Is the NetRoots Pathetically Ineffective? Discuss.

One of the favorite epithets NetRooteviks love to throw around is: "This isn't the '60s anymore! Demonstrations don't work! Give it up!" when people take to the streets. This has become the standard, almost rote response of the NetRoots whenever Americans take to the streets for any reason, though when the good folks in Wisconsin took to the streets and occupied public property (like the Capitol in Madison) for weeks on end, the NetRoots scolds sat on their hands fearful of saying anything too outré about the people in the streets freezing their nuts off in protest.

Of course all the marching and chanting and carrying signs and all the occupations of public property that went on and are still going on through the Midwest did not stop the Walkers and the Kasichs and their ilk from ramming through their programs of restricted rights and slashed budgets for the masses (while heaping favors on the High and the Mighty) in Legislature after Legislature. By now, much of it is "settled law," and even if the Rightist bums who are doing this are eventually thrown out of office (a big IF), their programs, restrictions, and slashed budgets will continue on for the most part.

The demonstrations demonstrated two things: the People are pissed. And they are all but powerless.

NetRooteviks, of course, believe that the People are just 'doing it wrong'. The correct way to oppose the Man is to write a superabundance of furious blog posts and tweets, fill elected officials' inboxes with endless streams of sternly worded emails, and back candidates who flatter your ego.

Except for the fact that that doesn't work either, it sounds all modern and wireless and shit, and it is certainly less... physically challenging (shall we say) than getting out in the streets with signs and giant puppets and other icky 'protest' things like silly chants. Hey hey, ho ho... What do we want... when do we want it...

The sorry fact is that protest from the left doesn't work (in this country), no matter how it's done.

Netrootevik 'gaming' is equally as ineffective as marching and carrying signs. Our Rulers decoupled from the masses quite some time ago, and these days, they really do not care what the People think or want. They love the attention they get from the NetRoots as much as they thrive on the hatred of those in the streets. But they don't care -- at all -- what either marginal interest group "wants."

They believe they don't have to.

And for the most part, they are right. The High and the Mighty can pretty much do what they want -- as long as it fits with the Rightist program of the Government's Stakeholders and Owners. That's all that's necessary.

What absolutely cannot be done under any circumstances is changing the Government's direction toward actually recognizing and serving the Public Interest.

NetRooteviks assembling in Minneapolis may rail and rage all they want about the Imperial White House and its horrible policies. They may keen their laments about the loss of civil liberties, the indifference of Congress, the continuing looting of the Lesser People by the MOTUs, and on and on, but it will have no effect on the Ruling Class.

So they announce their goal is to get their candidates inside the Palace Gates and run things.

How's that working out?

Actually, their real goal is the same as all other institutional interests: Self-Perpetuation. And what that means in context is to ineffectively rail and rage against The Powers That Be -- forever.

Those who march and carry signs may be just as ineffective, but they don't do what they do (for the most part) in order to advance their own careers or to raise their own profiles, nor do they do it to raise money for their online business ventures. They don't do it to perpetuate their chosen form of activism, either. They do it to actually force -- or at least influence -- necessary changes in and by Government.

In other words, the ineffectiveness of the NetRoots and Demonstrators may be similar but the motivation is quite different.

No, this is not the '60s anymore, but so what? The 1960's did not invent the public protest march, nor were marches that much more effective then than they are now. The changes that came about due to the liberationist and communitarian activism of the 1960's happened because of cultural and social factors that no one and no one interest caused or controlled.

The NetRoots wants changes that it cannot quite articulate, and it is no more unified in interest or motivation than any previous activists were.

Right now, nothing at all works to alter the demands of our Governing Class. They are operating completely independently of the People, and they like it like that.

What we can do about it has yet to be discovered -- or rediscovered as the case may be.

Brazil!

There are some post-mortems going on of the FISA debacle, still a very stinging loss for the Netroots and one that could well prove to be "the" end point of the Republic.

Like other losses (cf: Lamont, Ned), this one is being characterized by many as a "victory," because it continued the learning curve of Netroots-movement activists, who are always delighted to do Lessons Learned exercises and to crow their progress in the face of the Implacable Foe. Losses? Feh. Struggle on! We may lose all the battles, but at least the battles were engaged and we've been noticed!!!, so eventually, somewhere down the road, we'll win the war! Yay!

