What is our role as citizens, as political actors NOT directly involved in the nuts-and-bolts of modern campaigns? Should we become enthralled with the “inside baseball” of politics? If we do, are we empowering ourselves as citizens, or removing the last hope we have of enacting political change?
Being called a purist in the current political climate is only the latest in a long line of slurs directed at people who demand that politics be more than a series of quid-pro-quo transactions. Is it “purist” to demand that we actually have a politics that seeks to include ALL of our fellow citizens? If we can’t demand that the people we elect live up to the highest callings in the documents we claim to treasure, then why do we pretend to treasure them at all? Why the Hallmark charades?
It is our job as citizens to demand more. Without those demands, the system breaks down. If we buy into the cold explanations of compromise before the electoral battle is even joined then we’ve surrendered before we’ve even begun. We’ve failed. All of those people who marched, who cried out in despair, who walked down the street with signs demanding the vote, who built underground railroads and muckraked and struck and were struck down by government troops and corporate thugs will have done those things for nothing. We have been given this gift by those who fought, and sometimes died, for change, and we will have squandered it. When they fought, they were fighting FOR something that the current society feared, hated or despised.
Yet it isn’t just the past we will have failed. What about the generations to come? Will we, with all of our wealth, with all of the tools to learn and to communicate that we have now, will we be the ones that break the chain of voices that cry for change? Will we betray what FDR tried to build by succumbing to our fear of the right wing? Undone by fear? What does that make us?
Perhaps we are that decadent. Perhaps the race has been run, it’s time for the scramble to survive, each for themselves as it all crumbles. We find ourselves socially in a place much like those years leading into the Civil War, and once again the force pulling us apart is a kind of feudalism. Should we just fold to the Confederates of our day, let them destroy what others tried so hard to preserve?
These aren’t the kinds of questions we’re supposed to ask in this cynical time. We supposed to calculate and compromise, anything else is naive and purist. Well, I believe that change comes with some kind of ideal in mind. Some pure goal is necessary for there to be reform. There is no hope for change without it.
Anybody with a sense of history knows that the purists of times past are looked back on as foremothers and forefathers of the future we live in.
We need to accept that we are human, subject to all the weaknesses that go with that.
Purity is not possible in the human condition. I don’t feel that we should even strive for it. The need for seeing and accepting multiple sides of any given situation, without compromising our ethics.
Purity, in my perception, is a false goal and not achievable.
one still needs standards, goals, or one is lost.
What is:
it is a clear and unattainable high standard to be pursued. Such standards drive political change. They are the fuel that ignites the engine. Without them, you’re left with just a mercantile system that trades in votes and money.
I’ve come to understand it like this: you need people to fill different roles, roles that are largely complementary but sometimes opposing. If you lose the balance the different roles provide, the whole thing topples over. You need…
Candidates and Elected Officials – these are your standard bearers. You need good ones. You need to know their principles are sound, because you need to believe in them. The problem is that, once elected, their tendency is to want to stay in office, and they will make compromises to do so. Sometimes this is okay. If our elected officials never, ever compromised they would not stay elected very long. Sometimes they make compromises that are not okay. This is where the next group comes in.
Issue Advocates and Activists – these organizations and individuals rally around particular issues, either single issues or grouped issues. Their expertise is in their issue or issues, and their loyalty is to a position rather than to a candidate. Even if they’re Democrats, they’ll hang a Democrat out to dry rather than compromising on their issue. This serves to keep our elected officials, on the whole, in some semblance of an orderly line. Without this pressure, they will make unacceptable compromises thinking that their base will always be there for them. This group is there to make sure the elected officials are held accountable.
Political Party Activists – these people are loyal to a political party because they believe that party on the whole represents their views well enough that they are willing to devote their energies toward strengthening the party as a whole. Their expertise is in the political process itself. They may sometimes support candidates who would not win their full personal support as individuals, for the sake of party unity and strength. They serve as a bridge between the Elected Officials and the Issue Advocates.
There are natural tensions between these groups. You’re in the Issue Advocate group, Madman, and I’m in the Political Party Activist group. This is why we butted heads not so long ago about Tim Kaine and abortion. Despite the disputes we have from time to time, we do need each other. Issue Advocates on their own would not be anything near as effective on the electoral side of things as Political Party Activists are. And Political Party Activists (and their Candidates/Elected Officals) need the Issue Advocates to keep them honest about what they’re really working for.
What I’m getting at here is that, even though members of these different groups may have diametric disagreements at times, it’s conceivable that they could all be right. Because they are operating from a different perspective and a different set of goals.
