Are We Nearer The Point of Rethinking the Apparatus Which Rules Us?

From time to time, I still run into the online meme of the "end of empire" -- referring to the United States and its faltering dominance in the world. I have long challenged that premise.

The American Empire is by no means ending; if anything, it's been revitalized since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and today the Imperial USA is as strong or stronger than it has ever been. It has shown itself to be remarkably adaptable to a changing world and has taken advantage of the changes to extend its influence, power and reach without necessarily putting more boots on the ground (though there is no lack of them).


What we've been seeing instead is the "end of the Republic" -- such as it was. It was a pretty anemic Republic all along, riven as it was with factionalism and dominated by the interests of money. Oh. Well.

Update: Still in Limbo, the CDP and the CDPPC

More sleuthing around has produced some interesting though not conclusive information regarding the flap in the California Democratic Party over their uppity Progressive Caucus and the resolution to explore primarying Obama.

I'm not necessarily a quick study about these things -- I chose to step back, way back, from party politics after Howard Dean was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee -- but I do try to study enough to keep up appearances.

I learned some things just the other day, and some today as well, regarding the Players in this psycho-drama. Such as the fact that David Atkins is not just sub-chair of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee -- which everyone knows -- but he is also a member of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, AND he is a member of the executive board of said Party and he has therefore been involved in this brou-ha-hah from the get go. And he doesn't want to talk about it and he doesn't want anybody else to talk about it, either. Rather, he claims that the resolution passed by the CDPPC was "stupid," there's no point in even mentioning primarying Obama, and he believes the Progressive Caucus will be recertified by the executive board in November, despite their stupidity.

This comes from an exchange he had with Seneca Doane over at dKos on Monday. I read SD's lengthy post about the matter, but I didn't look at the comments, so I missed the exchange until recently.

It went something like this:

Seneca: Feel free to take issue with me as strongly as you'd like; that's politics. But don't even try to silence me; I can write this sort of diary as many times as I think I need to. Dissent will be heard. Some of you may not get it, but victory depends on it.

Spoon:the prog caucus will almost certainly
be recertified. Tabling the recertification prevented a floor fight at this latest e-board meeting until cooler heads could prevail.


Spoon:you have to understand--this was a room

of 200 people when this came up. The leader of the African-American Caucus--who happens to have run for state senate in a district that is partly in my county where I'm 1st vice chair and state e-board rep--made a motion to decertify. Given the sentiments in the room, that motion might just have passed.

I'm a member of the Progressive Caucus, though I wasn't present for the vote on the resolution in question.

But keep in mind that a big portion of the base, especially the African-American base, has great love for the President and takes strong offense at these kinds of maneuvers.

By tabling the motion, CA dem leaders probably saved the caucus from decertification until peace could be made.


Seneca: What consequences has the leader of that caucus

(whom I've taken pains not to identify, but let's presume you're right) faced for that action? (Let's not count whatever I've stirred up with this diary out in cyberspace.) So far as I know: none. The attempt to chill speech has, so far, worked.

Whatever the sentiment in that room, the responsibility of the voting members of the E-Board was to stand up to them, right then, right there. I understand why party leaders negotiated a delay in the vote. But let's not pretend that that was primarily to the benefit of the Progressive Caucus; it was to the benefit of the Party. Karen Bernal should be thanked by the Party for accepting some humiliation on the part of the Progressive Caucus to save the Party from doing something extremely foolish. Frankly, in her place, I might well have taken the decertification and the headlines, because what happened was outrageous.

Had the E-Board gone ahead and decertified under pressure, they would have had to spend the subsequent three months cleaning egg off of their face -- rather than this diary being the first that most people here had heard about it -- and the Progressive Caucus would have been recertified in November anyway.

With great and deserved respect to the African-American base of the party, they are simply not entitled to shout down a primary challenge, period.


Seneca: As I state in the diary, I am not in the [Progressive] Caucus

and I didn't discuss this diary with anyone representing it.

