This is from Jim Kuntsler by way of Atrios.
The new assumption will be that when shit happens you are on your own. In this remarkable three weeks since New Orleans was shredded, no Democrat has stepped into the vacuum of leadership, either, with a different vision of what we might do now, and who we might become. This is the kind of medium that political maniacs spawn in. Something is out there right now, feeding on the astonishment and grievance of a whipsawed middle class, and it will have a lot more nourishment in the months ahead.
The Republicans are paralyzed and aghast at how badly Bush has functioned, Rove is flailiing hoping for traction, and the Democratic leadership is paralyzed by focus-group induced fear of losing the Independents.
I think Kunstler is saying there is someone or something out there crazier and more frightening than Bush could ever be, and that this is prime time for him or it to appear and provide leadership.
Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, FDR and Juan Peron all did that.
That is a really scarey thought dear friend.
What’s the old saying? “Forewarned is forearmed.”
love your sig line by the way!
Thanks. I’m rather proud of it. It is a personal creation after reading more on the story of Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R, CA dist 50.)
And in case you haven’t caught it in my blog or Josh marshall’s, here is the criminal tale of David Hossein Safavian, former General Services Administration (GSA) official and current administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget. Politics Plus Stuff.
Then there is the latest on Kentucky Governor (Republican, of course) Ernie Fletcher who is in so much trouble that his own State Republican Party has abandoned him.
Ah “Duke”. I am so blessed to have him as my congresscriminal. I will be going to bat though for Francine Busby’s campaign. will read your links as more time permits. I am supposed to be working you know…lol!
I will use this often, thank you, Lee!
Say it loud and say it proud…My Congresscriminal! You go girl!
Well, about time!!!!!!!!! Damn I thought it would not be said!!!!!!! I am an independent and I have been wondering and have on occassion said so…WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS!
I called my rep from district today and let it be known that, if they do not step up to the plate and talked about a couple of issues, I for one will not give him my vote again and likewise with the party.
The young man I talked to then took the time to address some issues with me….I do not think they want to talk about us leaving them….they assume we are there, always, and that just ain’t so! at least for me it ain’t……
Now just today Kerry comes out with his statement…well, whooped tee doo…a day late and a dollar short if you ask me. I have not heard anything from any other contender an dI want to know why!!! I have got emails from Dean..but that is about all…as far as I know he is not running for office again, in the near future, anyhow.
What sad shape for us all to be in…is indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Democrats could have stepped up and been damn heros. But no. They became invisible… again. DAMN!!!
Dammit Jane: Dammit, you are right. So, what do we do about it? I think we just have to call, write, e-mail all of them and tell them that we expect more. That is, if they expect to get our vote again.
to my Repub Pop when Bush was re-elected. I told him the majority have chosen a dictator and it gets worse after this. The next guy may even be a Democrat but he’ll be a tyrant all the same. When all those folks in the McMansions start freaking out, they’re going to need an Iron Hand.
Gawd, I’m feeling depressed today.
Geez, what’s there for Democrats to be afraid of right now? The majority of Independents vote Democratic anyway.
I know most of our Democratic leaders started out with humanitarian and true democratic agendas. All I can guess is that the past five years they’ve had to live a daily regiment of abuse, and they’re like the abused wife: afraid of leaving the abuser because they don’t know if they’ll be able to support themselves and their families once they make the break.
They feel that if they stay a little longer and work a little harder on compromisins, the abuser will change his habits. I DO feel some compassion for them. Amongst us in the blogosphere we’re surrounded and encouraged by others who bolster our opinions as we’re in a fairly safe environment (still) to speak honestly.
But in the Senate and Congress, and all their commissions – it’s neoconservatives in power, hammering at them every single day, with methods that bypass any standard protocols of procedure whenever it suits them.
I’m not surprised that this would lead to long-term moral damage and loss of direction, just like the battered wife-syndrome.
I really DO think that we could help by empowering them: emailing them each time they speak up, and ignoring them when they don’t. If all they receive is praise from their constituents for taking positions we want to see, and giving total silence to their failures (no excuses, just silence), they will begin to feel more empowered, and less critiziced by their own.
If half of us praise, and the other half criticize, it’s much more confusing, as we add, on top of the 50% Republican negative feedback, 25% extra criticism, leaving them with 75% disapproval, while they still have to show up every day at the House.
They need us to be SILENT on their failures – at least for NOW, and to receive massive positive email responses when they DO try to show some courage. It’s like fertilizing plants. When your plants are withering, you don’t put acid on it to make it grow better. You give it extra water and nourishment. You go out of your way to remove parasites (water will do), and nurture it back to health.
To give the causes of their depression and ineffectiveness extra power by adding blame to them, weakens, not strengthens them.