So, purity? In Issue Advocates, it’s a virtue. Maybe the most important virtue out there. In Elected Officials, it can be a virtue or a liability, depending on the circumstances. Political Party Activists can’t operate under rigid rules of purity, but they should figure out where their lines are, because if they have no lines, they may as well be playing a board game.
This pretty much sums up how I feel. We all need each other, even though there may be tension. Not always a bad thing.
The advocates push the envelope, and they should. Calling for an end to segregation used to be controversial; now we wonder what the fuss was all about–OK, maybe not all of us, but still.
OTOH, school vouchers, judges like Scalito, and “not believing in evolution” (well of course you don’t “believe” in it; it’s science!) were seen as extreme; now they’re seen as mainstream.
Everyone is important, but the advocates are essential. They drive the debate. And I say that as a party person.
I agree. The advocates are essential. I do wish they would refrain from accusing us party people of not having any principles, and such things. I have put a great deal of thought into figuring out exactly where my lines are. I don’t mind being challenged; I do mind being slandered.
The fact that we all need each other is why it is so important to avoid personally impugning people in these arguments. It’s not just because “Don’t be a prick” is a good rule. It’s because we need each other, and we all accomplish our goals better if we can disagree without tearing one another down.
You’re right. There are lots of principled party people. (Now say THAT fast five times!) We’re a little hard to hear at times, but we’re there. I get exasperated on what seems to be a daily basis, but for now I’m here.
I often wonder, What’s the fucking point? because politics have only become worse, not better, in my just more than three decades of existence–half of it being politically involved in one way or another.
And then I become outraged again.
there should be, though, for a party to be legitimate, some basic standards that form its underpinnings. What ARE those standards for the Democratic Party?
I opposed Kaine b/c I fear that he will, while perhaps leaving abortion technically legal, join those in both parties who’re increasingly making it fuctionally unavailable. To me, women’s autonomy and equal protection under the law are fundamental. As someone who made an issue of personally opposing abortion, he will be under pressure to help limit access further.
Do you mean you think we should have a written out list of standards, a kind of profession of faith for anyone who wants to be a Democrat? Or do you mean, some more informal type of arrangement? I’m not really sure how this would work. Unless what you mean is that we, individually, should all have standards – and hold one another to standards – then I agree.
I understand your worries about Kaine, absolutely. Standing there and listening to him argue against TRAP laws to a voter did a lot to reassure me. But that worry is still there. I supported him because he’s a hell of a lot better than Jerry Kilgore on abortion, and he’s just plain good in his own right on some other issues. Civil rights, anyone? Tim Kaine was a fair housing attorney before he was a politician. Jerry Kilgore, as attorney general, refused to prosecute at least one prominent fair housing case.
If Tim had had a more solidly pro-choice primary opponent, who was a viable candidate, my decision probably would have been different. But there was no primary opponent.
We could have this argument all day long though and not get anywhere because from our seperate perspectives, we’re both right. 🙂 I don’t think this is a resolvable tension. I think as long as we have these arguments and discussions in a way that preserves our dignity, they benefit us.
And we have to be honest with ourselves. The question for us party people is, at what point is it no longer acceptable to “dance with who brung us” – at what point do we stand up on the punch table and start yelling? For me, that point may be near; I was floored when I found out there were only THREE Democratic women on the ballot in my county. The question for the issue advocates is, at what point do you support someone who’s not 100% on your issue, but maybe they are 60% and their opponent is 0%? Sometimes, it’s worth doing – strategically. After all, if your support is critical to their election, maybe you can push them on over toward 75% once they’re in office.
But I’m sure you know all this stuff!
Practically speaking, I’d imagine a list of standards would be the party platform (if you click on this link, you’ll find and explanation of process and a link to the actual platform, which is in PDF format).
It seems to be ignored until the presidential, when it’s fiercely fought over and then forgotten about again. But I’d imagine that the platform would be our set of “standards”–so to speak.
here’s the thing:
the party leadership is actively pursuing anti-abortion candidates and using backroom deals and pressure to keep progressive candidates from launching primary runs (see PA for the most public example of this).
It shouldn’t be necessary to have something in writing. It should be evident in the way a party presents itself. Right now, the party presents itself as a warhawk party. It presents itself as a party that thinks abortion is a necessary evil that should be severely limited. It presents itself as a party that thinks workers need little or any help, but that corporations and other businesses need government subsidies. It’s a party that dances to the tune of AIPAC dollars and supports even the worst imprecations of the Likudist Right in Israel. Many of these stands are evident in the platform the party puts forth, as well as the legislation it helps pass.
Is that, the party that helped bring the New Deal, the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Act, the War of Poverty, is that the party that represents THE LEFT? We are now a party that has helped bring about Protection for Usurers Act (misnamed Bankruptcy reform), “Free Trade” pacts that fail to protect the worker, the consumer or the environment, the Defense of Marriage Act, Welfare “reform”, NCLB, the Iraq War Resolution … often by sizable majorities. We’ve helped put far-right extremists on the bench. Numerous Democrats help push TRAP, parental and spouse notification and many other Jane Crow laws.
Some would say that it is unfair to say that the party “helped” these things into law, since many of Clinton’s initives were passed w/ a Republican Congress. Much of the rest were passed since the Republicans took the White House, but with much bipartisan support. I would submit that at best it demonstrates a subservient party that blows with the political winds, and at worst a party that is a center/right corporatist entity that cares little or nothing for average people.
and at worst a party that is a center/right corporatist entity that cares little or nothing for average people.
You fail here to put it in its true context. These are not “center right/corporatist” positions. They are, at the very least, moderate right wing positions.
“Center right”, politically speaking, is to the left of 95% of the Dem party. A sad state of affairs given that, I would estimate, about half of the American people are to the left of their Dem candidates.
And yet too many Dem voters cling to candidates that ensure DLC type money and ideals lead the platform.
Very sad, indeed.
I know that most of you here are fighting this kindof crap every day. Unfortunately The Dem candidates, for the most part, refuse to budge or compromise on their moderate right wing positions.
For those of you still fighting, I will continue to help fight from the left. But I will continue to refuse holding my nose to support any candidate that is barely even a compromise between my ideals and the GOPs platform of lunacy from the farrrrr right wing.
What I have a problem with, as a party activist, is when people jump from “Candidate X is too far right on Issue Q” to “Candidate X is a right wing DINO.” This is where these conversations run into trouble. I get people asking me, how can you support this (insert creative epithets here about what a right wing sellout the candidate is). And when I explain reasons based on progressive principles why I am supporting this person, it bounces right off. It’s as if none of those facts exist in reality, because this person who’s arguing with me knows that the Democratic Party has sold out to right-wing corporatist whatever.
What I have a problem with, as a party activist, is when people jump from “Candidate X is too far right on Issue Q” to “Candidate X is a right wing DINO.” This is where these conversations run into trouble.
I have no problems with that leap of logic. I have DOH Lieberman here in CT, and he is what he is. A moderate right winger. In fact, on some issues he crosses the line right into complete wing-nuttery. A “D” beside his name doesn’t change that fact.
If you accept the fantasy definition of all Dems being progressive/liberal, than you only play into the hands of those that are trying to keep American politics from moving back to the left.
Call a right winger what they are, be they Republican OR Dem.
I am not trying to frame here. It is a fact. And it is the only way to break the BS frame of the GOP that the Dems are “Lefty/communist/socialists/liberals”. They aren’t. I can think of about 5 Dems that are even “right leaning Centrists”. The rest of the Dems are all to the right of those few. Even the US Green party and Naderites are not real liberals. They are left leaning Centrists.
I am speaking stricly about candidates here. The other reality is the fact that most Dem voters are to the left of their supported candidates. That is way beyond the simple problem of “Candidate X is too far right on Issue Q”.
Just look at my state. “Candidate Lieberman is a right wing DINO.” It is a fact. Ignoring this fact only contributes to the GOPs frame.
Lieberman is one of the worst examples, yes. There are others though, who may not be 100% on every issue important to us but who are not right wing DINOs because of it.
You seem to be missing my one main point here. Almost all Dems are right wingers to varying degrees. Yes, Lieberman is one of the extreme examples and he is not alone in that. But there is almnost no “left” in our political representation.
You have a choice (moving from “left” to “right”) between:
There is no representation for liberals in Washington.
You have representation for the right, and the farrrrr right, and everything in between them. Very few of them are true leftists/liberals.
Just because the GOP says that Dems are “leftist/socialist/liberal” does not make it so. Haven’t you noticed that the GOP builds lies with frames? (Or they build frames with lies, or BOTH… lol)
Activists can try and go out of their way to bust the GOP frame with a liberal frame of their own, or they can simply bust the GOP frame with facts.
Call a spade a spade, and a right winger a right winger. Dem or republican right wingers.
And when it comes to the farrr right wing of the GOP… Call them what they are: Wing nuts, Corpoatists, Fascist, etc. (Whatever truth you feel comfortable labeling them with.) They are what they are.
Liberals in the Senate … hummm, there aren’t many. Feingold, Boxer … hopefully soon Bernie Sanders. Durbin sometimes.
