Pushing Back

Recently, there's been an ongoing meta-war over the appropriate role of the "left" at dKos, a site I visit every day, and one of the early online communities I became part of.

My participation at dKos originally grew out of my interest and then involvement in the Howard Dean campaign, which came to prominence when Dean made his stemwinding "What I want to know!" speech at the California Democratic Convention in Sacramento in March of 2003. Markos became one of the Dean campaign's chief online supporters, and quite a few of the early front-page writers were Dean campaign consultants, operatives or other major supporters.

The whole point of the Dean campaign, after all, was that it was a grass-and-net roots insurgency against the accommodationist,  "Republican-lite" and essentially worthless Democratic Party, ossified into irrelevance and scared to death of being called names and having its lunch money taken away by the Big Bad Bushevik Bullies. The fact that Dean and the Dean campaign and its supporters took on the petrified Democratic establishment, and that Daily Kos was a primary online hangout for Deaniacs, some of whom were strategizing political activism well beyond the campaign, was exciting and energizing.

The Dean campaign failed in the primaries. It failed badly. Outside of Vermont, he barely broke double digits, which was a truly shocking, almost incomprehensible result for those of us who were so committed and had worked so hard and were so convinced (albeit by our own mythos) that Dean would win the primaries, the nomination, and the election.

What had gone wrong? We still really don't know. There was no public post mortem, though many of us did our own assessments. Inappropriate Blogger Triumphalism was clearly a part of the problem. There were many other aspects to the failure of the Dean campaign, but one that continues to haunt, perhaps, is the arrogance of an online community that was actually very small and which had failed to connect with the public at large, indeed, it hadn't even tried.

After the nomination the Dean campaign shifted gears almost immediately into general election support-for-Kerry mode, and then, once Kerry lost in the general election, the Dean campaign shifted to getting him elected chair of the DNC. That one, he/we won, though at considerable cost and against a great deal of Old Guard resistance. That resistance never ceased, and Dean was constantly fighting off the Old Guard's carping and subversion of what he was trying to do: run Dems everywhere and get Dems elected everywhere. The Old Guard didn't want things done this way, and they still don't.

Nevertheless, during the four years that Dean chaired the Democratic National Committee and instituted a model 50 State Strategy for electing Dems, there was an astonishing rebound of Dem fortunes, including the 2006 election which returned control of the House and Senate to Democrats, and resulted in the election of dozens of Democratic state governors and legislatures as well as hundreds of Democrats to local office. The 2008 election was a spectacular success for Democrats, too. Dems not only won the White House, but both houses of Congress increased their Dem majorities to the point where they were almost veto and filibuster-proof. The number of statehouses in Dem control increased as well.

Immediately after Obama's election, Dean was dismissed from the DNC chair, and the 50 State Strategy was dismantled. The Old Guard returned, unchastened, to its accustomed role. The 2010 election results were disastrous for Dems, especially at the state level, where all the gains of the past four and six years were lost and then some, resulting in some of the most egregious gerrymandering of congressional districts in history, gerrymandering that will ensure Republican control of the House of Representatives at least until 2020. 2012 saw the re-election of the president, but he had no coat-tails, and the dire situation for Dems in the majority of statehouses and in congress continued unabated.

From an observer's standpoint, the Dems had blown it, bad. It was partly due to awful policy decisions by the administration, and partly due to the elimination of a Party infrastructure that could elect Dems to office at the local and state level. The infrastructure for Party success at the polls was what Dean had put in place and what the Old Guard DNC under the leadership of Obama had dismantled.  No wonder the Party failed time after time. Instead of seeing a holistic picture of being a dominant party built from the ground up, the Old Guard insisted on a top down model operating on a limited candidate-by-candidate basis.

It works for some campaigns some of the time, but it doesn't work for the Party or the people as a whole, and it's not intended to. It's intended solely to advance the interests of selected politicians -- and some selected political consultants.

This is all obvious as sin. It's a model that's been criticized extensively online and elsewhere.  Daily Kos shifted gears and became primarily a fundraising and promotion outlet for selected Democratic candidates and policies -- when it had any political function at all. Alternatively, it became an "all Republicans, all the time" one stop and headquarters for taunts and ridicule of same. Mockery of Sarah Palin became an dKos specialty product, but to what object was never entirely clear. In addition, DKos has fluffed tirelessly for the widely unpopular ACA.

There has been a shit-ton of criticism of the Obama administration from the "left." I use scare quotes when referring to the "left" in American politics because there really hasn't been a genuine left in the American political system for decades if not generations. It withered away during the Reagan and post-Reagan years.

Howard Dean, for example, was running on the farthest "left" edge of the Democratic Party -- which was a factor in his loss -- but his policies were basically those of a Rockefeller Republican. This was not any recognizable form of leftism at all; it was a form of pragmatic Republican progressivism that, perish the thought, is driven by a sense of noblesse oblige. That was the farthest "left" the politics of the time could accommodate. And it didn't accommodate it very well, as we found out when the primary results came in.

The Dean campaign pushed the envelope, but not very far. The failure of the Dean campaign demonstrated how far, far right American politics had drifted since the Reagan era.

Lacking any particular political function, but still acting as if it had one, dKos attracted a considerable number of critics of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration, some of whom may have been operatives from the R camp, but most of whom seemed to be genuine and sincere critics from the "left" -- that is to say, genuinely disappointed and in many cases outraged Democrats and independents who honestly felt betrayed by the White House and the Democratic Party and that the policies being instituted and implemented by the Obama administration were too often -- and too obviously -- either newly minted rightist policies or were continuations of Bush-era policies with or without a "kinder-gentler" face.

These critics seemed to grow in number and popularity, and they got a lot of push-back from administration apologists who by and large were angry and upset with any criticism of Obama or his policies. To my eye, the situation was one of dynamic tension. It wasn't always cordial by any means, but at least it showed some signs of strength and weakness on both sides.

Some of the critical posters became more and more provocative. One, for example, consistently challenged the corporatist nature of the President and the Party. Another posted about the "true nature" of a volunteer military -- declaring the soldiers "murderers" by the very fact that they volunteered to go kill people who were in the way of or resisted the march of corporate imperial interests. That one was written by a vet, and he was quite stark in his description of what the modern volunteer military is all about. He raised a good deal of anger and ire among other vets who deeply resented being called "murderers."

These kinds of posts, mostly criticizing and challenging the corporatism and imperialism that had become so ingrained in the Democratic Party and the White House, were fairly frequent and they often raised important issues. There was no way to resolve them, of course, but discussion was valuable.

At one point, Markos intervened with a condemnation of one of the more frequent and popular critics for being "paranoid." This intervention set off a mini-firestorm because it seemed to many that it was inappropriate, wrong-headed and even dishonest. The poster who was criticized by Markos attempted to revise his approach to more adequately meet Markos's objections, but because Markos didn't really say what he was objecting to, he only hinted, it was a nearly impossible task.

The vet who wrote the military "murderer" post was challenged and chastised in his own post, and he seemed to take it well, understanding the objections and alternative points of view. He respected other points of view but strenuously disagreed and said why.

As far as I know, Markos said nothing about it.

And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the shitstorm hit.



The war began with an intemperate, barely coherent, antagonistic, hurtful and deeply divisive self-described rant by one of the site's front-pagers. She questioned why anyone who "hates the troops" or despises this or that corporatist and corrupt aspect of the Democratic Party and its candidates and policy choices would continue to be at dKos. It was a frank invitation those people to leave. And not come back until they got their minds right.

After triggering this war, she flounced off to her professorship at SUNY New Paltz, ("busy busy busy") and has not to this day responded directly to her critics and questioners. But she has continued to denounce and disparage them from the comfort of her community of friends and colleagues online who rallied to her defense and acted as surrogates to "blaxsplain" what she meant. They haven't helped.They caused even more turmoil and upset.

Then Markos himself got involved by declaring his "100%" agreement and support of her rant, and that triggered yet another round of meta shitstorms.

These wars are nothing new there; they happen with some frequency, and they are often the prelude to a Purge of dissenters and non-conformists. It's all on behalf, they say, of Democratic Party Unity as election season approaches once again. Of course, what it's done is create an echo chamber in which only the party line is permitted, and those with contrary views or questions are not allowed.

