Caucus (Updated)

I didn’t decide to do this until about a day or so ago.

I’ll be attending the Lyon County Democratic caucus later this morning.  Part of me is wondering why I am bothering, but since I didn’t go in 2010, AND this is the year that the DNC will issue a new platform (not that they’ll follow what will surely be a watered-down bowl of mush), I thought I’d add my two cents. I might add more than that, and in fact, that’s a pretty good bet.

Make no mistake, the only people who will be getting out in the wet weather and attending a Democratic caucus in a year where there is no contest for the nomination will be the hard-core Dems.  I’m going because I want to see what is on the mind of these people. Have they had it? Are they willing to rattle the cage? If I like what I hear, I might stick around.  If I hear the same old, we can’t rock the boat bullshit, I’ll be heading for the door.

This isn’t to say I’ll be neutral. In recent days I’ve also come to the conclusion that come November 2012, given the current field of candidates, I’m going to have to put on my big girl panties hold my nose and vote for Obama. I’ll not be leaving the top of the ticket blank this time.  Not that I think he’s any great prize (as regular readers will know), but he beats bat-shit crazy any day.

Just don’t ask me to canvass for him. That would be a bridge too far.

Update: Some photos from today

Indeed, the problem is two-fold

Michael Brenner lays the blame squarely where it belongs: Obama himself, and those who did not, do not, hold him accountable. 

Obama has unmoored the Democratic Party from its foundations — philosophical and electoral. No longer is it an expression of the persons, programs and ideas that crystallized with the New Deal and which dominated the country’s politics for sixty years. Its future is that of ad hoc assemblage of hustlers and special interests whose sole claim to govern will be that it is not the amalgamated Tea/Republican Party. Obama, by this Oedipus-like act of patricide, has also betrayed the country that voted for an enlightened leader with a social conscience — a country in desperate need of the opposite to the fate he has laid on us.

[ . . . ]

Most striking is a behavior pattern that resembles closely the narcissistic syndrome — even if he is not a clinical narcissist. A narcissist has no convictions other than a total dedication to his own gratification. That gives him the freedom to maneuver without inhibition or conscience with the revered self as the only reference point. All expressions of ideals, of opinions, of intentions are implicitly so qualified. A complementary narcissistic trait is an ease with blurring the line between virtual reality and actual reality. Narcissists believe everything they say — at the moment they say it. Their declarations are sterile acts that have no pride of parentage nor can they expect honor from offspring. Witness Obama’s momentarily rousing support of a labor movement that he has scorned for thirty months. This is the same President who has launched an all-out campaign against public school teachers whose unions serve as the whipping-boy for all that ails American education.

[ . . . ]

The instinct to protect Obama was so powerful that it stilled the voices of those who should have been both bolstering and cajoling him to remain true to his avowed commitments. To this day, the hesitation about calling out Obama is manifest — witness the minimal reaction to his brazen reversal on clean air standards that is required by legal stipulation to promulgate. Pressuring Obama early on also would have been the line of political realism since opinion surveys have made clear that it was the Republicans who were out of step with prevailing attitudes on issue after issue. That remains true today despite the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership jettisoning them wholesale. It cannot last for very long, of course, with the mass defections that have left American politics with only one narrative, the legitimizing of a Darwinian social philosophy, the ensconcing of moneyed interests on the throne of power, and the deference now shown the Tea Party outrages.

The vow by so many not to hold to account a President (the first person of color to occupy the White House) who engaged in one unseemly sellout after another emboldened Obama to go further and further down that road. Only now that the disaster has occurred are a few tentative, mild voices of serious criticism raised about the man, his methods and his politics. They have little practical meaning since the damage is done, the game is lost, the Democratic Party is denatured, and the great progressive wave of the 20th century that reconciled Americanism with the social ethics of the modern world reversed. Free of any mea culpas and lacking a sense of urgency, these mild chastisements fall into the ignoble category of “grandpa reassurances.”

