unseriousness that causes the web to still not be taken seriously. This was best embodied in her admonition to Pfeiffer that “we” are “tired” of hearing about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Somehow I doubt the women whose lives will be directly affected by the legislation are tired of hearing about this civil rights extension.

There are a lot of serious issues that the White House deserves to be chided on. From capitulation on tax cuts and the way health care reform was handled, to its policies on Wall Street and unemployment.

But you don’t get there by being a jerk about it. I don’t believe that progressives should simply be a rubber stamp for a Democratic president, but at the same time can you imagine a Bush staffer going to CPAC and getting treated like a complete enemy?

Doubtful.

In America we have a two-party system of government. Progressives can either position themselves on the outside, carping about the injustice of it all without effecting any real change, or they can work within the more receptive of the two parties – the Democratic Party – and change it, and by extension America, from within.

The ideal way to do this is to push the party to do the right thing, and to shame them when they do wrong, but there’s a way to do that without being so drunk on snark you come across like a whiny child asking for justification as to why we can’t have ice cream for dinner.

While I don’t believe the cancers on the progressive movement represent a majority opinion either within the Democratic Party or on the left in America, their voices get amplified at unfortunate encounters like this.

Topic: President Obama

Yes, We Were Right To Kill Bin Laden. Yes, We Should Celebrate It.

10:09 am EST May 3rd, 2011 | Liberals | 43 Comments

Things like this are why I often can’t stand liberals. Or, to be more precise, a very narrow, tiny sliver of liberalism that always has its head up its own rear. Since the killing of Bin Laden has been revealed, there have been two ridiculous reactions to it from people on that shelf of ice floating way off the coast of mainstream liberalism in America.

First, the bedwetting over whether we had the right to kill Bin Laden, as detailed in this article. Of course we did. Bin Laden was an international criminal, wanted for crimes against multiple states (the US for 9/11, England for 7/7 and Kenya for the embassy bombings). This isn’t the kind of man you just let go. You find him, you kill him. This is black and white morality 101.

Secondly, should we rejoice at his death? Yes. A million times yes. This is the man directly responsible for the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. 2,977 innocent lives were lost. In addition, Americans lost a sense of security that we’ve had, the idea that our two oceans could protect us. It wasn’t a loss of innocence, but it was something taken away from our collective psyche.

When the man directly responsible for this is killed, it is a moment to rejoice. The serially stupid David Sirota, writing in Salon, compared this to those who cheered on the September 11 terrorists (unsurprisingly, Glenn Greenwald similarly spent a whole lot of overwritten paragraphs expressing a similar sentiment). In addition to just blatantly whoring for traffic, Sirota’s moral equivalence smells to high heaven. Those people were cheering on the killing of innocent people. Sunday night, Americans were celebrating a mass murderer’s moment with justice. The two are not remotely equivalent. Not even close.

This has been another edition of “that was stupid, quit it” with Oliver Willis.

Topic: 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism