Okay, so my two cents here in Canada may be worth a little less than the US two cents, but I offer it up anyway.
I have calmed down a little bit since yesterday. I have read just about every diary on here about the state of the Democratic Party. Vent has helped, a lot. So has an article that I read from the January 18 edition of The Nation . The article is An Alternative State of the Union. The article highlights the ideas of 20 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – people like Dennis Kuchinich, John Conyers, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Bernie Sanders. All of these representatives, except Sanders, are Democrats.
These ideas address many of the concerns that we here talk about on a daily basis. For example, Jesse Jackson, Jr. proposes an amendment (HJR 28) that actually guarantees Americans withs a right to vote. It would also give Congress the authority to create a uniform voting system. As he says in the article
We have fifty states, 3141 counties, and 7,800 different local election jurisdictions. All separate and unequal.
I don’t know about you, but these ideas resonate with my principles; they fill me with hope that yes, there are Democrats that “get it.”
Only 64 percent of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot in November of 2004, and that is an increase, Clearly, neither party is making an impression on a huge number of citizens. Many of these people must be looking for something that they are not finding in either of the corporate run parties.
In my eyes, it is the corporate wing of the Democratic Party that is destroying the party and any chance of creating any real opposition to the criminals in the WH right now. It is the corporate wing that must be the focus of our laser like vision. It must be excised from the Democratic Party if there is any hope to salvage it.
When the extreme right-wingers of America decide it wanted to take over, for the most part, it did not go create a viable third party – it took over the Republican Party. Slowly but surely, like the parasites they are, they devoured their host body and transformed it into the Republican Party of Darth Cheney, Tom Delay, James Dobson, and Karl Rove. These men are power hungry monsters without souls.
The Democratic Party, in its current state, is ripe for the picking, and thus a transformation. It will not be easy, but the power behind the Internet could ease this process. I humbly submit this three step process
Step 1 – Actively support the plans of the Progressive Democrats as outlined in
the article in The Nation . I know that MoveOn.org does a lot of this, but we bloggers have the tenacity to push these issues with our writing. I suggest that progressive blogs work together to eventually submit an on-line petition demanding(? too strong?) that the Democrats actively pursue these plans.Step 2 – Create a Progressive Blog PAC. Sadly, in our political system, money talks. I don’t want to pull an Abramoff, but there needs to be a way to direct money to those candidates (both national and local) who are willing to adhere to our platform, be they Democrats, Greens, or even the odd-ball Republican. The MSM is wholly unwilling to cover progressives candidates, so we must be willing to support them financially.
Step 3 – Finally, let’s start running. No, I don’t mean for the Canadian border (though you are free to visit). We bloggers are sophisticated, passionate, and well-read. For my brothers and sisters living in the U.S. of A., what is stopping you from running? School Board? City Council? Zoning Commission? Once people see that Progressives are not only human, but are competent and patriotic. But, they need to see us in action. I know that if my family’s immigration status wasn’t so complicated (it’s funny as hell to cross into Detroit and the immigration officer asks for our citizenships – US, Canadian, and Chinese. Eyes usually just roll.) I would move back and run for something. Activism is necessary and crucial, but meaningless if we are unable to elect people willing to listen o the activists.
I submit this to my Froggy brothers and sisters for their honest take on my two cents. I figure it’s easier to take over an existing party than to try to recreate that structure from scratch.
I’m tired and I have spent the last hour piecing this diary together. Please leave your ideas and comments. I will check it all out in the morning.
An excellent with with wonderful ideas.
Exactly.
That is what we need to do — take over the Democratic party. I like your three ideas. I’m going to give them some more thought.
duh, an excellent post. Laptop issues.
Thanks Mary. Get back to me. I want to refine this (oh the typos I see this morning) and cross-post this at any progressive site that will take it – even the Big Orange.
Thanks for thinking about this and doing some research.
I don’t know how to respond a the moment – just thinking.
The key is in here:
Tampopo, I haven’t been able to shut my brain off since Monday. Like I said to Mary, get back to me, the left needs to start speaking with one voice and I hope that we here can lead that discussion.
Great thoughts, Toni. I like your ideas: basic, fundamental, and building on what we have together.
Rest well.
Thanks Kidspeak. I always appreciate your support.
for creating a 50-state infrastructure to perform exactly the takeover you’re suggesting, and for exactly the reasons you cite.
The other piece of the Republican takeover that we don’t appreciate is that Christian fundamentalists were not allowed to communicate to the electorate back in the 70’s. We’re in the same position today. Even if we could run a massive think-tank messaging project, it still comes down to picking a handful 2- and 3-syllable phrases and a few seconds of video as the entirety of our message about leading the most powerful & complex society the world has ever seen.
It’s not the dream of gaining power that’s crazy–it’s the idea of even attemtpting to communicate to voters under these crazy constraints.
1970’s fundamentalists’ advantages were 2: being churches, they’re massively organized already; and they share many of the goals of the corporatists.
We share one important goal of established Democrats: we believe in using gov’t to temper capitalism and to provide a social safety net. On that score they’ll see us as allies.