To me, the damage is done. It's not about the Progressive Caucus gaining recertification, it's about E-Board members not realizing that they should not have allowed this shot along the Caucus's bow to be so successful to begin with.

I've spoken to small groups about my own take on "how to primary Obama in the least damaging way possible," as well as posting here, but it's not an idea that belongs to any organization at this point. I will continue to push it though, largely because if we don't have this sort of challenge I think we'll see a worse one.


Spoon: if the motion had gone to the floor it

might have passed. and if it hadn't passed, you'd have almost half the e-board going home furious.

Tabling was the right thing to do.



Seneca: And half the E-Board going home furious

at being stymied in their effort to suppress any hint of dissent is a bad thing why?


Spoon: because it would be an official

sign of disrespect to the Democratic President and the first african-american president. it's important not to get too caught up in the obama wars and take a broader perspective sometimes.


Seneca: So tell me this:

Would someone actually running against Obama in 2012 be -- or let's say "have been" -- a "sign of disrespect to the Democratic President"? Is his being African-American the thing that protects him from facing the sort of challenge that Johnson and Humphrey did, or Carter? What's the reasoning here?

Tell me further: if some serious candidate had run against Obama, would it be the responsibility of the CDP E-Board, out of "respect to the Democratic President and the first African-American President," to do what it could to hamper such a challenge? What is your current position on intra-party dissent?

If you'd prefer to take this discussion to e-mail -- and I would, were I you -- you know how to reach me.



Spoon: i'm am e-board member and prog caucus

member. i was there. you can just ask me.


Just Bob: Have you put up a diary?

Or would you rather elaborate here?


Spoon: no, i really don't want to give it

more attention. the prog caucus shouldn't have made the resolution. a primary challenge is a dumb idea, always has been.

they should have known a move to decertify would follow.

when it did, the cdp e-board did the right thing to have everyone chill out rather than risk a close vote that would likely have decertified the caucus. the votes were there to do it.


Nada Lemming: Well it HAS more attention now.

And I find it refreshing that you admit you stand on the side of blind allegiance to power. Well played, sir.

"Blind cheerleading of the president will create jobs and get him to stop droning on and on about deficits no one cares about to the point that his numbers have tanked among independents?" -kos


Just Bob: Thank you for your reply, but

I can't say I'm not disappointed in your position and the Democrat Party of California.

One of the few remaining reasons I'm still a Democrat is that Florida has closed primaries and I want to vote for a progressive Democratic candidate.


Seneca: I didn't know that you were E-Board

I thought that your brother was. Please do weigh in further if you wish.


Spoon: i was elected as the male ventura rep

several months ago.

This is admittedly a somewhat truncated exchange and it may be difficult to follow, but you can read the whole thing at the link. What we find here is interesting. Seneca Doane, who is a CDP Central Committee member but not a member of the Progressive Caucus, nor a member of the executive board, takes issue with the decision of the executive board to table the issue of whether to renew the certification of the Progressive Caucus. Spoon, who is a member of both the Progressive Caucus and the executive board (something Seneca didn't know, neither did I) agrees with the suspension of action on decertification until "cooler heads" prevail.

Meanwhile Karen Bernal is continuing to give interviews about this, and more and more people are expressing just how fed up they are with the continuing Hooverite policies of the White House -- not to mention the continuation of the Bush foreign and domestic "security" policies -- and nobody is planning to shut up about it. Even though it appears that Spoon and/or Digby have no intention of writing about it at Hullabaloo, and have been using their ban-hammers to ensure that there is no mention of it in comments. (Along with all the other unmentionables...)

Meanwhile, Karen Bernal was interviewed by the Black Agenda Report, and I'm posting a link to the whole radio broadcast because there is mention of the confrontation between Maxine Waters and a loud and very very unhappy-with-Obama largely black audience, and Karen points out in her interview that the African-American Caucus objection to the Progressive Caucus recertification was not all it's been cracked up to be, and that the DNC has had something to do with what's going on.