After a Red Scare, McCarthyism, & Cointelpro (which were all ancient history by the time I became old enough to vote in the mid 1980s), there was no viable “left” left. Just tories and hardline nationalists to choose among. I find that getting that very simple point across to my fellow Americans is practically impossible.
I am as furious as you are with Democrats who betray what I think should be our core principles. And who do it repeatedly, with a few soothing words for us… or maybe they send Barack Obama to tell us very nicely to sit down and shut up. That pisses me off.
But I don’t believe in the story you are telling. Oh backroom deals, they happen, but I don’t believe there is some nationwide conspiracy in the Democratic Party to go anti-abortion. And all this laundry list of bad stuff you’re saying our party stands for… no, not really. The thing is that you can find Democrats out there who take each of those positions, but with a few exceptions, they will also hold some progressive positions.
I keep deleting and rewriting stuff and I have to head out soon so I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to what I really want to say here. If I can figure out what that is.
Just… what do you want from me? from the other party activists like me? You want us to stop being party activists? You want us to go curl up in a hole and die from not being progressive enough? Because if that’s what you are after then I think you are very wrong. Like I said above, we desperately need both issue activists and party activists.
And what do you want from the issue advocates? What should they be doing?
What do you want from the party, from our elected officials?
What should be happening that’s different from what it is now? And how can we make it happen? That’s the question, right? My life now is a constant struggle to figure out the best answer to those questions and implement them. If you have suggestions, great, but I am working in good faith and that I can tell you will not change.
I’ve been reading about RFK and his views on Vietnam and the presidential election of 1968. He was accused by the antiwar people of being too cautious. He was accused by the Johnson people of being a traitor, not just in a personal sense but in the literal sense of being a traitor to the country. And he was accused of splitting the party, of nearly destroying it. People say he would have been President if he had not been murdered, but I have a hard time believing that. Not in 1968. He would have lost. Yet who can say he did wrong?
Reading about those earlier fights between the issue activists and the party activists, all I can conclude is this: nothing is ever simple. Nothing is ever, ever simple.
what I want is what we’re doing now in this thread, but not JUST that. I want heated confrontation. I want nasty contested primaries. I want the American People to re-engage with a vigorous political debate. I want hurt feelings and hot words and fists pounding tables.
Let me give you an example.
Jack Murtha.
I think it’s sad that here we have a man, arguably to my right, who stood up on a topic, an issue, that he is an acknowledged expert on. He has a long history of advocating for the soldier and the vet, for tactical and battlefield weaponry over big weapons programs. Here is a man who stands up, in an area in which he has an enormous amount of credibility. A party that really wanted to fight would have stood behind him. A party that really stood for something would have walked out on that sham vote that Duncan Hunter put up as the “murtha amendment”, all of them abstaining.
That’s just one example. The party shows NO inclination to fight, beyond a few courageous members that the rest treat like pariahs.
I want us to be at each others’ throats (rhetorically, of course). Go back and look at the debates when FDR was making his first run. They were VICIOUS.
So you party activists, ARGUE WITH US, but don’t cut deals and force out candidates ahead of the debate. The recording a few months ago that Mark Crispin Miller highlighted of Schumer BRAGGING that no challenges would be “allowed” in the primaries made me fucking sick. If we win the arguments, I don’t want the old activists giving anonymous quotes to the WaPo undercutting the more progressive winner of the contest (as we are STILL seeing about Dean). When we criticize the insiders, at least we’re fucking open about it.
Conflicts make us stronger. Does any boxer go into a title match without earlier matches and sparring partners?
What should us idealists do? Shout louder, and if necessary look for other outlets. I personally think we need to actively reach out to each other to form blocks, blocks that can deliver boots-on-the-ground and votes, but blocks which can withhold those votes if necessary. If Casey is the nominee next fall, I think the left needs to hang the party out-to-dry. Vote for a Green. Write in Pennaccio. Leave that line blank. Santorum is going to kick his ass anyway, b/c Santorum and the Reps know how to fight, and they have things they are fighting for. Casey will lose w/ or without the lefts’ help … I say leave him to fall on his face on his own. Last year the so-called far-left worked its ass off for Kerry, and were thanked with blame and attacks both during the campaign and afterward. Never again.
As for the national conspiracy on abortion, bayprarie and moiv have done great work on this, much of it crossposted here or available at Our Word. I hate to break it to you, but Schumer, Clinton and Reid are ALL cultivating ties with Democrats for Life, and pushing DFL’s 95-10 campaign.
It’s hard to say what would have happened w/ RFK, but he was showing real signs off building a powerful coalition amongst many competing groups, especially knitting together the anti-war, labor and civil rights movements. Sadly, we’ll never know.