I recommend you read it all.

We “can’t win” but we must fight?

Russ… You know I like you. But hooboy, you are confusing the hell out of me. You just sent me an email from Progressives United with the subject line “Let’s Fight.”

Carissa,

Part of the reason I founded Progressives United is that we badly need to break the limits of our debate.

Nowhere is that need exposed more clearly than with the congressional super committee that will soon be debating whether we should dismantle our society and protections substantially — or all but eliminate them.

That’s an argument we can’t win. Years of corporate money in politics have gone toward ensuring that debates like this will end up heads they win, tails we lose. 

To stop this backsliding and start having debates we can actually win, we need the super committee to deal a decisive defeat to the corporate agenda. And to do it, we need to stand united.

Stand with me today: Petition Democratic members of the super committee to deal a defeat to corporate interests.

Members of Progressives United are petitioning Democratic super committee members to follow these priorities:

1. Ensure millionaires, billionaires, and big corporations pay their fair share of debt reduction,
2. No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits,
3. No giveaways to corporate interests,
4. Or no deal.

Numbers one through three are important policy priorities, but number four is equally important.

If we don’t get our policy priorities, Democrats need to be ready to walk away from the deal. You can guarantee extremists on the other side will continue to push relentlessly to give even more to corporations and put even more of the burden on the middle class. We have to fight harder than they will.

We can have leverage with the Democrats on the super committee, but we need to build it.

Stand with me and sign Progressives United’s petition today.

Huh?  I am so confused by your email. On the one hand, you say we have to “break the limits of our debate.”  Then you go on to infer that the “super committee” is already operating from the assumption that the safety net must be diminished and will only be debating how much they will shred the social safety net. As I see it, they aren’t having a debating each other. They are in agreement. So how is this “our” debate? But I digress. You were speaking of a debate and that usually means one side or the other will win the debate.

That’s an argument we can’t win. . . . heads they win, tails we lose.

Wait. What? We can’t win the argument? So the point of your email is . . . what, exactly?

To stop this backsliding and start having debates we can actually win, we need the super committee to deal a decisive defeat to the corporate agenda.

Ooooh! I get it! We have to get the committee to see the error of their reasoning.  But just half of them.

But, wait,  you already said that the committee has already made up its collective mind, and it’s not in our favor, and . . . but . . .

But okay, I’ll bite. I’m ready! What are we to do?

Wait. What? You want us to sign an online petition that has absolutely no teeth or “do this or else” threats? Really???

Oh Russ, Russ, Russ.

You said, “Let’s fight.”

I was really hoping you were writing me to say you’d given up on the Democratic Party and that you were going to make a move and encourage us to come with you. I thought maybe you were going to say you were going to step up and either challenge Obama in the primaries, or make an independent run for the Presidency.

You want me to sign another petition. Seriously?  Years of these, years of trying to get “better” Democrats elected, years of begging and pleading with our Democratic leaders to Please, not again! Please don’t sell us out! has taught me that this shit isn’t going to do squat.

And frankly, where is the “fight” in this?  I cannot tell you how disappointed I am that this organization that I thought maybe, just maybe was going to be a genuinely liberal/progressive counterpoint to the corporate Democratic leadership.  Nah. Just another veal pen as far as I can see. 

You want to get their attention, Russ?  We lib/prpgs need to go Lysistrata on the Democratic Party. And we need enough of you big names to make the leap with us.

Democrats need to be ready to walk away from the deal . . .

No. We need to be ready to walk away from the party. And so do you.

That will get their attention.  Nothing less.

Democrats, how many ways does he have to show you he holds you in absolute contempt?

And yet, Stephanie Miller will be cheering Obama on Monday morning.  Because he “saved” Planned Parenthood. And because look over there! Michelle Bachman! 

If one more person tells me, “Think of the alternative! Think if the Supreme Court! Women’s right to choose!” I’m gonna deck him or her.