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of August 22, 2011

This may all seem like Inside Baseball internal Democratic Party squabbling, but I think it is really important for the future of the Party and for the country.

Realistically, Obama is in the political fight of his life. His approval is tanking, and more and more Progressive Dems (regardless of color) are speaking up and speaking out about how barely distinguishable he is from a Republican in the White House, and how they are fed up with being dissed and kicked around by the White House and the DNC. While I don't really think the California Democratic Party is going to split over this matter, it's a matter of consciousness raising and standing up for yourself and your values in the face of what appear to be anti-democratic forces in the Party itself, led by Team Obama.

What do you do under those circumstances? If you are a stalwart Dem (called a Yellow Dog) you've either got to continue fighting from within -- and making a stink about it -- or give up and go somewhere else.

Karen and the Progressive Caucus are fighting from within, where supposedly Progressives need to be if they are to take over the Party and win. I've argued that Progressives not only took over the Party and won, they revived it from the dead, and the thanks they got was a kick in the nuts and a boot out the door.

Seneca seems to understand at least the outlines of that story -- and certainly sees it happening in the case of the Progressive Caucus certification struggle; regardless of whether they are eventually recertified, they have been told in no uncertain way that they are not appreciated. There will be blowback.

But David acts like he either has no idea of any of this, or if he does have an idea about it, he doesn't want to talk about it and he doesn't want anybody else to either. It is not a matter for public scrutiny.

I think it is. Enough is enough. Of course given my current immersion in the Russian Revolutionary period, I may be a bit biased!

[PS: unlike some of the players in this psycho drama, I have been in touch with Karen Bernal regarding this issue.]

Expanding on the "Progressives Must Take Over -- or Destroy -- the Democratic Party" Trope

I've gotten into this issue a few times in High Dudgeon over at Digby's Place due to the fact that there is so much unrefuted misinformation in so-called lefty blogosphere about Progressives and the Democratic Party and so much blather about "taking over" or "killing" said Party.

One of the more ridiculous premises of the trope is that a Progressive Takeover of the Democratic Party has yet to happen, and that therefore "progressives" have to work hard for years and years within and without the Party to achieve sufficient critical mass among the Public to "force" the Party to do this or that which "progressives" demand.

According to this ill-informed and severely warped premise, the Democratic Party's Leadership was so boggled by the Chicago Riots in 1968 and McGovern's loss in 1972 that it stopped being a Progressive Party and became by stages a deeply conservative party, ever more beholden to Big Money Interests, ever more divorced from the People and that, ever since 1972, it has been a "failure" because it abandoned Democratic Progressive Values and Principles. Progressives can only reverse this situation either by taking over the Party from the inside or by destroying the Party and starting over, but whatever course is chosen, it's time for "progressives" to get organized and do it. Time's a-wasting and it will take years to accomplish, no matter what.

M-Kay. Like many myths, this one is partially true. On the other hand, it completely ignores a recent and very important aspect of Democratic Party history: the Progressive Takeover From the Inside between 2003 and 2008, and the subsequent "re-taking" of the Party by Big Money Interests -- which promptly led to the shutting down of Progressive activism within the Party and the purging of thousands of Progressive activists from Party leadership and activist positions.

By leaving out this very recent episode, the myth makers are trying to make believe that somehow Progressives haven't had any pre-eminence in the Party for decades (not true), and that there has never been a push by Progressives in modern times to press their agenda and elect their candidates (which is foolishly untrue.) Further, the myth-makers try to make believe that the Party has little or no Progressive influence or presence, and thus the field is wide open for a Progressive Take Over (or nihilistic destruction) of the Democratic Party. (Dream on...)

Some of these myths and tropes are being offered by current Democratic Party apparatchiks like David Atkins over at Digby's or Graham in her comments, and by the entire Dem Party crew at Markos's shop. They are the ones who are insisting there never was a recent Progressive take over of the Party and that Democratic Progressive electoral victories are yet to come; get engaged with the Party, give lots of money, stick with it, work hard, and in some years or decades or whatever, your dreams will come true. Or something. Gandhi! MLK!

