Politics is a negotiation. If we, the left, have nowhere else to go, we have no power.

[rudy23]

Rahm knows this, and that's why he's laughing his ass off at the futility of Democrats' frustrations with Obama right now.

They love Sara Palin because they can move as far right as possible in the grand negotiation, and simply threaten us with Palin if we don't fall in line. You've seen this bullying talking point used here many times.

That's exactly why we need to work to create a VIABLE place to go in 2012, if only to give us SOME hand in the basic political negotiation over what direction our government moves in over the course of Obama's first term.

We can threaten to stay home in 2012, but no one will believe us. Ditto for voting for the Republican (esp. if she's Sara Palin) We can threaten to leave our volunteer power on the sidelines, but they can say they will just replace that with big donations--then they can pay people to replace us.

Howard Dean will not run against Obama in 2012. Kucinich and Nader have already made as many waves as they're going to. I love Dennis, but unless he has a very focued message in 2012, he's not going to give us the strength we need.

As much as I despise Ron Paul and his politics, we need to find somebody like this on the left who can capture the imagination of young voters with their frankness, and willingness to stand up to the establishment. Someone who's willing to mix things up in the debates, and call out the President for their betrayal of Democratic values. There's a lot of populist rage sitting out there on the table, and if someone can harness it from the left, they can be like the Huey P. Long that pushed FDR away from the center in the 30s.

Who is going to be our Ron Paul on the left, who can get the young voters excited, possibly excited enough to start a "revolution"? Or at least someone who can give us another option, thus giving us strength in the Great Political Negotiation that we're dealing with, so Rahm can't just kick around a bunch of sitting ducks?

[villager]

1. Wow -- the unreccing Panglossians are alarmed even by the thought of this *discussion!*

n/t

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

15. Using a word derived from 10th grade required reading doesn't make you appear smart. (nt)

[villager]

21. Nor does assholery, actually

n/t

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

22. You're right - that's another mark against your post. (nt)

[villager]

23. well, Snarkwood -- welcome to the ignore list!

:hi:

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. Oh! Say it ain't so. He'll be absolutely gutted.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

31. And on the eve of the eve of Christmas Eve!? How will I ever get over it!?

This war on Christmas must be ended!

[newlib]

2. ron dellums is the name. nt

[tblue]

12. That would shake the very ground we walk on.

Speaking truth to power, if "power" = Obama, will blow the roof off. Not that Dellums could defeat Obama, but he would surely illuminate the void.

[lapfog_1]

3. He shouldn't be.

We might not run out and support Sarah, but we might just sit on our hands in 2012. Worse than simply not going to the polls, we are the activists that phone banked, the people that gave $30 or $50 a month for the entire campaign, drove people to the polls, etc, etc. And if we sit on our hands, it's a multiplier to just not voting, just as our activism was a multiplier to getting Obama elected.

[Cant trust em]

5. Yep. We can't let any politician take us for granted.

I don't expect all of our leaders to be raging progressives, but they have to throw us a big enough bone every now and then to keep us happy.

[tblue]

10. Good point! Depending on how much each of us did in '08,

our time/effort/money/commitment + our passion = 2-100 votes each, more or less.

At our local Obama office, volunteers had run out of phone bank space, and were making calls out on the sidewalk in the cold of night. You can't tell me that didn't make a difference or that we won't need all that again for Obama's reelection and also to keep Congress in '10.

[griffi94]

11. that's the thing i don't get

all the money that progressives raise and the phone banks and still not even a bone thrown our way.
i don't think an actual 3rd political party would work that's too much of an all or nothing deal, but if instead of running a nader or (insert unelectable progressive name here)we could put together a demonstrably significant voting bloc that can offer or withhold support we could possibly negotiate an issue or 2 to our liking. that's the kind of incrementalism that could work....at least in theory. in years where the elections are razor thin we could negotiate from a stronger position. i'm not very informed about what naders issues were in 2000, but in hindsight instead of an all or nothing run at the whitehouse, given the strength of the voting bloc he had at the time it seems, in theory anyway, that he could have negotiated a prominent place at the table in a gore administration, maybe got a concession or 2.
of course you'd have to be willing to use the stick as well as the carrot and be willing to actually sit out an election and not fall back into the lesser of two evils mindset.
just my 2 cents and for all i know this has been tried and failed.
i know the green party put together enough people to swing the 2000 election.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. How did Ron Paul's revolution turn out?

And why would you want to replicate that "success"?

[rudy23]

16. I despise Paul's ideology, but he drew enough votes from the right to be taken seriously.

That's the idea--Rahm's not going to stop taking the left for granted until we make it hurt him to do so.