We HAVE responsibilities too. They are not superheroes. They are people like us, and if you’ve ever experienced working in an uncomfortable workplace, where every day when you go to work you just expect more trouble, rather than joy for your work – because of the management’s style – you’ll know what I mean.
Things just are not as black and white, or as simple, as we sometimes wish them to be. For now, I think praising each Democratic Congressman’s or Senator’s positive speeches and opinions, seems far more productive than lamblasting them for each “non-statement” (weak backbone). Each and every one of those statements only castrates them more, and we are in part to blame. Let’s GIVE them backbone. Let’s LET them know when we agree with them, and skip the criticisms for now, Okay?
Once a people has successfully kept silent while its children roasted slowly on live TV, keeping silent about the actions or inactions of their favorite politicians will be cake.
Well, you think banging on their failures will help us?
HOW?
What’s your solution here? I can tell my opinion didn’t go over well with you, but could I ask you to explain yours? And how it would build our strenght? I, like you, am HUNGRY for solutions. I offered my idea. Give me yours. I’m sure to listen and consider it.
Just to knock it down without offering a better alternative to me just shows laziness of thought, a response to “gut-feeling”, but no better plan. Come on, give me your better plan for success.
If you find a palliative effect in being a devotee of a politician, neither I nor anyone else with a shred of humanity will tell you not to do it. Not now.
I merely pointed out how easy it will be.
That’s a NON-ANSWER to my question for your your solution.
I offered one, but you just do AIKIDO in return. I still don’t know what you offer for a solution.
What will be the solution you will wish for?
I can offer you nothing better than what will be in your own heart at that time.
Coward. Critizicing without stating an alternate opinion. Master of Aikido, but in the worst way of its philosophy. Sorry, but you just keep bouncing back to what I’m saying without saying anything yourself.
I told you my heart. Now tell me yours without referring to what I already wrote. Just your own opinion. I started out without your words. Give me yours. I know you’ve been around a long time, and were gone for a while. Come back, please, with an opinion of your own, rather than feed off someone elses posts without offering your OWN opinion, clear and concise. In the same sincerity I offered mine.
Just let me know how YOU feel, and how YOU would solve this situation. Don’t just turn it back on me in such a lazy way. Sorry, I don’t usually argue, but you’re just copping out on offering a better alternative for what I suggested. And – again – I’d love to hear and learn from it.
I gave you my opinion. Seek comfort where you can.
You wanted more, and I told you how to find the answer you seek, which is not an opinion from me, but something much more important: an answer from your own conscience.
I am very comforted by my own beliefs, but yours are not clear to me. You keep referring to MY beliefs as if I don’t already have them, while still not expressing yours in a way that I can understand. You only keep referring back to mine – ambiguously, while failing to clearly state your own.
This will be my last post with you. I’m truly dissapointed at your lack of forwardness and courage to speak out as to YOUR OWN solutions, rather than “me looking into my heart”. That doesn’t tell me shit about what you really think.
End of thread for me. You know how I feel, but I don’t know how you feel, as you just kept referring back to me.
I guess I’m just a nitpicker here, but you’re an avoider.
And I do not avoid the difficult questions. On the contrary, if anything I tend to be a bit too blunt for the tastes of some.
When you are ready, picture yourself with your child on that overpass.
That is, in my opinion, the best way for you to discover the solution that is right for you.
All other opinions that I have on the subject are there for the clicking. As I do not control hearts, neither do I control mousefingers 🙂
You are a slippery one DuctTape. And my two sons survived the overpass, thanks to my diligence. They are both graduates, and survived my loose tolerance of being allowed to climb on trees, hike up along narrow canyons, and immerse themselves in creeks and dangerous rivers. Thanks, they’re really competent. Do you have children?
Your answers to questions are to question the questioner. Hmmm.
Got anything to share of your own?
I cannot force you to picture yourself on the expressway overpass, watching your little one perish in slow agony for lack of water, in the hot sun.
I cannot see into your heart, to know at that moment what you would say to someone who would say to you then, “I am here in my fine air cooled home, writing a letter of praise to my favorite politician. What other thing would you have me do?”
I know DuctTape, and, since I’ve said this would be my last post on this subject, probably annoying the blog readers, I would like to continue this conversation privately if you want. For some reason I think we basically agree on things, but we’re set in certain ways in our communications. I’d like to keep talking in a respectful way. My email address is pelican7atcoxdotnet.
Wonderful idea Gabriele!! I’m proud of you guys.
At least you and Ductape didn’t generate in the insensitive-bickering-mode I grew to detest on the “other” site.
It’s such a terrible time killer to process these threads that run back and forth between two people and get nowhere.
I’d encourage you both to click my sig line and tell me why we shouldn’t be pursuing that angle.
What the hell else besides this is known in history that can stop the progession of dictatorship. Certainly not party politics standing alone.