Our country is a danger to humanity now. We have set about to destroy international frameworks of law that WE HELPED CREATE. We are torturing and murdering people. We are slaughtering innocent civilians with chemical weapons. We are putting our own civil rights into industrial shreaders and we run one of the most brutal prison systems in the western world. Our State exercises the right to deliver death regardless of actual access to due process, a trait we share with a couple of communist governments and a couple of dictatorships. We chew up the environment in our greedy maws and stomp our feet when our neighbors in the rest of the world ask us to please stop. We allow our children to wallow in poverty and we celebrate a public health system that is a petri dish just waiting to grow the next pandemic.
The party NEEDS some of us to be outraged, to give it the energy and drive and reason to fight. It’s uncomfortable and scary and we might not win, but don’t we have to try?!? Don’t we have to stand back-to-back and push back against the howling mob that is destroying this country? Don’t we owe that to the past that birthed us and the future that’s to follow?
A party that really wanted to fight would have stood behind him.
Absolutely. I can’t tell you how angry I still am about this. Jack Murtha is absolutely to the right of me, but damn–he provided all of them the cover they needed. What he is saying is clear, factual, commonsense and cuts through the Admin’s bullshit–so what is the fucking problem? Not only is this right thing to do (even if I don’t agree w/ 100% of his plan) it was POLITICALLY sensible, too.
And they just Left. Him. Hanging.
Unacceptable.
Though it was a dummy move, this weak-ass dithering gave the rethugs the very opening they needed. We were lucky that this time they over-reached–and the public noticed.
Murtha has changed the debate. Stupidly, the party didn’t realize the power behind that. I have lots ideological frustrations, sure, but this was just plain stupid.
Know it but still need to hear it.
…at BooTrib, I’d give yours a “4”.
Thank you. 🙂
Many times I’ve wondered if we aren’t being used as tools by the ones we’re trying to support, or worse, the ones we’re trying to keep in check.
Who’s calling who a “purist”? “Leaders”? Bah. Here at least, most people have stated their intention to vote for individual candidates, precisely because of their commitment to principles over party. No fear. “Living” over “minimum”, universal over partial health coverage, pay-go over unchecked spending, and Murtha’s plan over everyone else’s.
I don’t think those positions are “purist” so much as basic common sense. Political expediency serves no purpose. And IMHO, there are more than a few million people in the middle who agree with those positions. Even if they did vote Republican last time around.
I don’t need to hear about how bad the “other side” is – caught that part – just tell me what your vision is for my grandchildren.
Yeah, and it’s funny in a way that many of the people who call those common sense ideas “purist” are themselves “purists” in their devotion to party over principle.
Not referring to anybody here. 🙂
Yeah, sometimes you gotta make a deal with the devil. Sure, it’s the lesser of two evils, but you don’t want the greater evil, do ya? Anybody with principles just isn’t electable.
“Purity” is the club used by Democrats to beat back change, to preserve the status quo, to rationalize enabling or worse yet promoting blind partisanship over substance.
Just look where “purity” got the opposition. Two branches of government, working on the trifecta.
exactly, and they are increasingly using “new media” to beat back that change.
The party-first folks generally are preaching to the choir. Setting aside ends-justifies-means arguments, I just think it’s pretty naive to expect people to vote for Democrats simply because they are Democrats.
The largest voter bloc is the independent voter, including those who vote every time, those who vote sometimes and those who rarely vote.
How are the Democrats turn out voters if they don’t stand for something? Just being less offensive than the Republicans may work for the voters already in the polling booth, but what about all those folks who stay home or stay at work and don’t bother to vote?
That’s why I argue for progressive values over progressive posing. I’ve been called a “purist” and “single-issue voter” and someone with a “pet cause,” but that rhetoric isn’t going to sway anyone to vote a certain way.
Politicians get elected by getting votes from the people. Trying to scold voters into voting for someone who does not appeal to them isn’t going to get the Democrats anywhere.
And yes, sometimes it takes a visionary to win over the voters. JFK squeaked by in a traditional election, but became very popular with his visionary leadership. I hate to say it, but Reagan sailed into office with the same kind of appeal.
Dean’s candidacy happened because of this. He captured people’s imaginations, and they worked hard for him.
When you poll Americans, “moral values” for the vast majority of people turn out to be progressive values. So why are progressive values treated with such hostility and suspicion by party insiders? I don’t know.
But if anyone wants to defeat the Republicans, they have to make room for more than Crips vs. Bloods war cries. Partisanship isn’t enough to draw people out to the polls. It takes vision, and vision comes from values.