[Oregone]

6. You can turn to the couch or pack your shit and find a new home

[ClassWarrior]

7. A THIRD party run is futile in a TWO party system. If you want another choice, you need to...

...work to establish a multi-party system.

Witness John Anderson, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader. It's not a matter of finding the magic candidate. It's a matter of changing the system.

NGU.

[rhett o rick]

8. I agree. We have our work cut out for us. nt

[xchrom]

9. All you have to do is stay home

In enough numbers -- and some one will
notice -- a lot.

Pain can bring change in behavior --

[ConservativeDemocrat]

14. YES! Vote Nader! So we can all have another Bush!

:woohoo:

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community



(oh, and for the irony-impaired.... :sarcasm:)

[Hidden Stillness]

13. We Have to Start Acting Like the Real Democratic Party, and that They Have Responsibilities to Us

This yet again, is part of the continuing, unfolding nightmare of the corporate Republican "D"LC takeover of the Democratic Party, when the first things they did, during the 1990s, was to close down local and regional DNC offices and structure, get rid of staff, change the Party platform, and start gearing itself completely to corporate fundraising, media appeal and advertising, "purging" the Party of populists and progressives, and changing all messages from issues and societal problems and solutions, to "The Bill Clinton Personality Fan Club." They also decided at this time, that no Democrat had ever won an election; only they knew how. Then they lost the Congress, 1994, the first time since the early 1950s that we didn't control both Houses, and so they blamed it on..us. This has been the approach, and their campaign tactic,ever since--they are putting on a TV show, and the "Audience" 's only job, (no longer citizens, with rights), is to cheer. Remember at Obama rallies, on the very few occasions when somebody tried to ask a real question--the little teens booed,...and Obama laughed. What service!

DU and others also contributed to this, by wildly overrating the impact and "threat" of a "horrible woman" (!), as you generally do, rather than paying attention to your own responsibilities. By elevating Sarah Palin to this exalted place, you gave the "D"LC pricks their instant airtight routine--see, we have to protect the world from "Her." You gave them their distracting "we will save you from this, unless YOU people ruin it" monster. You also continue the "we must follow the Leader Male" attitude--Nader, Dean, Kucinich, Feingold, blah, blah, oh, one of them will save you; just the way Obama played it. You also do not do yourselves any favors by pretending tha FDR was "conservative" or "centrist" and had to be "pushed to the left" (by you!). Roosevelt as Governor of New York, already had the great Francis Perkins as Labor Commissioner, already had a State version of the Emergency Response agency, and already had a version of welfare type payments to the unemployed, and plans for Public Works programs. If you have to fight them on every point, then they are your enemies. Roosevelt was a friend.

There needs to be real fighting of these people, that is for sure, but not the "we will start a third Party" type silliness; it just makes you sound as if you are not serious about anything. They have to be directly confronted, with anger, on the issues. People did that with overwhelming opposition to the Wall Street speculator bailouts, and they did it anyway--this anger has to be brought to them again and again. You will have no sucess, I think--we as a Nation--until they themselves move to get the corporate money out of the political system, because that is the main cause of the corruption.

[rudy23]

17. No, that's great input. I agree, we have to do something beyond threatening to start a 3rd party.

But what?


I also agree that FDR didn't require NEARLY the push from the left that Obama does. I think you have some great insights into this. So what can we do to give ourselves power in the Great Political Negotiation?

[ClassWarrior]

20. As Thom Hartmann always says, join your local Dem Party and infiltrate from the bottom up.

We aren't going to change it by leaving it. We only hand it over to the jackals when we do that.

NGU.

[rudy23]

24. Sounds great---but does that give liberals as a group more power in Rahm's world?

Once we become part of the apparatus, he's still got control over us.

Not dismissing your idea, which I wholeheartedly agree with. But what do we do between now and the start of 2012 that gives liberals as a group some alternative to being battered by the DLC with no place else to go?

[ClassWarrior]

37. Speak for yourself. Ain't nobody got control over me. It's amazing how many believe the RW meme...

...that there's no hope for Progressives in the Dem Party.

NGU.

[Hidden Stillness]

29. Well, This is Not Really Helpful--It is a Real Problem--But I Think Just Confronation by Citizens

Well, you are certainly right about how hard it is. That has been my thought for a while now, too. I am not one of these people who pretends that somehow "Obama doesn't know" or sillier yet, "Obama is being threatened," (while bouncing around jauntily, smiling and waving, and speechifying), and I do not pretend that Obama will change and become a populist or a real liberal. I guess this is my approach: I consider the Obama Admin., after all the evidence of its actions--starting with kicking Howard Dean out of the DNC chair, after Dean's 50 State strategy won them the election, and then they pretended they themselves did it alone--to be as hostile to the interests of ordinary, working/unemployed/disabled people, as Bill Clinton was. I think the only approach is direct, angry confrontation of these people with the facts of what they have done, and what they are not doing to help.