But we like the entire rest of the Democratic party still have no way to communicate to the electorate.
We’ve got to stop viewing this as “media bias” and start recognizing it as a fundamental feature of the American system. Nobody is allowed to discuss anything substantive before the American public.
What we need to do is develop a workaround in the next few months.
This will take time Gooserock. That is why the left needs to go on the offensive.
As far as having no way to communicate with the electorate, that is where the Progressive Blog PAC comes into play.
Organizations like MoveOn.org usually run issue ads that counter some Bush plan, like Social Security privatization. Those ads worked. What if, thanks to PAC donations, we ran ads about Jackson’s proposed voting rights amendment? The media won’t cover this issue on its own, but I am sure that they’ll take our money. These ads could create “buzz” and put the administration on the defensive.
Imagine a positive ad about the sacred right to vote popping into living rooms in the middle of Oprah. People will start talking. If advertising didn’t work, corporations wouldn’t spend millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl.
element of a communication program.
However we can’t be entirely certain the media will take our money. During the last election cycle quite a few paid liberal ads were refused by various stations and networks. I’ve been predicting that they’ll be considerably more aggressive this time around. I hope I’m wrong.
The other thing about corporate ads is that they spend millions on motivational research to know where and how to advertise. The left in general is beyond clueless about this. The money left and the activist left are seeking two different audiences but to my eye both are pursuing them with approaches that are inappropriate for them.
Ads don’t have to be just national (sorry, I think too far ahead sometimes). Small town papers (see comment below) could be a place to start.
I think that the left has an advantage here (back to tv) as a large portion of the entertainment industry is fairly left. They know how to use imagery to their advantage.
I am not sure what you mean by pursuing money with inappropriate means. Could you elaborate?
TT – Here is a brief sketch of what I am thinking. Please note the specifics might not be accurate.
Full Page Ad:
Are you one of the 46 million Americans without Insurance?
Are you working at your current job JUST to have Health Benefits?
Are you owner of a small business struggling with employee health care costs?
Would you like one of these insurance plans?
Nag’s Diary on Medicare for All
Or this plan?
The Opportunity Agenda’s Diary: Expanding Opportunity? HSAs are Not The Way
Call 888(Senate switchboard number) Ask to speak to Senator So & so and tell him/her which plan YOU want.
. . . . . . . .
The idea is to share info and remove it from the demon words Kennedy, Democrats, or the very worst liberal.
Issue focus and involvement.
I absolutely agree with this!
What about using small local papers? Idea ads maybe.
destroying the party. I agree.
And I would highly recommend an excellent work I read recently, Gangs of America; The Rise of the Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy, by Ted Nace.
Available at Powells through BT, or the author offers access to a free pdf download of his work here
OMG, yet another book to read. I guess if I must. I will check it out, thanks for the recommendation.
While it’s not necessary that we all run for office, I think it’s critical that we allll find and support truly progressive candidates. And we should focus on local and state elections where small well-organized groups can have a significant impact. After all, we wouldn’t be nearly as worried about the SCOTUS if more legislatures had a majority of centrists and progressives.
Of course we don’t all have to run (though the blue dot is clearly photogenic enough for advertising).
You make a great point about state legislatures. The local and state level is where the right-wing crazies started their take-over.
As a group, we could support progressive candidates – no matter the position they are seeking – through the PAC.
The Blue Dot is very much like me in that She not one iota of tact and isn’t interested in getting any.
I’d rather see a PAC concentrate on state and local elections. Candidates running for federal offices have many sources of funding, those running for low-profile offices have very few.
Good distinction about sources of funding. Local elections have notoriously low turn outs, unless there is some sort of national issue. A PAC could create interest in local races.
It’s true that state leges are a stepping stone to national influence, but they are important in their own right too.
The state level is where decisions about education funding (both K-12 and state universities) are made. Where the agencies that handle health care for the poor, child protection, transportation (endless highways or mass transit?), insurance regulation, and on and on, are set up and either adequately funded or not.
The state legislatures will decide if women’s rights are protected or lost if Roe is overturned (I can’t bear to write “when,” but I fear it is inevitable).
Fight for your state legislatures and state representatives who will fight for us because that is where decisions are made that have a direct and immediate impact on people’s lives.
It will pay off in the long run at the national level, but we need the state leges on our side right now. As has been said – state districts are small and most people don’t pay much attention to those races, so just a few people willing to go door to door, to do the GOTV work can actually oust a Republican and get a real progressive in a seat at your state capitol. And it matters.
I wish more people had your attitude. Back in the 70’s, I was part of the effort to get the ERA passed in Indiana and we did not by working on the people legislature who wouldn’t vote for it but by getting people elected to the state legislature who would vote for it. This had a double effect — it got us that vote and it also convinced fence-sitters that voting for the ERA was a political good move.
I happen to live in a pretty liberal part of the state but I plan to find out from my state senator contests in other districts where some extra financial support could make a difference.