Digby:

While the Democratic Party very well “win” from time to time and the party will play its role in the kabuki dance — that of “protector” of an ever dwindling handful of ever smaller signature programs to keep the desperate progressive faction on board — liberalism itself has suffered a terrible and perhaps mortal blow. To have a Democratic president of the United States adopt the necessary * austerity and extol it as an historic victory the midst of ongoing high unemployment and a moribund economy means that the argument is basically over. This is not Franklin Roosevelt’s puny GOP opposition and the Democratic Party does not have the middle class loyalty it had in 1937 to withstand making this kind of monumental error. Neither are we likely to be rescued by a war machine — it’s already cranked. No, the Democratic Party is formally relinquishing its historic claim to represent the economic interests of working families.

Now would be a really good time for a big-name progressive third-party candidate, preferably from the ranks of the disaffected Dems. Seriously. Now.

* “the necessary” is crossed out to reflect Digby’s edit to her post. Often when writing a post I edit a sentence and leave in (or forget to put in) a word or two that shouldn’t be there. Obviously, this is the case with Digby, as she vehemently opposes the austerity meme. After I asked her about that phrase, she made a correction. However, since there are comments about those words here, I couldn’t just delete them without muddling the conversation.

Nader: “The left has disemboweled itself”

Chris Hedges: The Left Has Nowhere to Go

“The left has nowhere to go,” Nader said. “Obama knows it. The corporate Democrats know it. There will be criticism by the left of Obama this year and then next year they will all close ranks and say ‘Do you want Mitt Romney? Do you want Sarah Palin? Do you want Newt Gingrich?’ It’s very predictable. There will be a year of criticism and then it will all be muted. They don’t understand that even if they do not have any place to go, they ought to fake it. They should fake going somewhere else or staying home to increase the receptivity to their demands. But because they do not make any demands, they are complicit with corporate power.

[ . . . ]

“The left has disemboweled itself,” Nader said. “It doesn’t even have a strategy every four years like a good poker player. The best example is Richard Trumka and the AFL-CIO. Obama has given them nothing. Therefore, they are demanding nothing. They huff and puff. They make tough speeches. But Trumka hasn’t even made Obama’s campaign pledge of a $9.50 minimum wage by this year an issue. If you want to increase consumer demand, what better way to do it than to unleash $300 billion in wages? The card check for unionization, which Obama pledged as his No. 1 sop to the labor unions, is dead. The unions do not even demand a hearing. And now wait till you see what they will do to the public employee unions. Part of it is their own fault. They are going to be crushed. Everybody is ganging up on them. You have new class warfare. It is non-unionized lower income and middle class taking it out on the unionized middle-income public employees. It is a classic example of oligarchic manipulation. It will start playing out big time in New York State with Andrew Cuomo and others. They will start saying, ‘Why are you getting this? Most workers who pay the taxes, who pay your salaries, are not getting this.’ This plays.”

[ . . . ]

The timidity and silencing of the left fuels the steady impoverishment of a dispossessed working class and a beleaguered middle class. It solidifies a corporate oligarchy that is dismantling the anemic regulatory agencies that once protected citizens from predatory corporations. The economic system is designed to bail out Wall Street rather than replace the trillions of dollars and millions of jobs lost by workers. And the only hope left, Nader argues, is if the conservatives in the right-wing movement break from the corporatists. If the big banks again start going to the cliff and calling for new bailouts, Nader says, this may provoke a schism between conservative groups embodied by figures such as Ron Paul, and corporate lackeys.