Markos issued a passive-aggressive challenge to those who didn't toe the line, to either get on board or get lost, and the push-back was greater than I think I have ever seen there. He was hammered long and hard by highly articulate and increasingly irate participants who saw him as someone who was working against the best interests of the People, the Party, and ironically, the best interests of his own site. He was asked directly if what he wanted was an "echo-chamber" -- and if so, why. He didn't answer. He was challenged to "get out more" and actually see what's going on outside his "inside the gates" bubble. He was routinely accused of being a "gatekeeper" and "gate polisher" who was really only in this game for the money (with quotes from himself to demonstrate the fact) and who had no interest in anything beyond his selfish desires. It got harsh, very harsh. People, many of them long-time participants, were hurt and angry and his behavior was compounding the problem. He was challenged to describe how what he was doing was in any way supportive of building a broad-based and successful Party coalition. He had no answer.

I didn't stick around for the entire episode. It was clear where it was headed. People were sick and tired of the bullshit Markos and a number of other front pagers were selling, and they were not going take it any more. Markos just wanted to be told how much he was beloved, and he wasn't getting much of it.

Interestingly, though, there was a marked change in the front page within a day. It went from being almost nothing but ACA fluff and ridiculing Republican antics to serious posts on Democratic candidates and policies, including an almost unprecedented front page post on the Progressive Caucus's alternative budget. All of a sudden the front page became substantive instead of stupid.

The attacks on the "left" ceased, or at least were put on "pause," and more and more posts were put up encouraging dialog, accommodation, and community.

All this was clearly a response to the intensity of the push-back against the hostility and harm instigated the meta-war. Even HoHo himself (well, whoever posts for him) put in a brief appearance -- to say Look How Much We've Accomplished! Yay Us!

Whether the Powers That Be over there actually recognize how badly off the rails the site had gone in its effort to cleanse itself of the "leftist" taint, or whether they're using a strategy to mollify critics while changing nothing substantively remains to be seen -- though having been through this a few times, I pretty much know the answer.

There is likely to be a purge of malcontents and others who are in the way. Markos passive-aggressively threatened as much. He said there had been three purges already, and if he alone determined it was needed, there would be a fourth. So far, he didn't see the need, but that could change. Rapidly.

At least for the moment -- or the day, yesterday -- there was a pause, and for a little while, the critics got part of their way. Whether it will last is hard to say. I'd be surprised if it does.

In the meantime, the fact that there was so much insistent and forceful push-back to the crap that had been unleashed from On High over there was notable.

Struggles between Old Guards and Insurgents go on all the time, of course. It's a fundamental part of American politics given our anachronistic two party system that sustains itself through the constant interplay between insurgency and stability.

In a sense it's a perpetual virtual war between factions. It means that bloody civil war is relatively rare, but it also means that neither of the two dominant political parties actually represents the people and their interests at all.

The insurgency at dKos is characterized as "from the left" -- which some of it is -- but it is essentially an effort to curb or oust the Old Guard, meaning Markos himself and those he is aligning himself with, and substitute something more... relevant and contemporary, regardless of flavor.

Given the nature of online propertarianism, that is unlikely to succeed, but the effort will no doubt be instructive.

Stay tuned.
----------------------------------------
NOTE: the "pause" lasted literally a few hours, and then it was right back to non-stop ACA fluffing and Sarah Palin ridicule.

Why am I not surprised?

Ian Welsh and Others Ruminate On the Past, Cogitate On the Future and (Hopefully) Push For Something Better

Ian Welsh has been doing a bang-up job over at his place lately putting forth some fairly extensive notions about where we are, what went wrong with the "Progressive Blog Movement" (aka Netroots), and what we need to think about doing and where we need to think about being in the future.

Ian tends toward glumness, partly I'm sure because he lives in one of those winter-cold and winter-dark countries known as Canada, but there are other reasons and factors as well, including his own sometimes bitter experience with the human species on and off the intertubes. He's never been as dour and hopeless as Arthur Silber, but he's been pretty negative all in all just the same.

The parts of the recent series I've been most closely following are those that deal with the Failure of the Netroots Movement. Ian seems to focus on 2008 and the election of Obama, which occurred  without the Netroots by sidestepping it, ignoring it, paralleling it with an Obama roots political machine. That's as may be, but I pointed out that the problem goes back to the Dean campaign and what came after it, starting in 2002 and 2003; in other words, the problem was there at the beginning of the Netroots "movement."

The problem was, it wasn't a "movement" in more than the abstract sense, or at best, it was a "movement" of the very, very few "players" -- quite distinct and separate from a ground-level movement -- on behalf of a muddle of interests and candidates. Which, to the extent it still exists, it still is.

The Actual Surveillance State

I've been saying ever since the NSA Domestic Surveillance story broke that there is a whole vast apparatus of domestic surveillance that is much, much closer to the ground than the almost Star Trek fantasies of the NSA.

The NSA is part of the National Surveillance State, of course, but I have maintained that its surveillance of Americans is relatively less significant than the surveillance that goes on all the time by commercial interests and local, state and federal police forces. For whatever reason -- and I have my theories -- those more fundamental aspects of domestic surveillance were routinely dismissed or ignored while quite a few of those on the internet were literally ordering people to only pay attention to the story of the NSA, nothing, NOTHING else mattered.

Comes now the story of the ACLU's ongoing investigations into the breadth and depth of domestic surveillance as described in Suspicious Activity Reports filed with local, state and federal police forces by suspicious citizens and others and processed by authorities at 77 fusion centers throughout the country.

This is part of the domestic surveillance apparatus I have been railing about for months, but because there were few or no sensational media stories about it, people had a hard time focusing on it. It was much easier to focus on the NSA -- because it was a sensational story, even though it is a story that serves to mask just how deep and pervasive domestic surveillance is and long has been.

And this is still only a part of the surveillance apparatus in place and affecting all of us all the time. There's much, much more to it.

I maintain that the NSA should not be the focus of concern about domestic surveillance largely because its contribution to the domestic surveillance apparat is relatively minor compared to the daily surveillance by government and private agencies we're all under all the time, and due to which some communities and individuals face terrible and too frequently arbitrary consequences.

This is the reality of domestic surveillance that the obsessive focus on the NSA story has all but completely obscured.

Repost: "Incrementalism"

Excerpts from a post entitled "Incrementalism" originally posted

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

....
All through the Bush years, Incrementalism was touted on the so-called Progressive Internets as the Only Appropriate Response to Bushevik Radicalism. The very fact that the Busheviks were Radical and (counter)Revolutionary, especially in their foreign policies and their overthrow of the remnants of Constitutional law and so forth, was frequently denied or obscured by prominent Lefty bloggers ... so as not to stir up the masses too much about what was going on. Or one supposes the rationale behind the Incrementalist fervor during the Bush years was simple self-protection.

After all, the Stasi was watching, and at any time, so the thinking went, the round ups could begin, starting with anyone and everyone spouting off against the Regime and calling for Revolution Now! There was one incident over at [Greenwald's] that highlighted what THAT was about when [a frequent commenter] freaked over something I said: "Who should be first against the wall when the Revolution comes?"

O. M. G. You'd think the "Marxist Cell" that is the Greenwaldian patch of the Internets had been discovered. I'd used the quote before (it's from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, c. 1972, and it has a long history in geeky comic lit. The quote from Hitchhiker's Guide runs as follows:

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes," with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent.

Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."

And this has been making the rounds for decades. Yet both times I used the quote/idea in postings on the internets the proprietors and/or their agents ... have gone ape shit in fear that someone would break down their door at midnight and drag them and their family away to the Konzentrationslager forthwith.

For advocating "Revolution."

Honestly. The mind boggles.

Note on Format Adjustment and Blogger Comment Trauma

Thanks to a suggestion from WendyDavis in comments, I've adjusted the posting format to include more posts per page (ie: now 30) and to reformat (newish) posts to feature an intro and option to "read more". I'm not going to go through all 1500 or so posts and do the reformatting trick, but we'll see how it goes from this point.

As for the trauma inherent in the Blogger comment feature, I'm somewhat stymied. There are any number of options for posting directly, without going through the aggravation of the Blogger captcha. Of course, that means you're being tracked by the tracking bots and anything you say will be filed away in the Utah Warehouse by the NSA and doG knows what other security/surveillance operations. But that's true of any public comment feature, even if you use the "anonymous" captcha.