John Kerry lacked both, at least in his public image, and we all saw the result.
I heard somewhere: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
If we’re ever going to get away from the beauty contest/frat brother mentality that runs our election system, the parties need to clearly define what they believe in. But that’s not going to happen — the Powers That Be like the status quo. Heck, how many of us “political junkies” can even say what was in the platforms of either party in 2004? Candidates aren’t judged based on their beliefs — they’re judged in 60-second soundbites and TV ads, and who can “spin” public opinion their way.
Just my $0.02, of course…
Step One: conflate having values with being a bigot.
Stop Two: take this as a reason for being a bigot (or at least for pandering to bigots).
…what you mean by this comment. Sorry.
Was worried the comment was too indirect. Playing off this bit from your post: When you poll Americans, “moral values” for the vast majority of people turn out to be progressive values. So why are progressive values treated with such hostility and suspicion by party insiders? The answer, I take it, is a failure to recognise progressive values as values, and a conflation of having values with being a bigot.
…is that “moral values” equals radical right-wing views calling for authoritarian government controls over people’s private lives.
Many politicians seem to believe this, too.
But I’m talking about what people think about their own values. Caring for the poor, personal responsibility, having clean air and water for our children, having a good educational system, health care services for everyone, whatever their means — these are mainstream values. Moral values.
But don’t look for that from the media. And I’m still waiting for a politician to articulate any of that well. (Edwards I thought came close, but a bit on the sloganeering side. Same with Dean.)
Simple. The vast majority are old, upper-class, white males. Very rarely do they vary on more than one of those criteria, and almost never on more than two. They don’t believe in progressive values. They agree with the Republican platform. However, they have (correctly) identified that they can make money and secure personal power by pretending to be underdogs and outsiders… But they’d rather not sell out their principles more than necessary to do that.
So they pay or convince others to sell out their principles instead.
For most people, change is frightening. For those in power, it’s absolutely terrifying.
“Meet the new boss,
same as the old boss.”
Those who cry “purist” are justifying their fear – fear of losing, fear of change, fear of being left out of the loop, fear of loosing control. For them, their place may suck, but at least they know their place.
Some of the questions raised in this diary are interesting to me, particularly those in the first paragraph because the very first is the BIG ONE.
But paragraph two is the kind of labeling/whining diatribe-tending writing that holds no charm for me. The word “purity” looms over this diary like an unfulfilled omen. And so I choose to skip this paragraph.
Be patient because once again the diary gets back on track in paragraph three where it attempts to answer the BIG ONE and develops a fine pathetic argument in the Aristotlean sense.
In paragraph four you throw down the gauntlet and hint at a call to action that probably makes every BooTribber’s political heart strings thrum. Mine did.
But in the next paragraph I get lost because I can’t make one sentence relate to its neighbor and do not share your understanding of our era being anything like the pre-Civil War era, which divided the country over a single issue — state’s rights and its companion slavery. Our country is divided by many more issues, and the more divisive ones seem to have their roots in perceived Judeo-Christian morality, ethics, and theology rather than secular politcal philosophy. But as for the implication of being on the verge of civil war? I can’t go there.
There are other differences, too numerous to list here, entailing a separate diary, perhaps.
Hoping to get back on track, I read this:
and understand it is in itself cynical. Yet, for me, it is the pivotal point in your diary. And I am disappointed when the paragraph doesn’t fulfill its hint and continue in the direction I wish it would have — a development of the Liberal Ideals that should inspire and carry us forward into the fray, as it were.
The subject of your diary seemed at first blush to be the empowerment of the citizen. It’s development didn’t occur. I’d appreciate a diary from you that does develop the theme of empowered citizenry advocating, acting, and running for office based on a shared Liberal Ideal that you lay out for us.
Answering some of the questions delineated and implied above would be of great interest to me and perhaps to others. I hope you’ll write it.
Why you? Your User Name suggests a combined awareness of Socrates’ famous dialogues and Francis Bacon’s cautions regarding fallacious thought habits. To my mind, the perfect combination of influences a diarist could wish for.
And now I would like to apologize if a pedantic literary analysis of an informal Internet essay is not de rigueur among bloggers.
like much of blogging, this is in the context of some ongoing conflicts elsewhere, so it’s not as fleshed out as an essay should be.
I did address some of what I think you’re looking for in Are You a Spectator or a Citizen?.
from DKos, I am able to put this statement and this diary in context. Of course I had to venture into that strange land to see what on earth happened. Your offending diary is a masterpiece. Much as you have in the diary at the head of this thread, you’ve articulated in it much of my own thinking on these issues. Thank you for standing up for integrity, free speech, individualism, and, well, purity. Somebody has to.
thanks so much for saying that.