“Every major movement starts with field organizers, the farmers, unions, and the civil rights movement,” Nader said. “But there is nothing out there. We need to start learning from what was done in the past. All over the country people are pissed off. They hate Wall Street. They know they are being gouged. They know they are slipping behind. They know their kids will not be as well off as they were, and they were not that well off. But no one is putting it together. Who could put a thousand organizers in the field, besides George Soros? The labor unions. They have the money. They have a lot of cash. These idiots are going down. The UAW is a paradigm of a suicidal, supplicant labor union. It is disgusting. They are a puppy dog of GM, Ford and Chrysler. They have huge reserves. The labor unions could organize the country, but they are into their own emoluments and high salaries. The union leadership has so distanced itself from the rank and file that it is ashamed to do anything controversial. These union leaders will not go on TV on Labor Day because they do not want someone saying ‘Why are you making $500,000 a year with a pension that is six times your rank and file?’ There is corruption at the top. The only way the union leaders can continue is to be in the shadows. And you don’t build a strong movement in the shadows.

On the eve of . . .

Well, it’s just about over. The most toxic election season of my memory (and that includes the 2008 Democratic primary).  We are on the cusp of a Republican take-over of at least one house of Congress.

It feels like we are all trapped in a room where the water is rising. We’re all treading water, while at the same time trying to keep our nostrils in the ever-decreasing space of air between the surface of the water and the ceiling.

And I’ve never seen the Republican Party do anything to stop the ever-rising water. Ever.

And so, here we are.

Sweetie and I will be watching the returns on Comedy Central. I may live blog. I may just get drunk.

Four years ago, full of optimism, I wrote:

It feels like the winds of change are clearing out the smog of the last six years. It feels like we are at last awakening from our long national nightmare.

But we are just at the beginning. I hope and pray that first and foremost, this Congress will meaningfully reform elections in this country. That it become federal law any vote cast on an electronic voting machine MUST have a voter verifiable paper trail, and that random audits by non-partisan boards must be done, regardless of margins of victory.

I believe our Democratic House and Senate can walk and chew gum at the same time. So while they are busy implementing their agenda for improving the lives of average Americans, I expect to see meaningful investigations to uncover the truth about the run-up to the war, to conduct oversight of no-bid contracts, to find out why billions of dollars has gone missing in Iraq, find out who Bush and Co are spying on with their warrantless wire-tapping program (and ahem, enforce the FISA laws with regards to wiretaps), torture allegations and secret prisons, etc, etc, etc. No, this will be no witchhunt. Democrats won’t be insisting on getting Bush’s Christmas card list, or how much postage he is spending (that’s what Republicans do to Democrats).

We’ve got some serious problems. And we need some serious solutions. Now that the Dems are in charge, the Republicans say they want to work across the aisle. Heh. All those rules that they put in place to shut out the Democrats may very well come back to bite them in the ass. But…probably not. You see, Dems really do believe in finding common ground and coming up with common sense solutions that will benefit the greatest good. So let’s just wait and see if the Republicans are able to do it. If their actions over the past twelve years is any indication, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Two years ago, no longer the starry-eyed idealist I once was, I wrote:

Progressives should not see this as a great victory. Obama’s words have often not matched his record and I strongly suspect that he will disappoint many who have placed their faith in him.

If nothing else, this election should inform Obama that the people have turned their back on the neo-con world-view. They long for something better. I only long for one thing: To be wrong.

I will be watching closely to see if Obama’s first actions in office match the soaring rhetoric of his campaign. A couple of things he can do right away to help ease my mind, in no particular order:

• Immediately repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. No consultations with the Pentagon. End it.
• Rescind or freeze every Executive Order put in place by the Bush Administration. (Signing statements that refuse to obey select portions of passed and signed legislation should be repealed as well)
• Immediately repeal the Global Gag Rule.
• Immediately direct HHS to rescind the new “conscience” regulations.
• Command the Defense Department to accord all detainees at Guantanamo the same rights as Prisoners of War. No special “status.” No more word games. Honor the Geneva Convention.
• Immediately move for the closure of Guantanamo and the adjudication of all cases involving detainees in a court of law. No secret tribunals, no secret testimony, no torture.
• Immediately begin the process of ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
• Direct the Justice Department to cease and desist from all warrantless wiretaps, and to open the records of all subjects of such wiretaps to the appropriate investigative committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.
• Immediately task Congress with coming up with a workable plan for Universal Health Care and have it to his desk within six months. H.R. 676 is written and ready to go. And then, go out and Sell It to the American people.
• Get that Democratic Majority to repeal the odious Defense of Marriage Act (my marriage is not in need of defense from others’ marriages, thank you).
• Demand that Congress put some sort of HOLC in place for people facing foreclosure on their primary residence.
• Disband the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. [I know, I know…he wants to expand it!]