If you ask for someone’s opinion, get it, and then don’t like it, that doesn’t give you the right to attack them personally by calling them a “coward”.
Everybody’s doing the best they can here…
DTW, I appreciate what you’re saying, and I think you’re sincerely trying to answer the question, but I think Gabriele is looking for praxis. Before I get into that, I’d like to make one more “meta-comment”: I am very proud of you both for hammering this out. It’s a lot harder to iron these things out in a thread on a blog than at a table over a beer (I wonder where folks in Philly hung out in the 1760’s).
Now, on the question of “what’s the solution?” … It’s true, we must follow our hearts. We must feed the Good Wolf. We must support and build communities like BMT. We must reach out to others — both to support them, and to seek their support.
But, I haven’t decided if it’s worthwhile to play the game. I’m certainly not doing it at the moment. But, I follow the game, and when I see an opportunity for change, I jump on it. This doesn’t mean supporting the Dems and thanking them for being ever-so-slightly less evil that the Repubs, and, conversly, it doesn’t mean I need to show outrage and indignation at every failure of every politician. You do that if you want to (i.e. look in your own heart).
several decades ago. Miep Gies’ solution was not chosen by most of her countrymen.
And there is no one size fits all answer for Americans, whose situation has been complicated by live TV feeds.
The majority of Germans did not have to deal with that, and some were truthfully able to say “we didn’t know.”
Beware of crotchety old men bearing praxis 😉
All i can guess, is that sometime over the last generation, someone offered them all checks.
Congressional dems aren’t abused, they’re corporate america’s other favorite party.
And its working out quite well for them, for the time being.
be voting democratic “anyway” any longer!
NO and NO.
Respectfully, I disagree.
You used the abused wife analogy. What helps such a person who won’t help themselves? What do you do? You give them blunt, firm, unvarnished and often unwelcome input as to how they are hurting themselves. You don’t help them by cooing reassuring words, at least not until after you’ve helped them leave the dangerous situation. In fact, if they are endangering children, as the Democrats are endangering huge segments of their base, you REMOVE THE CHILDREN.
Just to flog that analogy, but I think it’s fitting.
The last election cycle activists and the base turned out and worked hard for a wimpy, spineless candidate. In return, they were blamed by that candidates crappy consultants and advisors for the loss.
Enough is enough. Not going to be nice. Yelling at the Republicans is like yelling at the tiger as he stalks you. Time to yell at the hunter to start shooting.
way back in the 30’s who wrote It Can’t Happen Here. I would say yes it can, the time seems very ripe. This is why we need RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP from our political leaders NOW.
The Media needs to wake from decades of going through the motions and do their job as well. Some have shown recent signs of doing so, but I question their staying power and commitment.
Meanwhile the festering continues. Scary times indeed!
Let’s calm down a little. There are a lot of things to be very concerned about, but the sudden emergence of a dictator isn’t really one of them. Who do you think it would be? Pat Robertson? The whole Bush administration has been discredited.
It’s only been a few weeks, and although gas prices are higher, the public is not in a panic mode. The impatience here is understandable but maybe not helpful. Why be afraid? Get moving! We complain when nobody speaks out. And then when they do, we complain that they’re late and not good enough. In fact they have been speaking out (Kerry, Gore, Clinton,any number of Congressional and black community leaders) even if the other aspects of this story have overshadowed their words.
Direct you desire for action to the Democrats of your choice, or to the alternative of your choic. If they’ve said something you like, say so, and tell them you want to hear more. If they haven’t, tell them what you want to hear. Then listen. They can’t guarantee it will be on CNN.
What it seems to me Jim K. is saying is that the lack of federal response told people you’re on your own, and though that is no longer the whole message–since individuals, organizations and other countries have pitched in to help—it is the message that Democrats are putting out: that we stand for something else, something better.
We’re all in this together. We all need to act on that.
your points are well taken. The Dems are currently the only other game in town with a legitimate chance of changing the momentum of the far right in this country. But uncertainty is up, fear is up (another hurricane to enter the gulf? God I hope not!), and the Republicans are struggling.
Will they recover, or will the Dems gain control of Congress in 06?
Or will something else surface? Maybe ecology finally has its day, and the Green party begins to take hold. Maybe something else. Folks are not happy with either the GOP or the DEMS if I read it correctly.
The Dems have the best opportunity in a Decade to make a move, but will they?
Do you have a problem with FDR?
No, FDR was an example of when the jump to anyone new worked. The others were cases of the same form of choice, but they didn’t work out.
I’m glad someone noticed that. [Grin]
Maybe the Democratic leadership is following the strategy of candidates for the Supreme Court: If you don’t say anything, nobody will get mad at you…
We are not ready for the leader that could lead us from this valley.
I fear.
I fear the problem is us.
have no fear the future’s here!
you just replied to yourself… bad form!
it’s best to just let him.
believe me, I know.