There are lots of people doing it, and many of them have their own shingles out. I’m beginning to see that so-called community blogs are destined to be coopted by the parties or by the larger media.
And I don’t mean that in the Alannis Morisette sense of the word. I think it is a truly bitter irony that the blogosphere, which purports to be the democratization of media — a vehicle to bring the power to the people — is evolving into just another exclusionary club.
the two things that corrupt many endeavors, especially when full disclosure isn’t actively pursued and observed. It’s especially corrosive when hidden under a generous dollop of sugary frosting of “community” and shared power. Corruption festers in the dark.
Why is it that whenever I hear of someone being banned at a site I aleways have to check and see if it is a diary I recommended? (Most of the times it is…)
Then I always have to check to see if I can still comment/rate/post a diary…
It has almost become a “muscle reflex reaction”.
who does not particularly view “politics” through the Dem/Repub prism, although, admittedly, my voting record would put me squarely in the Democratic Party. Like most “progressives”, I’ve learned to hold my nose, and vote for the lesser of two evils candidate.
But that’s only a small portion of my political activity. I am a purist — proud of it. I believe in striving for the perfect, the ideal, because in this imperfect world, that’s the way, IMHO, you get the best that can be gotten.
Beyond that, as the diary points out, is is the purists who actually get things done, who facilitate change. The great mass in the center would like nothing better than to sit exactly where they are and wallow in their immobility. It is the purists — indeed, I say proudly, the radicals — who force the docile, dormant center to take notice and finally DO something. Usually, the action the dormant, docile center takes is not nearly the change that the radicals want, but is much more than the docile, dormant center would have done on its own.
It is not necessary for the purists to always be right; our job is to whack the center upside the head, to question the status quo, and force them to deal with questions and issues they would rather ignore.
…as someone who has spent most of his political activist time in something besides electoral politics. When it comes to electoral politics, however, I’ve always found it easy to find some stand-up Democrats to give my time, money and energy toward electing.
We live in a two-party system, and the better of those two parties is a coalition party that includes – and has always included – a lot of people who I wish were not aboard. Ideas for change come from radicals, but change itself is a complementary effort of both radicals and others, since radicals are so few. And that change is gradual, incremental, much as we would like it to be otherwise.
Unless we switch to a parliamentary system, or a third party manages to avoid the external forces and internecine battles that have made it impossible for the the Populists, Progressives, Socialists, Communists, Citizens Party and Greens to get more than a teensy fraction of the vote, we’re stuck with gradual, incremental change adopted by pressuring Democratic politicians who – even when distant from our goals – are closer than the Republicans.
As the madman points out.
Whether purity is for you or not is a question of perspective.
How are all those deals with the devil lesser evil noseholding operations working out for you?
How are they working out for the victims languishing in the American torture camps on which the sun never sets?
How are they working out for the Iraqi children with no feet, the Afghan children with no hands, the mothers whose children have been liberated for eternity?
How are they working out for the millions of Americans who cannot afford to purchase medical treatment?
For those Americans who will today, reluctantly accept the fact that staying in housing is living beyond their means?
How are things working out for the Crescent Cleansing insurgents, who defied America and refused to die?
Things seem to be going pretty well for the politicians, and their corporate sponsors in the defense and energy industry. They seem to be getting along just fine without bothering about any purity.
Principle would be a weapon of mass destruction. No wonder those who advocate it are reviled.
if you claim that, just because some people do not insist that a candidate or elected official must agree with every single position they hold, that those people are unprincipled.
If, for example, crimes against humanity are against the principles of a man or woman, their position on them will be indicative of that.
Likewise if that same man or woman is committed to the principle that a day’s work should be at least equal to a day’s survival, or that a woman is the sole owner of her body, or that equal rights under the law means equal, regardless of sexual preference.
If the principle is there, the positions will be included 🙂
not on every position, but yes on some basic principles.
Perhaps many think it’s wrong to do so, but I would include women’s autonomy as one of those basic principles.
THAT is the question. It’s not always as easy to ascertain.
Or maybe it is, and I’m doing some mental CYA.
Maybe both.
I’ve held my nose and briefly worked on a campaign for someone who was anti-choice. Yes, me. And I told myself it was OK, b/c of the type of area it was. The person was not a crusader on the issue, but checked the anti-choice box anyway. This person, however, was not afraid to be seen around African-Americans; this person was an economic populist.
