After Corbu » democrats

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Quixote — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:38:27 +0000

The Onion has apparently seized control of NOW. Funny that I don’t recall similar hyperbole from ’04 when Kennedy went with Kerry over Carol Mosley Braun…

It’s a beautiful day for a coup

Quixote — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:10:20 +0000

I looked down at the calendar to check the date and, lo and behold, it’s September 11th, the 34th anniversary of the US-backed coup that toppled President Salvador Allende and brought Pinochet to power in Chile. That act of terrorism resulted in thousands of deaths and made political prisoners of thousands more.

Of course, 6 years ago a more famous act of terrorism had worse results: tens of thousands dead in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq and hundreds of political prisoners at Guantanamo. The toll of the attack didn’t have to be this severe, but we let it get out of control — we let a horrible tragedy become a coup.

6 years ago we had a moderate, incompetent president who couldn’t move conservative legislation and compromised with liberal institutions like Ted Kennedy to pass education ‘reform.’ Then: the September 11th attacks, and everything changed. Ever since, our country has been ruled by an extremist, incompetent president who steamrolls bills past weak, assenting legislators.

Maybe this will change now that Democrats are starting to put the “fuck you” back in “opposition party” with their wonderful investigations. Maybe they’re ready to end the coup. But first they have to realize that this man is just as much a hack as this man turned out to be, and call him on it. Military uniforms are not inoculations against becoming Bush cronies; this war remains past its sell-by date, no matter who is trotted out to ask for another six months.

Bring the troops home now.

Lazy Candidates Then and Now

Quixote — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:05:28 +0000

Intelligent piece comparing the Clark ’04 and Thompson ’08 candidacies by Publius at ObWi. An excerpt:

The Clark and Thompson campaigns have eerily similar pre-histories. Because the party elites and rank-and-file weren’t very happy with the slate of candidates, Clark and Thompson’s names got floated for months. Party members didn’t know much about them, so they projected their desires on to the idea of them — and expectations ran high. Rather than seizing this opportunity early on, both candidates played footsie for months and months but hesitated to jump in. And then, finally, they did.

By pointing out the deficiencies of the Clark and Thompson campaigns which doomed/doom both, Publius also provides a good justification for the expanded length of the primary season: it makes our candidates better, both personally and in terms of their organization. Those are much more tangible advantages than being the newest flavor at primary time after a late launch.

I’m going to go ahead and predict that the honeymoon ends quickly, another ‘messiah’ is recruited (Newt’s available…), and Thompson drops out before the primaries. Then, Law + Order decided to have him lose his DA election, and replaces him with a liberal, just to twist the knife a bit more.

Wyndbag

Quixote — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 08:46:07 +0000

What might as well be the Maryland 4th Incumbent’s new slogan, coined by Free State Politics:

Al Wynn: He may not believe in anything, but he’ll stick it to his constituents!

Unsurprising, given that, the Maryland Republicans love him. Because bucking Democratic constituents demonstrates independence and leadership, while bucking Republican constituents (on immigration reform, say) is undemocratic betrayal.

I know this fallacy is the foundation of modern politics, and mentioning it this late in the game is pretty unoriginal. But sometimes the lack of basic logical consistency really gets to me. Anyway, go donate money to Donna Edwards (I did!), the progressive who’s going to unseat Wynn in the Maryland primary.

3am Roundup

Quixote — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:00:30 +0000

I went hiking today and neglected the internets. Disengaging actually feels pretty good, which is worrisome. I wouldn’t want to develop bad meatspace habits that interfere with my blogging. My readers (-der?) would cry.

Anyway, assorted thoughts:

Predictably, I join with my similarly draft-age comrades, Matt Zeitlin and Mike Meginnis in opposing the return of the draft that David Sirota endorses. Their take-downs are better than what I could write, but let me add: It’s extremely paternalistic to assume that more people would oppose the war if liberals made the policy choice more real for them. And let me suggest that this is exactly the kind of advocacy that gives liberals a bad name; feeding the sense that we know better. You create a shared military burden by providing real economic opportunities for poor folk so that they don’t have to rent out their bodies. Not by forcing rich people into a similarly shitty situation and hoping that maybe convinces them to be nice someday.
MyDD has a post arguing that Florida is leaning Democrat at this point in the 2008 election. This is unfotunate, since it means Democratic candidates will feel the need to visit the state and pander to the Cuban expat community again. I’m tired of that group, the children of an exploitive aristocracy, determining our Cuba policy.
Archidose presents the limit case of blog advertising. I’ve avoided advertising entirely at After Corbu, but I’ll admit that’s mostly because I can’t imagine it would be very lucrative. Plus I blog from a position of class privilege, which makes it easy to stay “pure.” I don’t begrudge the starving artist bloggers out there…but there is a reasonable limit to one’s crash commercialism.
I saw someone quoting Priest Hardon and thought they were snarky, but apparently not. There is such a theologian. Now I feel like an irreverent asshole.
The video at the GOOD Magazine Blog of a Tokyo wave pool packed with people is mesmerizing. Also alarming: how does no one drown?
Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody is riding the Huck train. Right next to Ezra Klein! As much as I’d like to see it, I think the Republican’s will nominate a class warrior about the time the Democrats go for a Donald Trump. Though if the DLC has there way…
Zoos are already creepy, and tigers being forced to nurse piglets is completely messed up.