So I don't know the answer. If anyone has a functional suggestion/solution, I'm all ears.

C

I also put all the tags I've used in the righthand column for easy reference... or not as the case may be!

The Freakout Continues...

This might be interesting. I don't know how to read these beads, though, so it might turn into a big, fat nothing burger, too. We'll see.

On Wednesday, the White House will present its budget, one widely presumed to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits "going forward" and to do who knows what all damage to remaining social programs -- which have already been severely impacted by state and local budget cuts since the advent of the Permanent Recession, and have not in any way kept pace with the social needs of the American People as they are forced further and further into poverty and destitution.

Many people have pointed out that even Granny Starver Paul Ryan's budget doesn't (directly) harm the old, the halt, the blind and the lame. Obama's does. Or at least it's reported to in advance of its anxiously awaited release.

"Nixon goes to China" and all that.

There's not a lot that We the People can do about these machinations of the High and the Mighty. We can do almost nothing about them through elections. The political/electoral process in this country -- a process which was never amenable to the public interest or the public good -- has reached what looks like a terminal phase. It has become fundamentally useless as a means for accomplishing public interest ends. Only special interests can be accommodated. There are plenty of signs there is no chance for recovery from this condition. Both the major political parties are beholden to the richest players at the table, both do their bidding; neither is more than marginally conscious of the People and the public interest.

When the People become restless, the state cracks down with ever greater cruelty and violence. We live in what is effectively a police state set up and operated on behalf of a relative handful of vastly wealthy individuals and institutions.

The so-called "progressive" position under the current circumstances is to preserve what can be preserved of what remains of the New Deal social programs and to advance "cultural values" issues, such as same-sex marriage and so on.

In other words, preserve the status quo on vital issues -- to the extent that's possible -- and make incremental advances on the cultural margins, apparently so that generations to come will be culturally capable of and conditioned to doing the right thing on those vital matters.

In my view, there's nothing truly progressive about these positions at all. There's nothing progressive because there is nothing new in holding on to the tattered remnants of a more and more irrelevant social program status quo, nor is there anything new in extending rights to smaller and smaller segments of previously marginalized population segments. They may be desirable on their own account, but they are not "progress." One is quite self-consciously standing still.

So we now have a media frenzy and internet freakout over the White House's proposed "reforms" -- ie: cuts -- to Social Security and Medicare and doG-knows what other abominations the new federal budget contains.

But is it a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing?

Wouldn't surprise me.

Documenting the Atrocities

The atrocities seem to be coming thick and fast these days, and as everyone knows, their endless documentation is the primary purpose of Blogtopia (h/t Skippy).

After delivering his smooth and soothing and ever so "progressive" Inaugural Speech, His Serenity Barack Obama commenced his second term of office determined to have his way no matter what, demanding that the Rs concede the points he's long been making that the rich in America have to pay their fair share, and then the rest of Americans have to sacrifice by enduring permanent cuts in benefits called "Entitlement Reform."

He's never wavered from this position from the moment he was installed in the White House. One of the things about Obama is that he is a remarkable politician who gets his way in the face of some of the most hot-headed criticism any president has endured since before the Civil War.

He gets his way. He got an increase in upper income tax rates, but notice what it was linked to: an end to the payroll tax holiday which meant a 2% increase in the payroll tax rate, and 2% less in working people's take home pay. The tax burden on the rich has increased a bit, but I'm told it's not even close to 2%. Beauty.

He gets his way. This fact about reduced worker take home pay is ritualistically ignored by practically the whole universe of commentators, and many in fact defend it as proper. Yes, well. Of course.

It was only a temporary tax holiday, not meant to be permanent, and besides, what do working people need with all that spendable cash anyway? They should be saving for a rainy day, and the expiration of the payroll tax holiday will force savings by putting the money into Social Security. So it's all good.

Then there is the whole issue of "targeted assassination" of American citizens -- via drone or SEAL or whatever -- not to mention the continuing debate over whether "we" should torture.

The White Paper is supposed to explain the legal rationale for "targeted assassination" -- aka: summary execution, murder, etc. Torture of course is not done. Any more than the Church tortured heretics. It simply didn't happen. So stop saying that.

Killing and torture and extracting wealth from the masses is how Empires are established, sustained and run. It's simple. The People can do nothing about it once those in power become convinced that their security can only be ensured by means of Empire. First, the People have no say in the matter, but even if they did have a say, they'd probably go along with whatever evil that Power proposes in the hopes that they would one day benefit.

That's how it goes.

It's fascinating to see people state and debate these issues on the internet and confidently assert that voting choices will somehow bring matters under the control of the People. Third parties are very popular -- if somewhat abstract -- remedies to the cruelties and depredations of the Duopoly that rules us, even though in the last election third parties didn't even break into double digits.

Elections and voting, I've said many times, is not the answer, for in our system you never actually have a choice when it comes to policy (not at the federal level), for policy is never put to a vote of the People.

You vote for personalities.

Slogans.

Not policies.

Third parties are meaningless in a winner take all electoral system. Two parties that shade into one another are the only feasible "choices." Change the system and maybe third (fourth, fifth, sixth) parties will have a chance, but because they might have a chance, the system will not change from the inside.

Pressure from the outside can sometimes afflict the dominant parties sufficiently that they might mitigate some of their worst policies, but the pressure must be sustained over long periods -- generations or centuries sometimes -- and it must be relentlessly single-minded.

Documenting the atrocities isn't going to do it.

But I guess it's worthwhile in its own right.

Isn't it?

The Rise and Fall of The Coin

It's been kind of fun to follow the internet Coin Frenzy. "Mint the Coin!" screams Paul Krugman and a surprising number of others, none of whom have seats at the table, go right along. They might not have seats at the table, but they do have a presence on the InterTubes, and that's pretty much all that's necessary for Blogger Triumphalism to take hold. Let the Par-tay commence! Yay!

The Coin! Mint The Coin! Now! Bugger all, Mint The Coin!

This Coin Business has been a fiery frenzy to be sure, one that was doused over the weekend by the unequivocal pronouncement from the very White House that there would be no Coin, periodendofdiscussion, find something else to rave about you Hippies. Punch.

The dousing was announced by none other than Young Ezra, preparing the way as it were, for the final elimination of the Coin Option for dealing with the Debt Limit, and at least in theory for dealing with the debt itself, forever and ever amen.

I'm no expert in these matters (please), but it seemed that the MMT People, the Cult if you will (all of economics seems to be filled with cultists, hucksters, grifters and con artists, much like the rest of the workaday world), got this big idea that because there was this recurring problem regarding The National Debt and the Debt Limit Crisis, the workaround was to mint a $1T or even a $60T platinum Coin that would take care of it once and for all. Hah hah. The theory being that because the United States is monetarily sovereign, the government can issue money in any amount and pay its bills with that money in any amount, without incurring debt; it's almost Magic. The Debt and recurring Debt Crises are all illusions.

Yes, well...

The Coin was to be the specific workaround for the problem of the Debt Limit: simply mint a platinum coin in a high enough denomination and deposit it at the Fed, and the Debt Limit is wiped out, the Debt along with it if so desired. In addition, the hostage taking by the radical reactionaries in Congress is thereby thwarted. Won-der-ful! An end to these manufactured Debt crises is a situation devoutly to be wished, né? If The Coin would do it, then why not do it? Yes?

Well, the answer was no.

A very, very firm NO! Way!

Sigh. Oh, too bad, so sad, no Coin, not even an alternative workaround. Nope. Na gah happen.

No workaround of any kind, not even the Constitutional option of the 14th Amendment.

What is this telling us? What is the Message Being Sent by these pronouncements from On High?

I watched a bit of one of the Sunday Shows yesterday during which The Coin and its demise were smirkingly discussed, and it looked like a bit of pure Hippie Punching done for the hell of it. According to the pundits, there was never any chance that The Coin would be minted or that there would be any workaround to the Debt Limit, and all the hype and hollering over it was nothing but Internet nonsense, don't you see. It's the same thing as the Free Silver hooey of the late 19th Century, an idée fixe sold as a "solution" to a problem that is so very much more complex. There is no single "solution."

The Coin was just silly.