Uhhh.... Well, maybe. I'm certainly not going to encourage anyone to give up the struggle, and every little bit helps, but what galls is the notion that losses are actually victories. They are not.

Joe Lieberman is still in the Senate, still wreaking havoc, and still parading around with his new BFF, Senator "Scarlett" McCain. The Lamont campaign was no "victory." No matter how it is spun.

The FISA campaign was another kettle of fish. There seemed to be two entirely separate tracks -- that of Congress and the Regime, and that of the Netroots; trains on those tracks bumped one another from time to time, but they never really collided, and the Congressional train to FISA "reform" was never stopped nor even in jeopardy of being stopped.

The Congressional/Regime Train could be characterised as a plush Pullman Palace Car affair, not necessarily moving at any great speed, though there were moments of acceleration, mostly just grandly chugging along, waiters and porters and such taking care of the passengers, crystal and silver shining, Power exuding.

The Netroots, by contrast, were on a handcar, bravely pumping away, constantly having to stop to catch their breath before the next burst of furious pumping to try to catch up. Which they never really did. But now and then the tracks came close enough for the Netroots to hurl a rock or two at the windows of the Palace Car, or even to bump the outside of it with a shoulder.

It was brave. And for that, kudos aplenty.

But the effect of all this bravery was minor at best, and at worst it merely solidified the intractability of the foes inside the Palace Car.

That's what happens all the time, unfortunately. The blogs have become a nuisance to the would-be aristos, but no more than that. A nuisance gets "noticed", yes, but "notice" doesn't necessarily lead to progress.

And it's never really clear that "progress" as such is the goal in any case. Everything seems to start over, from scratch, every time the Netroots goes up against the Powers That Be -- Congress, generally speaking, but occasionally corporate and media interests as well. Every action is declared a "win" even when nothing much is accomplished. And most aspects of the consolidation of power in the elites is simply dismissed in the frenzy of the current struggle.

That consolidation of power really hasn't been affected at all over the years of Netroots agitation. Instead, as the Bushevik regime winds down, their consolidation of power into an Autocracy, seems to pick up speed.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Netroots-movement is not a popular movement at all; it is an elite movement, encompassing an interest group that is largely libertarian (not necessarily "liberal"), mostly informed by lawyers, for whom the argument is the main thing, not "winning" or "losing."

As long as the argument advances, "victory" can be -- and is -- declared.

Meanwhile, in the Real World...

Marcy Wheeler has an interesting insight with regard to the FISA debacle, however:

But what we didn't do, I think, was account for the fact that a significant chunk of legislators believe they are in the business of crafting compromises, no matter how outrageous one side of the debate is. That is, while we were successful in working with key legislators (Dodd and Feingold above all) to argue that the issues at stake--and the Constitution--had to be beyond compromise, that didn't stop a solid chunk of Democrats from seeking compromise anyway.

Indeed. I'd go farther. It wasn't just compromise on this bill. The interests of legislators was much broader than that. This bill was almost a sideshow to them. What they were after was compromise that began to restore relevance to the Congress after years of being treated like the ultimate red-headed stepchild. And by their own lights, they did a superb job.

There were minor adjustments in this bill to satisfy Congressional (not necessarily public) interests, but the bigger compromise was on the War Supplemental, where Bush caved in completely on the GI Bill, VA funding, NOLA levee repairs and unemployment compensation. That's where Congress reasserted itself and won, at least to their way of looking at things, and that's why they were all puffed up with Glory over the FISA "compromise." All of this has to do with restoring Congress's prerogatives, and to some extent their constitutional role. That's the important compromise to them.

The Netroots doesn't even recognize it. The obsessive focus on the FISA measure meant that the other moving parts of this creaking -- and largely failing -- machine were ignored, are still being ignored, and what's actually happening in the broader context is practically unknown.

The FISA fight was important to Congress, but not for the reasons the Netroots may think. This was a fight over prerogatives, not over substance. Those prerogatives had been given up or taken away over many years; Congress is trying to get them back, and with them, they're trying to get back some of their lost dignity. 9%! Come on.

The Netroots doesn't recognize that.

Marcy talks a lot about wanting to influence legislation, and it's vital to understand how to do that. One of the first requirements is to understand what the real interests of the Legislators are. In the case of Congress, those real interests include preserving and restoring traditional prerogatives and forging legislation that takes into account a variety of considerations and interests, "compromise" legislation in other words.