Calm down (and get to work)

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/calm-down-and-get-to-work/2011/07/21/gIQAd7zTSI_blog.html

Posted at 05:36 PM ET, 07/21/2011
Calm down (and get to work)
By Jonathan Bernstein


The rumors about the debt limit and deficit negotiations are flying this afternoon, followed, as usual, by panic on the left and the right that the worst versions of each rumor is true. “We’ve been sold out!” is the cry of the day.

And yet, it’s worth remembering that early reports are usually wrong, almost always in the details and quite often in their entirety. Why? Lots of reasons. Rumors of a budget deal could be accurate. They also could be spin; they could be trial balloons; they could be a source getting something wrong; they could be a reporter getting something wrong.

snip//

So my first advice to everyone is to calm down; the odds that the initial stories get important things wrong are very high even if they were based on public announcements of a deal, and they’re much higher when it’s only at the rumor stage.

My second advice to activists, however, is that once you’ve calmed down, is to get to work. If it’s a trial balloon and you don’t like it, shoot it down; if it’s a tentative deal, make sure everyone knows your position. It’s no time to be fatalists, moaning about how John Boehner or Barack Obama has betrayed you.

And to everyone else: realize that a lot of the huffing and puffing you’re hearing isn’t meaningless posturing. It’s how the system works, and is supposed to work. Negotiators need to press for their best deal; advocates have to do the same. It produces a lot of excess, extraneous noise. That may not be appetizing to many people, but it’s actually quite healthy. It is, one might say, the sound of democracy.

[hedgehog]

1. I'm wondering if they're someone's way of demonstrating to someone

that those proposals just won't fly.

[Armstead]

2. Problem is when people follow that advice here, they get bashed for it

When some criticizes a trial balloon or expresses skepticism, they are barraged with people saying "Don't critize anything until you knowctge final deal" or are called whiners, etc.

BTW I am perfectly calm in my own life....All of this is just kabuki theater, and I'm perfectly content on a personal level when not paying attention to it.

[DrToast]

3. "If it’s a trial balloon and you don’t like it, shoot it down"

Uh, what do you think people are doing today, Bernstein?

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. And how, pray, do we "shut it down" other than by proclaiming loudly and often

that it is a sell-out, a deal-breaker, and a reason to vote the bastards out?

[DrToast]

5. Yep, pretty contradictory article

[democrank]

I don`t really want to calm down

and I already did "get to work" since joining the Democratic Party almost 50 years ago.

Most of the folks I know are hard working poor people who don`t need a political consultant to tell them something is really, really, really, really screwed up. These folks also know enough to say, "bullshit" when they see politicians they voted for change like a chameleon as soon as the little $10 donation checks are all cashed.

Democrats have listened way too long to inside-the-beltway crap. It`s time for pure and simple common sense. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck and "negotiates" like a duck, it`s a Republican.

Lastly, this isn`t "how the system is supposed to work." Soldiers shouldn`t have to do 5 or 6 tours in a war zone. Poor minority children shouldn`t have school ceilings falling in on their heads. Homeless families should`t be ignored. Our politicians shouldn`t have allowed all our jobs to be outsourced. Gays and Lesbians shouldn`t have to beg for rights. On and on and on.

We shouldn`t have a Democratic president that is so spineless that he`ll hire more mercenaies for his CIA to play with but yak about how we need cuts in spending...like in some of the safety net programs... just so he can appease his friends across the aisle. The folks he should try to appease are the MILLIONS of suffering Americans who depend on Obama to do the right thing.

I honestly don`t know how any Democrat can look at the cesspool in Washington and still cheer. I guarantee you Paul Wellstone wouldn`t.

[Still Waters]

10. +1. I never thought I'd wake up each morning dreading what the President was planning next

[Armstead]

13. Great Post

[myrna minx]

17. .

:applause:

[Big Blue Marble]

6. Panic is a healthy response when a few powerful people are making secret backroom deals

that mean life or death to many of the citizens of this country, especially when all indications are that no one
in that room is listening to what the American people want.

Why are so few being allowed to secretly decide what affects so many in what is suppose to be a democracy?

[patrice]

8. Oh, no problem with panic here. The first thing I do nearly every day is have a

mini anxiety attack upon waking.

Have learned how to quite myself down, but it's a bit of a surprise to me and I bet I'm not the only one.

[patrice]

12. quiet

:blush:

[MNBrewer]

9. Hear hear!

Some DUers seem to think that it's just peachy for all of this to be done in secret.

[patrice]

7. Listening to some kirtan music here & doing something, not sure it's work. Looking forward to

the big Education rally next week!

[Zenlitened]

11. It was very kind of Mr. Bernstein to expose the illogic of his own "calm down" argument.

Saves the rest of us a lot of effort.

...a lot of the huffing and puffing you’re hearing isn’t meaningless posturing. It’s how the system works, and is supposed to work. Negotiators need to press for their best deal; advocates have to do the same. It produces a lot of excess, extraneous noise. That may not be appetizing to many people, but it’s actually quite healthy. It is, one might say, the sound of democracy.

[styersc]

14. Progressives, grab your ankles and grease your ass.

Our president is about to do it again!!!!!!!!

[Safetykitten]

15. Johnathan, your invite to the next WH party is in the mail. You're ADORABLE!

[Palmer Eldritch]

16. Be smart, not reactionary. Good advice.

[Enrique]

18. it's not healthy

it's fucked up.

[tokenlib]

19. Cut out someones heart,trample it and then tell them to get to work...

This "liberals and progressives have no where else to go" crap is getting old. To get to work you have to believe in something worthwhile and have hope for the future--or at least imagine that the cause you are working for is offering you that.

Obama may still get our votes--but our hearts are no longer in the battle unless the commander raises a battle flag instead of a white one.