For example--the unemployment rate is high and getting worse; in Michigan, ours was recently calculated at 22.3% actual. Then, the Obama Admin. re-calculated the way they count the entire workforce pool, lowering it on no real basis, so the "number of employed people" was now a larger part of the whole, fake number, and so they claim unemployment is down! This is infuriating here, but nobody confronts any of THEM with it. This is what I think about, over and over--somebody, intelligently and angrily, has to burst the bubble and tell these people that they are not fooling us, it is not the 1990s, (it is more like the 1930s), tell them what their lies are, tell them we are not "fans" cheering Obama, but that we are citizens, we want help, and we are sick of the corporate interference in our country's political system. Sometimes, only un-"framed," un-practiced, straightforward, sincere anger, explained, will start things going. They must be forced to stop playing the game. It must end up as a mass revulsion at the whole corrupted system. I know that is not really helpful, but that is actually what I think it will take. This is going to be a long, hard road, and it will have to be the American people as a fed-up group.

[Echo In Light]

18. Realistically, the corporate $ is too monolithic - the notion of "voting" to create "change" is dead

Far more realistic to gear one's focus on the various lefty groups that will arise from empire as it's in its death throes, and therefore having to reveal its true aims and colors.

[ClassWarrior]

19. Yes, let's all just give up and wait for the revolution.

:eyes:

NGU.

[blindpig]

26. Ya don't wait for it...

ya make it. Not by running out of the house with a molotov cocktail but by talking to people, everyday people. Get people talking about the condition of things, the reality that we live, what our options are, honestly. That is where it begins.

[ClassWarrior]

38. But how can I do that while I'm giving up??

:rofl:

NGU.

[Echo In Light]

33. It won't be that definitively cut and dry

... but yes, pooling energies for yet another 'one of us,' "electable" candidates won't yield anything different than what it has, despite people desperately wanting to believe otherwise. One person's cynicism is another's realism.

[rudy23]

25. One thing we can do---over the holidays, try to explain Rahm and the DLC in laymen's terms.

Rationally and calmly explain what Rahm and the DLC are all about to your low-information friends who voted for Obama just because he is not George W. Bush.

Try and find a way between now and then to concisely explain this to them without making it sound too far fetched. We are the high-information voters that the lo-info "center" gets their news and views from. That's where our power lies.

We are the alphaconsumers of political news, and it takes a while to absorb what's happening in the news, then to frame it in laymen's terms for our friends in the "center."

That's Rahm's worst nightmare. That the "left" will go mainstream (which it already would be if not for the corporate media), and that we will educate all those low-information voters about the profound snowjob that the Obama admin is trying to pull over on us.

It's not very hard, and you don't have to limit it to Dems. People are angry at Wall St. Obama hired Wall St. to oversee this recovery AND the healthcare debate, and screwed Main St. in the process. As long as you disassociate that ideology from the left, that's something EVERYONE can relate to.

[EFerrari]

28. The Whole Truth may be that the left, the center and the right

really have nowhere to go. Republicans don't rep their bases interests. They sell issues for their bases to rally around. The center seems to be courted but at bottom, that's just theater, too, imho.

The left and the right both say they want their country back where the center may not yet realize they've lost it, too.

:shrug:

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. Ever heard of John Edwards? Dennis Kucinich? There are one or two others.

But it will be futile, won't it, as they will be marginalised in a fraudulent primaries in favour of smooth-talking DINOs. I'm sure it's happened some time in the past.

[Edweird]

32. Huey Long is what lit a fire under FDR's ass. Who will be OUR Huey Long?

[jgraz]

34. Is Matt Taibbi over 35?

Just askin... no reason...

[rudy23]

35. It'd be nice to have that Taibbi article or link handy, if you run into your low-info voting friends

I think educating that "center" that Rahm is going after is the key to beating his line of reasoning.

[treestar]

36. Anyone very very far to the left has no power

As, fortunately, those who are so far to the right that they think Palin is a genius.

It works on the other side too - Libertarians for example have the brains to vote for Republicans or realize they are letting the Democrats get an advantage. Though since Democrats don't vote and don't support their party unless it is 100% in line with their opinions, this is less of a threat for that side.