I realize that much of what I’ve enumerated above, Obama has already nixed, but if, as his supporters insisted, he was just “faking” until he got elected, well, his time to shine has come.

I’ve read posts from many of you in the “progressive” blogosphere that once Obama is elected “we” must be sure to Hold His Feet To The Fire. I assume you are speaking to your collective “we” because I’ve already done that. I intend to keep on doing so. You, on the other hand, did not. Some of you, in full-throated approval, cheered his every move and justified his every stance and flip/flop. Some of you, in spite of your misgivings, cast your vote for him anyway and in doing so let him slide on so many issues, just to get a “D” into the White House. I cannot see how you are going to have any leverage. Why should Obama listen to you once he’s ensconced in the Oval Office? He got what he wanted from you. He won’t have to talk to you for another four years, when the contract is up for renewal.

[...]

I have not seen anything in Obama’s record that would lead me to believe that he will be the transformational and transcendent leader that so many proclaim him to be. Heck, he doesn’t need to be transcendent for me to be happy. He just needs to be a real Democrat.

I really have to wonder, if Democrats had done the things they should have, would this election even be close?

I am sick at heart today.

Me too

Except, I cried. A lot. Getting your heart stomped on by the people you thought were on your side will have that effect.

What Cinie said

All of it, but most especially THIS:

Buy a clue, people.  The man sold out his own pastor for political expediency, for crying out loud!   As just about any PUMA hearted voter could have told you from Day One, the man has no motivating principles and beliefs other than self aggrandizement.  He is the equivalent of a picture of a hologram, a shape shifter, a charlatan, a fraud, and now, Spokesmodel-In-Chief.  He equivocates, pontificates and backtracks on things he said just minutes ago, because he doesn’t have a clue about what he’s supposed to say until he’s briefed immediately before the latest taped TelePrompTer reading.

Contrary to popular belief, many self-identified current and former PUMAs came to support Clinton not only out of a fervent belief that  she was the far better Democratic candidate, but by an equally unassailable conviction that Barack Obama was such an incredibly awful, unvetted one.  For those voters, me included, it was never a “six of one, half dozen of the other” proposition.  And, the fact that he prevailed without doing one single thing to prove himself better that her, or anybody else, or even independently worthy, for that matter, only adds insult to injury.

And if this makes me “bitter,” well then, so be it.

Detainees, Liberals, and the Powers That Be

Jonathan Turley on the  Obama administration’s newest claim that the President has the right to imprison detainees even after they have been acquitted  in a court of law. Turley calls out the Democrats.

Liberals continue to be largely silent in the face of policies that they once denounced and protested. It is rare to hear any coverage or questions of the Administration’s refusal to investigate war crimes of torture, for example. Liberals seem to be quickly developing a cult of personality that has supplanted the most basic principles of human rights and international law. As with the Republicans under Bush, the Democrats are refusing to push the Administration to investigate torture or comply with international law. Before the inauguration, various generals and senators claimed that Obama and Holder assured them privately that no one would be investigated for torture. It now appears that these stories were likely true. Democrats must choose between their principles and their politicians — and they appear to be making the same choice as their Republican counterparts.

My response on the flip side.

Not going anywhere

What madamab said, especially:

…I also hope to continue to promote accountability for the Democratic and Republican Parties going forward. Given my new less-partisan standpoint, I am in a better position to do so personally.

[...]

We have a lot of work to do, and I want you to know, I’m still here, I’m not a Republican operative, and I’m not going anywhere.