Well, yes. The Message Being Sent is that the United States is bound by its obligations to the Global Financial Community -- to that diminishing handful of the masters of international finance. This has always been so and it will remain so forever.  Sometimes the United States is a player, sometimes the United States is played, but always, the Untied States is tied, bound in fact, to the needs and desires of the financiers and there can never be any escape. Ever.

The People can rally and rage all they want about it, it makes no difference. The People cannot escape any more than the US government can; the best the People can do (and this includes  people on the Internet) is to raise issues and discuss them among themselves. Argue away! The High and the Mighty have other priorities.

The Coin was just like Free Silver, or Single Payer, or any of the other populist fantasies, something that is not going to happen, but something to keep those parts of the public who glommed on to them fixated, amused and/or entertained.

Something, in other words, was better than nothing.

I'm all for entertainment, but the Triumphalists were braying mostly about the success of the marketing campaign that got Coin Placement in ever so many outlets. Straight out of Bernays. Of course there was apparently no object besides "placement." Maybe in 50 or 100 years there might be a glimmer of acceptance of The Coin Option at the top of the heap, but for now, it's enough to get the idea out there.

Well, when everything is reduced to marketing and triumphalism requires nothing more than "placement" -- ie: people hearing about it (whatever it is) -- then we're not really getting anywhere. 50 or 100 years in the future maybe there will be some sort of denoument, but there would be one anyway, for the course of events, with or without the earlier marketing campaign for this or that product, would quite naturally lead to... something.

Ultimately The Coin was never a serious option. It was never meant to be. It was a marketing ploy. In a certain sense, it was a con meant to get the meme "out there"  and meant to get the attention of the Highest and the Mightiest, and it's "success" was measured by the vehemence of the White House beat down of it.

Wheels within wheels is putting it mildly.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to go through an extended series of these meme marketing efforts before something actually takes hold.

Republicans

Isn't it about time that the so-called "left" -- especially the "left blogosphere" -- stop talking about and fretting over what the Rs need to do to be competitive in future elections?

It's become obsessive.

On Metaphors

Jeebus Christmas dancing on a tasty Ritz Cracker, the Intertubes (or at least parts thereof) do not understand the concept of "metaphors."

Posted above is a brilliant video by Boots Riley and The Coup called "The Guillotine." The entire video is metaphorical, of course, given its invocations of "The Wiz" and "Les Mis" and who knows what all. Boots and The Coup are Oakland, CA, artistes, and you don't mess with them. You just don't.

So hotflashcarol posted the video over at FDL the other day along with a link to an article on it at Wired. This caused something of a stir because one of the mavens of the site became enraged at the "suggestion of violence" in the video and commenced to denounce and renounce the video, everyone involved with it and hfc and all their works and descendants unto the seventh generation. Or something.

I've run into this situation a surprising number of times in my perambulations around the InterTubes and Teh Webs since dirt was new. The use of metaphor simply escapes the consciousness of certain individuals who assert some kind of "authority" within the Web-O-Sphere, and typically something like All Hell breaks loose as various posters try to edumacate their stupid asses.

Trouble is, it never works. There is no learning curve whatsoever. Whoever is objecting to the metaphorical statement or video or whatever typically never does anything but object, denounce and renounce and then disappears. There is no interaction, discussion, or engagement. Thus, there can be no learning, and that seems to be the point: simply declare, upon Authority, and be gone.

So it was at FDL.

The individual who objected is known there as a curmudgeon and spoil-sport in any case (there are a number of such high in FDL's hierarchy; it has always been so, sadly. When it was first manifested, it really made me wonder about Jane's judgement, let alone the judgement of those she delegates, but I have since learned it's a somewhat more complicated situation than might first appear to be the case...)

hotflashcarol removed her content from the post, stating that she didn't want to get involved with the Objector, as she was well familiar with his ways, and she wanted no truck with him at all. The post and thread however was maintained for sometime afterward -- the post with no content, the comments mostly slamming the Objector for idiocy and stupidity and celebrating the musical and visual dynamism of Boots Riley and The Coup. And, importantly, mentioning over and over again that "it is a metaphor."

You would think after a while it would sink in, but as is the way on the InterWebs, it never does. I'm convinced it's because there are some online devotees who are simply incapable of comprehending the concept of Metaphor. It doesn't -- and apparently can't -- occur to them that artists (especially) utilize metaphor all the time, it is their stock in trade, and that the Metaphor is not a literal evocation or invocation; it is a means to more fully appreciate and understand... something.

The objection was to the "suggestion" of violence in the video; the "suggestion" was that of the Guillotine, a widely recognized Metaphor in Revolutionary and Resistance circles. No one I know of is actually advocating the employment of guillotines, at least not as they were used in the French Revolution. But their image is apparently a powerful one, and certain people are -- perhaps justifiably -- terrified of them. The Guillotine gives them the willies, bad. The image of the Guillotine, and its use as a metaphor for the Power of the People makes some people believe that the Mob will start chopping off heads any minute if they are not curbed and controlled. No such thing is the case, but the fear is somehow overpowering to some people.

As many people pointed out, the Guillotine Metaphor is not a literal invocation of violence, nor is it meant to be. It is an invocation of Power, the Power of the People. "We got the Guillotine" -- they've got (ie: the Authorities have) the army and the police. They impose violence on the People each and every day, without let or hindrance, and that is the real violence of our current condition. The Guillotine Metaphor suggests their violence against the People is subject to interference.

But all this should be obvious.

Really, it should.

Unfortunately, on the InterTubes, especially in the so-called Progressive Sphere, it isn't. Never has been. I'm convinced it never will be.

Life At Versailles, or The "Debate"

Versailles

I watched most of last night's fol de rol with the candidates in Denver and listened to some of the post-game analysis on NBC. What a rollicking good time Chuck Todd was having: "Oh what a horserace we have now!" Because, it would seem, by consensus "Mitt Won!"

And Oh, the keening and garment rending over at dKos in the aftermath of the "Debate" between the two candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America, aka "The Big Chair."

At Versailles, they called it The Throne, and during the Bush Regime, that's just what I called The Big Chair, the Presidency itself. The Throne.

Our Government operates on Royalist lines, that is its way, it's nature. Internally, it's not a democracy at all. It is for all practical purposes a full on monarchy/dictatorship. Let's say a serial monarchy, to be sure, since there are periodic changes in who occupies The Throne, but the Institution carries on no matter what. And the Institution is monarchical, based rather closely on that of 18th Century Britain -- or "Fraunce" for that matter. Thus it is anachronistic as hell.

What we saw last night was an elderly, powdered, bewigged aristo, with very little class, try to sell the People (or at least that part of the People who cast ballots) on a series of bogus premises: that he's competent, that he "cares," that he's full of vim and vigor and energy, and that he has a Plan to "help" the Middle Class. None of this, of course, is true. He's old, he cares not for the Lesser People (and has repeatedly said as much), he's running on nearly empty, and his Plan has nothing to do with "helping" anyone not in his class of looters, predators, and mountebanks. That's just the way it is.

He was "styling" as we used to say in the Circus.

He was a straightforward, obvious hustler and huckster, which tells us something about our Ruling Class, I think, that might help in sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Many people believe they were deceived by Obama in 2008, claiming they didn't know he was a corporatist imperialist warmonger. I find that odd, because Obama was running somewhat to the right of Hillary Clinton, and she was obviously a corporatist imperialist warmonger, so how did it come about that Obama was seen through such a radically different prism -- when he wasn't campaigning as a Man of the People and a Populist or particularly Liberal Peacenik?

I don't know where the image came from because I never saw it. But that's me.  I sometimes see things others don't, sometimes not for years.

Last night, Obama was the Wonk to "Mitch's" (h/t Letterman) hyper-Aristo. Sanity, you might say, in the face of loopieness.

So of course "Mitch" won. It couldn't be any other way. What with "Mitch" hopping around like a string-puppet, and Obama plodding along with his "facts" and his "figures," how could it be?

"Mitch" talked airily about all the "jobs" he was going to "create" as President, but any sentient being  should know by now that he has never had any interest in creating any jobs for you. It's simply not in his portfolio. The fact is he will eliminate your job or ship it to some foreign land in a heartbeat if it will increase his bottom line and the bottom lines of those he serves. He simply has neither the time nor the inclination to fret about you. You, for the most part, don't exist in his world, the world of Versailles.