Then the other argument based on these myths is being offered by the nihilist and largely Libertarian operatives whose purpose seems to be to convince dissatisfied Democrats (who are legion) to abandon the Party and vote Republican (ie: Ron Paul, Mitt Romney), or who try to subvert and overthrow the Party's leadership and take control of the Party by fucking over electoral prospects for "spineless" Dems (like Obama, for example) who have no Principles. The nihilist/Libertarian argument also ignores -- or rather is ignorant of -- the successful Progressive take over of the Democratic Party and the stunningly successful electoral effort made by them between 2003 and 2008. But this crew, of course, would not recognize the Democrats who did this as Progressives because they're not libertarians. On the Internet, the term "Progressive" is often used as a mask for Libertarian elements who are seeking legitimacy and power, either through the agency of the Democratic Party or by destroying it.

So both the current crop of Dem Party apparatchiks and the Libertarian pseudo-"progressives" who desperately want to gain legitimacy and power by overthrowing the Dem leadership or destroying the Party altogether have an interest in ignoring the recent history of the Party when Progressives (genuine Progressives) did take over the party, recruited hundreds of candidates, raised hundreds of millions of dollars for campaigns, worked their tails off, and got hundreds and hundreds of Democrats elected all over the country, at the local, state and national levels, enough in fact to take over most state legislatures, governorships, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House by 2008, and for a time in 2009 even provided a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, only to see their strategies and efforts dismantled from inside the Party once Barack Obama was inaugurated, and subsequently to see a nationwide purge of Progressives from Party leadership and activist positions -- a purge that was partially responsible for the Democrats' loss of the House in a rout in 2010, the loss of seats in the Senate, and the stunning reversal of control of many statehouses around the country, infamously in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the Midwest.

The decline in Democratic Party fortunes in the 2010 election happened for a very simple and straightforward reason: Democratic voters and the Independents which Democratic activists had been appealing to stayed home. They did not vote in the 2010 election leaving the field wide open for the Republican surge we saw, led by the astroturfed TeaBaggers (who, in office, are simply stooges for the batshit wing of the Corporate Death and Money Party).

And I believe they stayed home for two reasons: 1) they saw what they had wrought with the overwhelming Democratic victories they had engineered and they were... disappointed. 2) the Progressive leadership and activists within the Democratic Party had been purged, the 50 State Project had been closed down, and there were no longer enough sufficiently motivated and experienced campaign workers to do the scut work and get out the vote on behalf of Democratic candidates. Oh whell.

It's not rocket science. If you disrespect your chief pool of activists, pull the rug out from under dedicated people who have given their all on behalf of the Democratic Party, you kick them in the nuts, and you throw them out on their ass, there will be blowback. Believe it or not.

Why, you might ask, as I have asked, would this happen at all? The whole sequence in retrospect seems truly bizarre. Why would a Party that had won such stunning success with a Progressive platform and Progressive candidates, volunteers, and activists suddenly turn on them and get rid of them wholesale? Whuuuut?

How and why did a vital, activist, Progressive, and successful Democratic Party turn so suddenly into an outpost for corporate drones, marketeers, and political hacks? WTF?

Those are questions a lot of anguished Progressives (but not so much their libertarian ersatz) are still asking. What happened? And most of all why, when the upshot has been a Republican revival and resurgence...oh... could have been deliberately engineered? Who could imagine such a thing?

Yes. Well. Politics is a dismal business, and nasty, too. The fact of the matter is that most of the Progressive activists who made the stunning Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 possible were political novices and they were very naive and trusting, generous to a fault, and deeply committed to Progressive principles. They compromised, though, in recruiting candidates because they wanted to get them elected, which meant that quite a few of the New Democrats who went into office thanks to Progressive campaigns turned out to be... disappointing. Not only were the new office holders disappointing, so was the Dem leadership in the House. The Dem leadership (Lookin' at you Nancy) did not press for the end of the wars, nor was there any effort at accountability for the Bush Regime's gross violations of human rights, law, and simple decency.