Thanks Toni – this is great. I think it might be better for us to stop fretting about political parties and give our support to the people who are working to undo our great mistake – the personhood of corporations:
Reclaim Democracy and
Rrogram on Corporations, Law and Democracy
Yes! The granting of “personhood”, the implementation of the idea that corporations are entitled to “human rights” is right up there with the rise of the automobile society and the staggering waste of resources it created, and the lifetime appointment of judges to the supreme court as huge mistakes our culture has made.
I really like what Teacher Toni is expressing here, and I agree with much of what is being said in the comments, and I appreciate and value the enthusiasm so many bring to this topic even while acknowledging I myself don’t have much experience directly in the mechanics of electoral strategy.
I do want to add one dimension to this discusion I’ve not seen anyone else address, but which I think is important to be cognizant of as a principle we need to be able to grapple with with a sense of fearlessness we may be reluctant to engage in.
Simply put, I think it’s important that we re-evaluate how often and to what degree we are willing to cast our vote for or throw our support behind “the lesser of two evils”, when we evaluate how best to serve our own interests and be loyal to our principles.
Are we willing to support a shithead capitulator Dem just to prevent a worse Repub from winning? And if we are, to what degree do we do this; what criteria do we use to evaluate the merits of such compromises,to decide whether or not we need to finally draw a line and say to ourselves; “this victory in this instance is not worth it, it is in effect a deferred defeat because by voting against our core beliefs we are enabling our own party to be subverted by rewarding it’s inexorable trajectory to the “right”?
Are we willing to withold support from Dem candidates who do not support our most fundamental principles even if such restraint means their Repub opponents will be more likely to win? I think this is an important question, and a delicately, emotionally tricky one, that needs to be confronted more fearlessly than many of us are willing to demonstrate.
I have held my nose a number of times to vote for a worthless Democrat, in order to avoid the Republican. If a national movement grows out of this, it is possible to target larger portions of support to candidates who support our platform. That is the stick that we swing.
In cases where there isn’t possible, tacit support is likely the preferred method. Behind the scenes, however, work must be done to recruit a viable candidate who more closely adheres to our principles. My union has done this for school board. Currently, out of seven members, six were union endorsed.
This method is heavy on local organization and yes, it is time consuming.
Yes! I agree with you on all points. I only wanted to emphasize that we need to be able recognize the need to draw lines for ourselves as to when voting for a “worthless Dem” is worth it and when it is not.
If we can work “behind the scenes” to encourage and promote more genuinely principled candidates I think that’s great, but, IMHO we need to simultaneously brandish in public the stick that says; “If you are a capitulator to the right our contributions to your electoral efforts will certainly decline until we are rid of you at last!”
TT – I’m still thinking about what you have written. Now as to the following:
Though what you say is true and I agree, I have to heave a very heavy sigh.
One of the absolutely powerful aspects of this internet community is that I can participate on my own time frame. I, as I imagine you did with your Alito diary, worked on it when the house was quiet – late at night or very early in the morning.
Involvement on the local level requires time and energy commitments. And this is not easy. Switzerblog wrote a diary Reflections on intra-party activism which points to the challenges of local involvement.
I am intending on going to the nearest local Dem meeting this month – definitely with mixed feelings.
Thanks, tampopo, for the link to switzerblog’s diary – I had missed it. But it ties in with a train of thought that I’ve had going for a couple of days. Which is –
We are so incessantly marketed to, advertised at, sold . . . that we start looking at too many things as a “product” – like political parties. We look the parties as if they are trying to “sell” themselves to us (we even talk about “Brand Democrat” – ugh!) and decide whether or not to “purchase” one party or another, or neither, or daydream about being entrepreneurs offering up a new “product.”
I think that a better way to see political parties is as like having a job in a large organization, where we are forced to work with all kinds of people. I’ve worked in the corporate world, for the federal government, and in academe – and it’s always the same. There are slackers and backstabbers and prima donnas and power trippers and any number of unpleasant people among your colleagues.
But there are also hard workers, good managers, mentors, amazing talents, motivators and cheerleaders, and general all-around fun folks.
In a job, especially if you really believe in the mission of the organization (and I do, passionately, believe in community college education, which is what I’m doing now) – you figure out how to deal with the jerks – avoid them, work around them, neutralize them. You form alliances with the “good guys” who are dedicated professionals and act like grown-ups – and you stick it out.
The need for a paycheck is a powerful motivator for sticking it out. It’s harder with political activism, because not only is it voluntary, but we’re having to find the time and energy for it on top of what we need for our paid work, our other obligations, and the need to have some time for ourselves. But if we do truly believe in the mission of the organization (frog-marching!) we can find some amount of ourselves to give to it.
Anyway – when we start getting involved with political groups, I think it would be good to remind ourselves that in any group, the kinds of things that switzerblog describes are going to happen, because there will always be some jerks – and there will be some good people who’s buttons have been pushed the wrong way or who have had a bad day (sometimes, that’ll be me) – but we can say, I’ve seen this before, in my job – I know how to deal with this and still get the job done . . .
You make a very good point:
We are so incessantly marketed to, advertised at, sold . . . that we start looking at too many things as a “product” – like political parties.
I agree with you JS – people are people. 🙂