You might from time to time "exist" in the abstract in Obama's World at Versailles, but only to the extent that you and yours can be motivated or manipulated to go along with something that's already been decided as Policy by the Governing Class. Romney doesn't acknowledge that you exist at all, and his rhetoric about "jobs" is nothing but a sales pitch; Obama only acknowledges you to the extent you are... useful.

Thus, rationally, because you and I exist (if only as tools and abstractions) in Obama's World of Versailles, Obama is the better candidate. But because "Mitch Won!" last night, it's a horserace once again. Obama will not be allowed by the media to run away with the election (which he looked fair to do until last night.)

Many of the points "Mitch" made in his pitch were valid complaints the People have -- about high-end Government beneficence  and low-end despair, which he called "Trickle Down Government" which was interesting -- but he clearly doesn't intend to do anything positive about those complaints, any more than Obama and the Democrats will.

Interesting, too, was the fact that Obama proposed nothing for the short term improvement of the condition of the Masses, any more than he did from the outset of his tenure on The Big Chair. For what it's worth, the Masses are expected and required to pay for the Government beneficence to the High and the Mighty and not get uppity and not complain too much about it, either; rule from Versailles will be imposed, and the People will comply. Period.

"Mitch" on the other hand will promise all sorts of things to the Masses and not deliver anything that would change that fact. He lies. He's a huckster.

Obama is too, but he is in a different category; he's -- dare I say it -- "The Help." Romney and his allies see themselves as the Prime Movers, the Landlords, the rest of us, including Obama himself, being tenants or vermin.

Many of those keening and rending their garments last night were obvious plants, Romney supporters bent on sowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt among the Obama partisans. It was obvious. It was also surprising to see how easily FUD is sown through ostensibly liberal online communities. It's a cinch. Of course, I've seen it happen many times, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I still am.

Romney brings up all the things that Obama isn't doing for the People, or isn't doing well. He promises to do something exciting and positive to fix things, but he won't. He's a liar. On the other hand, Obama essentially promises nothing but more of the same, which isn't very good, but at least it's believable.

We have an electoral choice of Versailles or Versailles.  And it really can't be any other way given our anachronistic and balky system.

The only way to change it -- if the People really want to change it -- is through rebellion.

The Naomi Wolf - DHS Thing

< snort>

Aren't blogospheric pissing contests fun?

Jeebus Christmas dancing on a savory Triscuit Wafer.

How I Saw the Future at the End of Last Year

I'm re-posting my Year-End Doom Blogging piece from December 31, 2010, as a kind of counterpoint to what's going on now.

To say the least, my vision was clouded at the time. I was very ill with pneumonia -- much sicker than I thought -- and it was before the Arab Spring uprisings were recognized for what they were (the Tunisian revolt had recently begun, but there wouldn't be a resolution until mid January.) There had been protests against banksters and austerity in Europe through much of 2010, but protest action in the United States was still primarily confined to the Tea Partiers; the tools of the plutocracy in other words.

They'd used their electoral clout -- financed by the billion-and-trillionaires -- to capture a huge majority in the House of Representatives and a paralyzing minority in the Senate. I saw the results of the 2010 election as essentially disabling and paralyzing the function of government, at least insofar as it was used to the benefit of the People or on behalf of the Public Interest.

January would see the seating of the new Congress. This is how I saw it:

As I've said before, we're likely to see the complete paralysis of regular government function and the substitution of something else again, which most people will welcome as better than what was going on before. In the Koch series, I suggest that we are already living in their future, with the semblance of institutions still functioning, but they don't actually work, and real rule occurring well behind the scenes involving a shrinking cadre of Owners and Stakeholders. But next year, I suspect, what's still somewhat hidden will come out of the shadows, and we will see clearly, perhaps for the first time, that Our Rulers simply have no interest in We the People, and do not intend to gain an interest.

What Americans ever do about it is anyone's guess. The only crypto-Revolutionary movement this country has seen in decades are the TeaBaggers, and they are going to be in power. So... if things get worse on their watch? They'll double down, of course. It's what they do.

As it has turned out, Americans did not sit on their hands... ;-)





-----------------------------------------------------
Repost:

YEAR-END DOOM BLOGGING (December 31, 2010)

Let the Hanky Wringing and "Oh, dear, noes!" continue. Things are going to get worse for the vast majority of Americans in 2011, there's no two ways about it. The question, as always, is what -- if anything -- Americans will do about it but take to their fainting couch and have another Take and Bake while watching the Game on their Big Screen.

As a rule, I'm not into Doom Blogging, one of the most popular genres in the field. The Aga Saga Woman can make me laugh uproariously when she goes off on one of her panics:

"Run for your lives, Children! We're all going to diiiiiiiiie!!!



And we see Doom Blogging everywhere; it was especially prevalent during the BP Gulf Oil Blowout, when it was just accepted as common knowledge that the Gulf was "dead" and could not be restored; there was no point in even considering an alternative.

Now that the Batshit Republicans are about to be restored to power in the House of Representatives, it is widely understood that we're doomed as a nation, as a people, as a self-governing society. That's as may be, but if it is true, the proximate cause of our doom is not the Restoration of the Batshit Party to to power in the House of Representatives. It's been in the cards for quite a while, in other words, and all the political factions have had a role to play.

Yet there is a sense of palpable dread that has been a-building relentlessly since the Impeachment Circus of 1998 and following. That's when the notion of Self-Government in the United States went off the rails, and it has never been restored. Without that mooring of promise and responsibility, the notion that at least some of us are doomed has a growing resonance.

The Impeachment Circus was followed by the casual, lawless intervention of the Supreme Court to install the Court majority's favorite on the White House Throne. This was recognized at the time as a serious breach of Constitutional authority by the Court, and yet, all the Powers That Be acceded to it. Those who were paying attention knew that the lawless installation of George Bush the Lesser and the submission of the entire Ruling Class to this usurpation would not work out well, and most were sure that it would lead to unprecedented levels of corruption, looting, and aggressive war. Sure enough. That's exactly what happened. But it happened on a scale and speed that surprised even the most gloomy doom-sayer at the time.

Now it almost seems as if Doom has been delayed. Repeatedly. And when Doom is delayed so often, one's expectations of Immanent Doom grow greater and greater.

The transition of Congressional power next year will have an influence on everyone's sense of well-being, and because the White House is not about to move off its Hooverite "Progressivism", most people's sense of well-being will go into a further tailspin. On the other hand, it wouldn't have been any better for most people if Democrats had stayed in charge of the House.

The question will be just how bad it will get.

As I've said before, we're likely to see the complete paralysis of regular government function and the substitution of something else again, which most people will welcome as better than what was going on before. In the Koch series, I suggest that we are already living in their future, with the semblance of institutions still functioning, but they don't actually work, and real rule occurring well behind the scenes involving a shrinking cadre of Owners and Stakeholders. But next year, I suspect, what's still somewhat hidden will come out of the shadows, and we will see clearly, perhaps for the first time, that Our Rulers simply have no interest in We the People, and do not intend to gain an interest.

What Americans ever do about it is anyone's guess. The only crypto-Revolutionary movement this country has seen in decades are the TeaBaggers, and they are going to be in power. So... if things get worse on their watch? They'll double down, of course. It's what they do.

For those who haven't seen it, I recommend (Astro)Turf Wars for an idea of who the TeaBaggers are and who runs them -- and what the intent is.

I recommend The Century of the Self to understand how Americans are so easily hoodwinked.

Onward!

Doing Some Redesign

See how this works...

Banned At Digby's!!!

Well, this one sure goes in the Blogospheric Quirks file.

Around or about August 11 but beginning earlier, it appears that dozens, ifnothundreds, of commenters at Digby's Place were banned -- without even so much as a "have an apple." To this day, many of them may not be aware of what happened, nor would they necessarily be able to find out. While complaints have been raised from time to time about "disappearing comments" at Digby's, the excuse has always been that "there's something not working right with Echo/Halsocan, oops." But when David Atkins ("thereisnospoon") was brought on as co-blogger there, all hell broke loose. Dozens, ifnothundreds, of David's non-fans from Daily Kos migrated over to Digby's and blasted away in her comments at what a damfool David was, and a tool besides. A tool worse, if that were possible, than the heavily blog-scarred head of Ezra Klein. But I digress.