It’s also important to remember that this was the tail-end of the “angry-white male” BS. The party was just about ready to chuck affirmative action. It was Black folks, not women (the swoon of the soccer moms, remember that?) that were the targets then. (True, the wingnuts were trained on crushing abortion rights but it was nothing like this, with the party wondering if it should just sell-out if it means more Ds on the floor.) “Mend it, don’t end it” was the order of the day, which is why the whole “we should be open to anti-choice” sounds sickeningly familiar. I’ve seen this movie before and I’m not at all jazzed for the sequel. I have little tolerance for it. And it seems that since McGovern, some in the party (Money people? Corporatists? Cold War Warriors? I honestly don’t know who or if it’s combination of the three) have had it in for the activists–even if that means undermining a progressive candidate who can win.
So if someone wants to spit “purist” at me, let ’em: I’ve been a political grunt while most folks my age (or not) were ignoring politics and/or deeming it unimportant.
In other words, I’m not trying to hear that shit. (I mean that generally, not toward anyone here.)
We on the Left are all-too-commonly the victim of the double-edged sword of passionate devotion to the ideal.
Our idealism generates energy, commitment, and focused activism in the service of noble causes. That devotion sparks movements, energizes entire swaths of the population, and has led to striking changes in the political fabric of our nation, and of the world.
A sour note persistently enters into this picture, however: As the often bitterly sectarian history of the Left reveals, differences of opinion over strategy, tactics, or philosophical underpinnings have consistently led to fracturing of coalitions, broken alliances, shattered friendships, and, in extreme cases, purges, executions, assassinations, civil wars, and the rise to power of forces that all sectarian factions condemn from their scattered and isolated perches on the sidelines. The rise of the Vulcans in the US, not sparked by, but certainly related to the Green/Democrat split over the synergistic perfidy of the “centrist dems” and the sometimes to impractical, sometimes “maximalist” demands of the leftward factions of the Liberal political spectrum. The rise of the Nazis in 1930’s Germany, who filled the political vacuum left by the internecine battles between the Socialists and the Communists…this was in turn related to the rise of the Totalitarians in the USSR, which came about in large part due to the petty factional squabbles between Left and Ultra-Left, leaving Stalin the room to maneuver and manipulate his way to the Chairmanship. The rise of Stalin through the gaps left by the inattention of Trotsky and his fights with others in the “Left Opposition” (as it came to be called) was a substantial and direct cause of the collapse of the Spanish Left into backstabbing and treachery, and the rise of Franco, and was a direct cause of the collapse of the Chinese communists, the rise of Chiang, and the eventual rise to power of Mao and his coterie of personality cultists.
Sectarian splits often choke the life out of movements energized by, started by, or bolstered by the Left. Those sectarian splits often arise from the same wellspring that creates the progressive energy in the first place.
Can we harness that energy and mute the potentially disastrous impact of inevitable sectarianism?
We must recognize, at least in my opinion, that in many cases we are constrained by political context. Specifically, when a large bulk of the population is supportive of reform, but not supportive of revolution, is committed to “fixing” rather than “changing,” is open to minor self-criticism, but not willing to seriously address the fundamental underpinnings of oppression, war, inequality, racism…in those cases, we face a serious challenge: How to remain relevant, effective, and influential in an environment where our passion, commitment, and progressive values bid fair to render us voiceless?
In my view, the way forward is to engage with, on the lowest levels (local committees, local elections, local chapters) the largest political body with the most popular support that most closely fits with, or has the potential to fit with our political views and ideals.
Comrpomise, frustration, bitter tamping down of urgent criticisms, working for far less than perfect candidates, biting of tongues and postponement of philosophical challenges are guaranteed to be the result of such actions.
It hurts. It feels dirty.
How to ameliorate, how to make damned sure that such a sacrifice is worth the price?
In working with, joining with, helping, and supporting “reform” when you damned well know that “reform” is more often “capitulation” than anything else, we must remain clearly (but supportively) critical of the effort. “This will not work, but we have agreed to work together, and I will help. This effort is not going to have the desired result, it will not spark interest, and the results will be no better, and probably worse, than the current situation, but I am committed to supporting you anyway…as long as you know that I predict bad consequences.”
The results are, that if you are correct in your analysis, and honest in your assistance, and the outcome is as you predicted…the next time, you will be given more of a say, and the time after that you will be given more control, and the time after that, the program being supported will be yours and the people helping but griping or carping will be those you helped in the past.
If that is coupled with large scale swamping of local membership in activist groups, political committees, stacking of steering committees, and broad participation at the base levels of that political organization by like-minded idealists…the groundwork can be laid for large-scale redirection of the entire existing political grouping.
That’s my two cents.