Well hell.I do that all the time if I have second thoughts.
Yes, the problem is us — the question is, will we also be the solution.
And you can reply to yourself all you want, imho!! 😉
We’re c. 25 years into a huge propaganda campaign which leaves a lot of liberal and populist alternatives unable to percolate up out of the people without being squashed or starved of broad exposure.
The America known to the reasonable but busy citizen non-activists is some kind of bizarre theme park where a few things come from big government and everything else comes from big corporate. Rank-and-file, the people don’t do much for themselves in either the economy or culture. It all comes from higher up in the system.
And the most important thing is that our common life together is not lived by the people, it’s fabricated by corp and government and distributed to them and consumed by the people. So this is a population that lacks the experience of exercising initiative to launch any kind of important movement, especially anything with the staying power of the one that made us a nation. That one had spent generations seasoning in debate and experimentation before we formalized it. We’ve spent the last two generations so unconscious that there is virtually no interesting debate occurring in the larger society at all.
We don’t necessarily need to be taken over immediately by a super dictator. While it could happen, there could also be a fairly long time of tepid corporatist leadership steadily building up the aristocracy at the expense of both the common people and the fading superpower. At some point the world agrees formally that America has become another 3rd world society, as a few daring voices around the world have already begun to describe us.
In my heart of hearts, I think where we are is not in the fire of a budding dictatorship or an explosion of popular revolution.
I think it’s hypothermia.
Well said. That is the most concise and constructive appraisal of the state of affairs I have ever heard. Your insight puts Noam Chomsky to shame. Please repeat what you’ve said. Post it far and wide. Without your objections, I know I will. Thank you.
// starting to think I should change my nick to “parrot” 😉
This is one of those times you wish you could go to a certain floor of a certain building in Manhattan and climb inside Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton’s head for fifteen minutes to find out what’s going on inside there (I heard there was a portal to John Kerry’s mind in the men’s room of a certain diner near the Hackensack Path train station, but it might have closed after the election).
Just what are they thinking?
That the middle class wouldn’t notice they can only half file for bankrutpcy now even if they end up living in a slightly spacious cardboard box? That Americans aren’t widely appalled at the spectacle of half naked African-American women and children arse deep in water and waste begging for help, and desperately wanting someone to give voice – loudly and persistently – to that outrage? That Americans aren’t wondering why their gas costs more per gallon than a reasonably good bottle of wine, and what we’re going to do as we start to run out of the stuff? That people aren’t noticing the massive corporate patronage on the taxpayer’s dime that has already been heaped upon the province of Iraq, and is about to be heaped on contractors who do business in the gulf state? That they aren’t noticing that they along with the government is neck deep in debt, their wages are stagnant, and their future murky at best?
Just how far do Bush’s approval ratings have to fall before they do something?
Obviously what they’re thinking is that if they cause a ruckus about this (or anything else) then their big buck donors will abandon them and they’ll be off the old money train…and that the voters will forget about all this by the time the election rolls around.
Democrats are propped up by the corporate donors as much as republicans. They mute their voices out of fear of “losing” support.
They don’t fear losing votes as much as they should, because the two parties are currently the only choices.
The question is, how to “abandon” a system that leaves people to die when they need help the most, and recreate a system that puts people before profits.
What concrete steps can we take to bring this about?
I think Kunstler may have a point. After WWII millions of working class Americans went from Depression era hardship and wartime rationing to the lifestyle we all know today – subsidized education on the GI Bill, cars, suburbia, television, fast food, shopping malls. Then in the 60s even a lot of the “rebellion” was really consumer focused. The sexual revolution came about with the help of the Pill and birth control, the hippies consumed their psychedelic music and psychedelic drugs, even one of the main symbols of that era, the flower-power painted microbus is a consumer good. Not that I’m making a neo-puritan attack on this stuff. I’m not saying that all this stuff is bad.
What I would like to say is that while all this is going on no one was making much effort to educate people in the science that underlay most of this prosperity nor was there much meaningful political critique in the mainstream of the neocolonial roots of a lot of our wealth. This continues today so that you have a populace that is primed to join some kind of political cargo cult. The idea will be to give all the power to the “cargo-priest”. He will do his little dance and make the big metal birds come back and drop the goodies and life will be good again.
Of course the priests will really just use the donations to build themselves a raft to leave all the suckers behind… Hmm. Maybe this has already started.
to be bad.
When Americans wake up hungry and shivering like a drunk sitting on a car cushion in a field of metal fragments, they are going to be very angry and uninclined to engage in behavior conducive to problem solving.
They know that they themselves are in no way at fault. This knowledge Kuntsler has been recording for several years now.
They will have to blame somebody.
Who knows what they will do? It is probably strictly unpredictble. But it will be useless and bad, and that IS predictable.