First, a little history. Digby and I go back a long way in blogtopia (h/t Skippy the Bush Kangaroo), I like to think back to the days of the Clinton Impeachment (good times!) but maybe not that far. I first remember meeting up with her in comments at the Bartcop forum, around the same time as Duncan Black, aka "Atrios", started posting there. Bartcop's forum archives only go back to 2002 which is when they switched over to different forum software, so I'm not sure exactly when I started posting at Bartcop (under a different user name than the one I mostly use now), but it was probably well before the 2000 election because I remember posting pictures I took of the Rightist demonstrations to end the recount. Gun-toting Rightist demonstrators, no less. The TeaBag hostile attitudinalism if they don't get their way IMMEDIATELY goes back at least that far (and Hate Radio jocks and right wing lobbyists were in the vanguard then, just like they are now.)

So anyway, that's where I first remember encountering Digby and I always enjoyed her posts. Whether she even noticed mine, I have no idea, though we seemed to be engaging in forum conversation periodically. When she opened her own blogshop in January of 2003, it was all very exciting. Atrios had just won the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Blog Writing at his own Eschaton, and Digby herself (though at the time most assumed she was a he) had won the Koufax for Best Commentator of 2002. Yess. She would later pick up a couple of other Koufaxes for Best Blog Writing herself in 2004 and 2005.

Things got kind of tense for me at Bartcop during the 2004 election because I was working on the Howard Dean campaign (volunteer) and getting more and more heavily involved in Progressive Democratic politics in California -- and the Bartcop crew wasn't all that thrilled by my posts about it. It caused some friction, to say the least, especially with partisans for Kerry and Clark. Eventually there was a kind of purge from the ranks of Bartcoppers, most of it voluntary by people who didn't want to deal with the hostility either from other posters or the management any more. Apparently some posters were unceremoniously booted as well. I migrated away from Bartcop in 2006, to another site that had been established by exiles from the Bartcop Forum -- where I occasionally post to this day (as long as I don't lose the bookmark!)

Once she had her place up and running, Digby didn't post at other places any more. Why should she? She had quite a following of her own by then.

Meanwhile, I'd been posting at Daily Kos almost since its inception and I also posted at Salon's Table Talk; I had tried to start a couple of blogs of my own during that period, but did not have the time or energy to stick with them. I think the first was in 2000. I tried another sometime in 2002. This one is the third attempt, started in 2007 when I finally made some time for it.

But I've long been a commenter at other places as well, including Digby's where I've been both a strong supporter and a sometimes scold. I've been particularly strenuous with her about her obsession with Chris Matthews (who cares what an idiot he is?), and with what I regard as the inappropriateness of her "Village" metaphor for the Palace culture and its courtiers in DC. But that aside, I think she's a good writer, a sensitive and genuine liberal (one of the few A list bloggers who is a genuine liberal), and an insightful observer of the haps.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered last week that all the brilliant posts I'd made in comments at her place after August 11 were... gone. Vanished. As if they had never been. Whut? I was not logged in to Echo when I made this discovery, but as soon as I did log in under my Blogger ID, behold, all my brilliant posts re-appeared as if by magic. How bizarre. Obviously they hadn't been deleted, so those who had been accusing David and Digby of "censorship" must have been wrong. But how could the comments not be there when I wasn't logged in to Blogger and suddenly reappear when I did log in? Mystery. I emailed Digby about it and what my theory was at the time, giving her credit for not deleting posts (no matter what her accusers were saying) because I could see all of mine so long as I was logged in to Blogger.

But then something strange happened. If I posted without logging in, I could see that post until I did log in and then it would disappear -- and not be retrievable. No one at all was responding to any of my posts, which wasn't all that odd in general, but it did seem a little strange even direct questions to people I'd chatted with in comments at her place got no reply. Also the number of commenters radically declined, and many of the regulars were simply gone, along with essentially all of the Spoon-haters from dKos.

Hm. Very interesting.

Something was going on, but I couldn't honestly say what. I know that I posted the story of the California Democratic Party's attempt to purge its Progressive Caucus repeatedly, and asked David specifically about it, but not only did he not respond, no one did. It would seem to me it's a fairly important story. Especially where anti-Obama/anti-Democratic Party people like to hang out (a fair description of Digby's comment section under any circumstances, even now with far reduced numbers.) I even emailed Digby about the story together with contact information for Karen Bernal. She did reply to that one with at least the suggestion of interest in "running with it." But she's written nothing about it, neither has David, and so far as I know, neither of them have contacted Karen or the Dem Party Headquarters for comment.

At least over there, it looks like the story of the Progressive Purge of the California Democratic Party went right into the memory hole.

Today I did a little sleuthing and made a discovery. My goodness, I do believe my IP has been banned from Echo comments at Digby's! I do declare!

I can post all I want, logged in or not, and all of those posts will appear on the computer on which I have made them, but not on any other -- unless I am logged in to Echo with the same ID I used when I posted the original comment. I did several tests with other computers in the house to see just what would happen. If I log on to Echo with my Blogger ID, apparently on any computer, the posts I have made under that ID will -- magically! -- show up, but they are gone again the instant I log off and clear cache. If I am not logged in at all, and cache has been cleared, none of my posts (after August 11) will appear on any computer. If I log in with a different ID, such as my Twitter account, once again I can post at will, but none of my other posts will be visible if I've cleared cache in between log ins.

So. I've been banned. By Digby of all people.

Clearly the advent of David Atkins over there has had something to do with it. I am not a Spoon-hater, though I might challenge some of his premises sometime. Those who went after him hammer and tong seemed to be carrying a lot of baggage from dealing with his posts at dKos, and the truth is, I read very few of them and never got too hot or bothered by what I read in them. Mostly it's very conventional Democratic Party partisanship, and that's fine as far as I'm concerned. The only time I really get exercised by something someone has posted (whether or not I agree with it) is when they become really hostile and unfairly hostile with others -- such as the way Armando and some others behaved at dKos a couple of years ago. It's the internet, people. But there are (usually) real people behind the screen names, and going apeshit on somebody just because you can and think you can get away with it because it is the internet is like sucker punching a blind person, and I will come down on that kind of shit.

But otherwise, it's conversation, conversation that can sometimes become heated argument. Argument is one thing but there's no reason to be offensive or cruel or unfairly hostile to those you are dealing with online. Ultimately you can't win whatever it is you think you MUST that way, and it reflects badly -- very badly -- on you. So I don't engage in it (at least I hope I don't) and if I am around people online who do it on a regular basis I will typically either intervene, or just let the place go. I don't need that kind of poison in my life. No one does.

Nevertheless! I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!!!

As if there wasn't anything more important in the whole wide world. Priorities!

"Faux-gressives"

Defining terms is a nice thing to do when utilizing labels as shorthand for points of view, philosophies, ideologies, and the ways and means of getting things done.

The term "progressive" has been bandied about kind of willy-nilly -- and more and more incoherently -- on the internet as both a term of endearment as a denunciation as well as a means of identifying like-minded travelers on the pathways of life. It's used as a dreaded "tribal" marker.

Years ago, I started a series of essays on the Progressive Movement fully intending to get from its origin in the Republican Party to its present day locus largely within the Democratic Party as an answer to a former brand of Republican Conservatism, but I had to stop about midway because I really couldn't get from there to here. What passes for "progressive" today doesn't have much to do with any political philosophy or ideology, nor is it an operating system for government, nor does it have much to do with progress in a general or abstract sense.

Progressives and Progressivism are still around, of course, but many of those who claim to be "progressive" on the internet either know nothing about what Progressivism is or has been in this country, or they don't care, because they are now declaring themselves to be the "progressives" and whatever their particular desire might be is what "progressive" is.

Most of these people, as I've said many times, are some variety of Libertarian, which is not even remotely a Progressive political philosophy. Libertarians who try to mask their political interest and point of view by claiming rights to some other philosophy or point of view, such as those who claim to be liberals or progressives are what I call "faux-gressives."

False "progressives", in other words. They are trying to con liberals and progressives into buying their Libertarian snake-oil, and when they are exposed -- as they often are -- they screech and scream like naughty children who have been caught pulling the wings off flies.

But now I'm seeing the term "fauxgressive" used to describe any Democrat (who claims to be "progressive") who disagrees with the White House. Thus, in a form of ju-jitsu, the White House is trying to re-claim "progressive" for itself and its policies and deny it to all the others who claim to be "progressive," even the genuine ones.