Indefinate Detainment…is Bad

Quixote — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:51:32 +0000

Posts like this are how I know that when there’s a Democratic president, this indefinate detainment farce will have to stop. It’s unquestionably a completely morally bankrupt ~~problem~~ policy, and people will point it out, again and again, until it stops. In fact, this needs to be asked of every Democratic candidate:

Will you promise to release or try every detainee in your first year of office?

Maybe they’ve all already made statements on this, but this should be a clear requirement to recieve the nomination.

Rhetoric has Consequences

Quixote — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:00:37 +0000

Ezra Klein:

America’s political consensus is almost absurdly to the right. But because people still need to run to the left of each other, the rhetoric on offer frequently sounds like the rhetoric of the left, even as its actual prescriptions are decidedly within the mainstream of our fairly conservative consensus on economics.

Very true. And, as Klein points out further down, one of the strange consequences of this is that, based purely on policy, Sarkozy is to the left of Edwards. Their trajectories are much different, yet even if both were able to implement all their most radical policy prescriptions (that they have advocated so far), we would not see an America more left than France.

However, rhetoric is important by itself. Successful leftist rhetoric helps make more radical positions respectable and safe. And this helps policy change along, because in our system change is preceded by politicians and movements advocating for it.

This is why I support Edwards right now, foibles and all. I doubt he will be able to enact more progressive policies than Obama, as they both will operate with the same congress. But if we want a more leftist government, then it’s important to make running left/progressive/populist a successful strategy. Candidates are stand-ins for ideology, and both win or lose together.

A popular/successful Edwards presidency creates space for more progressive congressional candidates and makes the centrist schtick unappealing in ways that the candidates with less inflammatory rhetoric do not. Even if we’re getting somone to the right of Sarkozy no matter what.

Republican Troop Hatin’

Quixote — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:33:39 +0000

I knew something about the LGF blow-up (won’t link) over the military & progressives panel questioner earlier today (which will inevitably spread far and wide by tomorrow) struck me as weirdly topical, and then I remembered. We’ve just been treated to weeks of the Scott Thomas Who? There is no such Scott Thomas! “Scandal” wherein the right wingers refuse to believe the reports of a soldier serving in Iraq and smear him repeatably. This is somehow consistent with “supporting the troops,” whereas one person’s bad reaction in one instance demonstrates how the left is…evil (I got tired of trying to think of the right colorful metaphor here).

When Wingnuts Invade

Quixote — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:52:29 +0000

This post of Ezra Klein’s at Tapped, about conflict at a panel on the military and progressives at YearlyKos, really drew the chronically offended right-wingers out of the woodwork, spurred on by our friends at LGF. I wonder if this will have the staying power of “protesters spitted on returning troops and chanted ‘babykillers’” as part of the Democrats Hate Troops narrative, of which all the examples are either faked or falsely generalized.

Not that this will matter to the various Republican sites who make it a practice to give the truth a wide birth, but: ‘Democrats’ and ‘Troops’ are not distinct entities, and this incident featured military panelists and a military questioner. The instant vitriol shows that the moderator’s anger at the questioner was justified (though expressing it was a poor way of handling the situation). The only reason this incident has gained attention is because the questioner was military. Had the moderator inappropriately stomped on a civilian, this would not be noteworthy. Therefore, exactly what the moderator was angry at has come to pass: the questioner used his military status to elevate his political opinions.

Union ’08

Quixote — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:11:32 +0000

Unions have been beaten on so much, that, confronted with a field of Democrats that’s not overtly bashing them, they’re overjoyed. They should have higher standards. Union members vote Democratic in huge numbers and wrote the book on political ground-game. Without them we’d have Red America. That gives them right and ability to endorse any candidate without fear of retribution. That they’re unwilling to is pathetic.

Now, it’s possible that all this fuss is just about the different rhetorical emphasis of Edwards vs. Clinton vs. Obama. They may truly be indistinguishable from a labor policy standpoint, having promised Sweeney, Stern, and the gang that they’d sign a card Check law and appoint NLRB members in the mold of Howard Zinn. But I doubt it.

I can understand it’s hard to justify spending millions in member’s hard-earned money on small differences. And any money the union political committees save in the primaries can be used to ensure a Democrat gets elected in the general. But endorsements are free. They have no downside.