In my view, the Democratic Party has long been the Conservative Party in the United States, not a Progressive Party or a Liberal Party. It is Conservative because it is primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo and with stability. The Republican Party is both Rightist and Radical, primarily concerned with forcing a very reluctant nation into a kind of twisted up modern version of a highly predatory past of depredation, exploitation, imperialism, and constant war -- in other words, instability and overthrow of the status quo -- whatever it may be, it doesn't matter, because the Republican Party has become akin to an Institutional Revolutionary Party constantly seeking to overthrow or overturn just about anything the Institutional Stability Party values.

Internet "progressives" find themselves left out of this uber-contest that goes on constantly way above us. With the White House claiming the "progressive" mantle, thus in effect denying it to others, the term seems to have little meaning at all.

A case could be made, I suppose, that the White House and its operatives and fans are re-claiming more of the original meaning of Progressive, which was a highly process oriented yet authoritarian way of doing things. It was highly organized and directed, too, and I don't see that from the White House at all. They seem to have no real direction of their own. They appear to be the pawns of other interests... the dreaded corporate sector.

Who are the Real Progressives? From my point of view, they are mostly the government drones and institutional operatives who do the real scut work to keep the system going at all. There are seemingly fewer and fewer of them all the time, inside the belly of the beast, if you will. They have largely been replaced by... well, con artists, whose primary belief system is based on falsifying facts to market fraud. They are everywhere in government, its bureaucracy and in institutions today, and they are simply overwhelming remaining Progressives inside the system.

Real Progressivism is a way of doing things, an approach, intended to yield positive material and social results -- ie: "progress", which over time is supposed to improve the lives of everyone. It is a way that relies on extensive regulation and control with an almost Puritan rejection of uncontrolled impulse. It is a way that relies heavily on the advice and often the rule of experts, on research, and on experiment.

It was at one time imperialist and racist to the core. (And that's part of how it has become conflated in the minds of some Rightists with Fascism and Nazi-ism.)

Eugenics and Social Darwinism were at one time accepted "Progressive" scientific points of view.

That's the Progressivism I grew up with and my parents came of age believing in. It was not necessarily socially "pretty," but it was a highly successful means of material progress for the many. It's hard to overestimate the material progress made during the 20th Century under Progressive leadership and ideals. But at the same time, there was a tremendous amount of destruction at home and abroad, some of which was corrected (such as through the agencies of soil conservation and pollution controls) and some of which ended in cataclysm (WWI. WWII. The various other wars of the era, etc.)

Those outside the White House who claim the Progressive mantle today seem to want specific items on a fairly extensive menu of Things That Ought To Be, but in many cases their desires and their heroes look kind of whack from a distance. WikiLeaks style doc dumps and Bradley Manning style security breeches do not a stable governmental operation make. Someone like Russ Feingold, who speechifies real pretty but doesn't actually do anything for better or worse hardly seems like the kind of hero to follow. Ron Paul should not even be remotely considered in a Progressive pantheon. Please.

Real Progressivism is neither "left" nor "right" on the political measuring rod. It was at one time considered strictly non-partisan though its advocacy started within the Republican Party and only shifted over to the Democratic Party during the FDR period (and many old line Progressives stayed with the Republicans up to the era of Reagan.)

I tend to be far more "leftist" in my point of view than most Progressives these days, or historically for that matter. So it is with many who claim a "progressive" tribal affiliation, but many more who do so have no "leftist" sentiment or cred at all. To confuse actual Progressivism with "Leftism" is a fundamental category fault in my view. Progressivism is an operating system, a way of doing things, not a political ideology.

But as the political sector deteriorates and reconceives itself to serve the New American Imperial State, concepts of "left" and "right" have almost as little relevance as accurate descriptions and definitions. Post-modernism rules.

It is what you think it is.

Some recent uses of "fauxgressive:" [Courtesy of Teh Google Machine]

Naked Capitalism

Death by Trolley

The People's View

Roxie's World


And so on...

BLOGSWARM!!!!!®

Here we go.

Jeebus.

Jane got her panties all in a wad because of an email that got sent out from the New Mexico OFA operation that linked to a blogpost at The People's View that got posted at Huffpost that called out some critics of the Debt Crisis Crisis Deal such as Paul Krugman and the "Firebaggers" and oh my has the shit been twisted and turned and hurled with furious abandon.

BLOGSWARM!!!!®

Of course damn few of those swarming have read the offending post in question, fewer still must have received the email from Ray Sandoval at New Mexico OFA HQ. Nor, I'm sure, have more than a few Swarmers read the follow up post at The People's View titled:

Too Bad for Huffington Post, but the "Dumbest Motherfuckers in the World" are Fighting Back

in which the author, Deaniac83 (who I seem to recall from times gone by, but who knows) doubles down and waxes quite wroth his ownself:

But Terkel did get something right. I mean, you know, credit where credit is due. She patiently explains to her readers - who I suppose she assumes are even more political novices than Krugman - what the term firebagger could possibly mean.

"Firebagger" is most likely a combined reference to the liberal blog FireDogLake, founded by Jane Hamsher, and "Tea Bagger," a less-than-flattering term for Tea Party activists.

Almost right. So close. Except FireDogLake is not a liberal blog. It's a Pseudo-Left-Libertarian extremist ideologue blog. But other than that, on the money. Why, yes, Sherlock, Firebagger is a term that combines FDL's hair-on-fire ridiculousness with Teabaggers (for example, opposing things just because President Obama supports them) - whom the FDL rah-rah types act like, only from the Left. It's a characterization that fits them perfectly - they are more interested in tearing things down than building a country up, more interested in ideological podium-pounding than pragmatic solutions. The bagger (both tea and fire) mentality is the reason our politics is in a rut. If one side was busy spreading hatred and propaganda to increase wingnut turnout, the other (firebaggers) side was busy spreading hatred and propaganda to subdue Democratic turnout. Oh, also, as John Cole points out, it's a name the Firebaggers gave themselves.

As if that weren't enough, he goes on to hurl his own incendiary brand of blog-insult by asserting:

Speaking of Firebaggers, her Majesty the Highness of FDL, Jane Hamsher, picked up on Terkel's article and went nuts with it. You know, the usual.

By the way, Ms. Terkel, you seem very upset about the OFA state director in New Mexico sending out an email pointing out the political and policy merits of the debt ceiling deal, an article that also calls out the firebaggers, but for some reason I cannot find our outrage article about Jane Hamsher - the Firebagger in Chief - calling Obama supporters the "dumbest motherfuckers in the world." Am I missing something or is your reporting just not objective?

Ou. Nasty. Meanwhile, the there's this throw-down to complete the sequence:

Let me send a message to Huffington Post, FDL, and all the ideologue havens in the Firebagger Lefty Blogosphere (that's right, I said it again): You have been propagating your anti-progressive, pro-dysfunction political message without accountability for too long. In President Obama's words, Enough! Count on us in the pragmatic progressive blogosphere to stand up and fight back. You do not represent progressivism or liberalism, and we are done letting you hijack it. You wanted a fight, didn't you? Well, you got one.

Eek. Scary.

All the supposedly lefty blogs have exploded in OUTRAGE!!!!!™ at this blogospheric INSULT!!!!™ from the OFA. They have DEMANDED!!!!!™ the immediate termination of Ray Sandoval, and the abject groveling and submissive apology to all the "Firebaggers" and their ilk who were DISSED!!!!™ by this no-account OFA apparatchik in fucking New Mexico, for chrissake. Doesn't he know who he is messing with?

God. The chins are pushed out, and RAGE!!!!!™ has gripped the entire Left-o-sphere. Everyone -- just everyone -- is posting on it, and at dKos (where Jane is not popular at all) there are at least four or five posts right now stirring the pot and intensifying inchoate rage at OFA, Obama, Ray Sandoval, and anyone who dares to support Obama (May you DIAF!!!!™) and defending Blog-Daughter Jane (misguided though she may be) -- and practically everything else on the face of the earth, such as the California Democratic Party's efforts to purge its Progressive Caucus for getting uppity, is being ignored.

I've posted on the Blogswarm phenom before, and I don't like it. Blogswarms tend to be ugly, vicious, and largely useless exercises in group affinity and mindless loyalty. Compared to the "tribalism" that many of the swarmers typically denounce -- as they are expressing their mindless loyalty to an individual or a blog that has been WRONGED!!!!™ -- swarmers are demonstrating the exact behavior they are so eager to denounce and condemn in others. The glaring hypocrisy of it all of course never, ever enters the consciousness of the swarmers until after their RAGE!!!!!™ is spent, and even then, the idea that they might have behaved inappropriately (heh) is often set aside in order to press some other demand elsewhere.

Oddly enough, it is from behavior like this that many on the "left" are considered to be tantrum throwing children who can be safely ignored. But I would venture to say that very few of those who participate in Blogswarms are leftists by any rational definition of the term.

They are, for the most part, "Internet Leftists and/or Progressives" -- which all too often means some variety of Libertarian.

And I note with interest that Deaniac83 calls out Jane and others for being exactly that.

On the other hand, I've made quite a stink over the California Democratic Party's apparent decision to purge the Progressive Caucus from its midst, and I do it in part because I know Karen Bernal, Chair of the Caucus quite well (though I haven't been in contact with her directly over this issue) and I know she is a genuine Progressive, not some variety of Libertarian trying to pass as "Progressive". She is deeply involved in labor and social justice issues, civil liberties, healthcare for all, gender equality, immigration reform, peace activism and on and on, as she has always been as long as I have known her. None of these issues are casual interests to her, not has she developed an interest recently. This is who she is. Her speeches have electrified the Party at their State Conventions, and she has built a very strong Progressive activist base within the Party that has successfully recruited and elected Progressive candidates and has pressed inclusion of Progressive agenda items in the California Democratic Party Platform.

And the Big Wigs apparently want to get rid of her and disband the Progressive Caucus (again, apparently) because they resolved to explore supporting a primary challenge to Obama -- for cause.

To me, this is a far more important and pressing issue than insults and dissing of "Firebaggers" from a blogger.

Priorities, people!



Sigh....
----------------------------------

My my my. All of a sudden, literally within an hour or so of Deaniac83's throw down challenge, the Swarm stopped.

This is a good thing in my humble estimation as there are far more important things to concern oneself about than the perceived insults to whomever on the internet.

Really.

The Always "Starting to Think", Always "On the Edge of the Cliff" or "About to Hit the Iceberg" Metaphors -- Or, Man the Lifeboats!

http://youtu.be/YYmQG3YlAoA

Here we are, many long and weary years into a global economic catastrophe, a financial meltdown of titanic proportions, with millions upon millions of people being forced into poverty every year, with homelessness, hunger and disease growing alarmingly, but to read about conditions in the mainstream media or on the internet, you'd almost never know it.

Instead, absolutely all the discussion -- and panic -- is about a potential or coming economic catastrophe if "we" either do or do not increase the debt ceiling, if "we" do or do not "default" on the debt.

We are "on the edge of the cliff!"

We are "about to hit the iceberg!"

No. And no I say again. We have already gone over the cliff -- long ago, too. We already hit the iceberg, long ago, and the ship sank. We're in the lifeboats (some of us) debating who gets thrown into the freezing ocean next.

THAT'S what's going on, and those are the correct metaphors for our misery -- and what's left of our hope. But it is never discussed that way on the internet or in the mainstream because of certain locutions and conventions which propose that we are always just "starting to think," always "on the edge of the cliff," always just about "to hit the iceberg." The upshot being that we can always pull back or change direction -- when actually we're facing a completely new and more difficult reality.

It reminds me of a once universal and conventional rule in the geologic and astronomic sciences that proposed that the Earth and Solar System were always "about midway" in their lifespans, no matter what the evidence indicated. It's actually intended as a calming metaphor. Our world has come thus far and has at least as far left to go before it all sputters out. We are in The Middle, and isn't it grand?

"Isn't it grand?" So long as we can make believe it is so, then it is.

I'm not at all into Doom Blogging, but neither do I want to be entirely Panglossian about our mutual condition. We have most certainly gone over the cliff and hit bottom. We hit the iceberg, too. The ship sank. We watched from the leaky lifeboats as it did, while some still onboard kept rearranging those deck-chairs and thinking of England. Until it was too late.

Now what? is the appropriate question.

Now what?

I've been saying for some time that we need to re-envision a Future, because our "former Future" has been stolen from us. It's gone. We don't have that any more, and one of the signs of it is the end of the Space Shuttle program, in effect ending the American manned space program indefinitely. Americans in Space was very much a part of our collective consciousness and collective Future until very recently, and now the likelihood of it ever happening has almost vanished completely. I've posted links and clips showing what the Future used to look like (and there are a number of wonderful websites that get into it, too), and watching something like "2001: A Space Odyssey" today is really kind of shocking. To think that Stanley Kubrick's 1968 vision, based on Arthur C. Clarke's vision, of what the near Future would look like and what would be available for us to do was considered reasonable extrapolation at the time, and so little of it has come to pass, mostly relatively minor things, pretty much none of the Big Things at all (though we might want to discuss the issue of Personal Computers and the Internet, which really weren't even on the horizon in 1968 -- and why weren't they thought of seriously by Futurists in those days?)

My point is only that the Future that Used To Be is no longer operative -- or even conceivable any more. That phase of human progress is done, and American leadership of that endless quest for knowledge (which ultimately was what it was all about) has concluded -- with both a whimper and a bang. The United States and the American People are not in the lead of Progress any more; for all intents and purposes, that torch has been handed off to China with a hope and a prayer that this Chinese Century of Progress will turn out well for all concerned.

"I for one welcome our new Chinese Overlords!"

We may need to get used to thinking that way, but more importantly, as I see it, we need to think much more clearly and fully on how we want our Future, and the Future of our descendents, to be. Since the Future Vision we might once have had cannot be realized under the current circumstances, what should we have in our minds for the Future instead?

Doom and Gloom? Not in my book.

Not at all. Good heavens no.

But we do have to be realistic about the situation we're in right now, and we need to avoid falling into the metaphors and locution traps that propose that we haven't hit that Titanic Iceberg yet.

From the Lifeboat, in other words, what can we envision?

In the movie, of course, mere survival is the characters' primary concern, and survival is not possible for some of them. Their numbers will be reduced, and that's just reality, though we realize that their choices are not necessarily wise. Panic is frequent. Suffering is endured. On and on.

And yet there is a Future Vision among them, not just of Rescue (which will come, yes), but of what the survivors hold dear and want to make of their lives and leave to Posterity. That vision helps them survive.

And of course they watched the ship sink. They know they're in a lifeboat. The context, of course, of this film was WWII, and it was war fighting that got them in this predicament. They know they are all in this lifeboat together, even with an enemy, as it turns out. They must, one way or another, find a way forward -- while simultaneously finding a way to survive. From a practical standpoint, it is The Man With The Plan, ie: the Nazi U-Boat captain who sank their ship in the first place, who browbeats and muddles them through to the point where they can be rescued -- somewhat miraculously (well, it's a movie after all!)

The New York Times reviewed the movie in 1944 in somewhat of astonishment, for it does propose that the Nazi "Superman" is the only one really capable of putting the lifeboat's occupants on a course to eventual survival.

There remains the alarming implication, throughout all the action of this film, that the most efficient and resourceful man in this "Lifeboat" is the Nazi, the man with "a plan." Nor is he an altogether repulsive or invidious type. As Walter Slezak plays him, he is tricky and sometimes brutal, yes, but he is practical, ingenious and basically courageous in his lonely resolve. Some of his careful deceptions would be regarded as smart and heroic if they came from an American in the same spot.

Obviously Mr. Hitchcock and Mr. Steinbeck failed to grasp just what they had wrought. They certainly had no intention of elevating the "superman" ideal—nor did the responsible studio, Twentieth Century-Fox. But we have a sneaking suspicion that the Nazis, with some cutting here and there, could turn "Lifeboat" into a whiplash against the "decadent democracies." And it is questionable whether such a picture, with such a theme, is judicious at this time.

Yes. Certainly. "...judicious at this time." Truly. How droll.

But that's playing on the Practical response to catastrophe; I'm more interested at this point in the visions each of the characters have of where they are and where they are going, and in whatever moral sense they may have of their Future.

And it is from that perspective that we need to "start" thinking about our own Future.