"Disappointment" is really too mild a term.

But of course the excuse from the leadership was that they "didn't have the votes" to do what Progressives thought right, and so Progressives just had to work harder, clap louder, and they did. In 2008, they swept the House, Senate and the White House into Democratic control, and look what happened. Not only were Progressives unceremoniously shown the door, the back door at that, but most of the Progressive agenda was either abandoned outright or transformed into an endless series of corporate giveaways.

And not surprisingly, the Progressive enthusiasm for the Democrats waned.

In 2010, Progressives turned their backs on the Party they had worked so hard to revivify.

With one rather startling exception: California.

California stood out in the context of the 2010 Republican "wave" election because every single statewide office was won by a Democrat, far and away the majority of Congressional seats were won by Democrats, the Legislature is almost two-thirds Democrat (not that it does them that much good), and both Senators are Democrats. In fact, compared to almost everywhere else -- and given the absurd recall of Gray Davis and his replacement with Schwarzenegger that was actually supported by many Democrats -- the current Democratic lock on California's political offices is astonishing. This isn't just a case of bucking trends, it's completely defying them.

One of the reasons was that in California, the Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party, chaired by Karen Bernal, is strong and influential, and Progressives never abandoned the Party (nor were they as successfully purged) in California like they were elsewhere.

Gee. Who'd a thunk it? If you don't beat up on your base, you might just win at the polls. Radical!

I have no doubt, by the way, that California is being targeted as we speak for... "synchronization" if you will (Gleichschaltung in the original German) with the more commonplace Corporate neo-bastard-liberal political ethos of the rest of the country. Dem ascendency will not be for very much longer.

All of this is not to say that the Democratic Party is anything like the vital force on behalf of the People that it could be. Far from it. What I am saying is that the Democratic Party was taken over by genuine Progressives (as opposed to libertarians trying to pass as Progressives) between 2003 and 2008, and the electoral success the Party had during that period was largely due to the efforts of Progressive activists, who were then purged and their operations dismantled by a far more corporate-controlled and corporate-friendly apparat that came in with Obama. That apparat is not nearly as easily taken over as the mostly moribund Democratic Party was when Progressives did take the Party over. I actually don't see the Corporate Dems letting go under any circumstances.

So the answer to this Dilemma is two-fold: 1) build independent Progressive grass roots operations that can stand on their own without the Democratic Party. 2) build on the remnants of the Progressive infrastructure within the Democratic Party by joining up with it and supporting it.

So simple. So right.

"Take Your Shame, Man" -- On the Progressive Failure in Wisconsin

Of course, as has been the case in every other "progressive" electoral disaster, the failure to flip the Wisconsin State Senate majority from R to D through recall is being spun as a sort-of "victory" because, well, Scott Walker might be recalled next year, and gee, next year there will be all these fired up Dems, and gee, maybe Russ Feingold ("I love that man!") will decide to challenge Walker, and gee, wouldn't it all be terrific to fight the Good Fight again? Huh?

doG, I am so sick of this crap "moral victory" propaganda and spin. Jebus F. Christmas dancing on a Ritz, STOP IT!

"Take your shame, man!" (an obscure Catherine Tate reference, see Royal Variety Show video below.) YOU FUCKING LOST. AGAIN.

Fucking Scott Walker and his Kochevik sponsors WON. AGAIN.

Fucking ACCEPT IT. Quit claiming "I'm not bovvered, tho." (another Catherine Tate reference, see below.)

GET FUCKING MAD.

Fight back, to win.

Or, just keep pushing the same old electoral buttons that don't work any more, just keep getting the same frustrating results, just keep claiming to have "won" a moral victory, just keep citing the long struggles of heroes like Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and keep insisting that "next year, next election, next lifetime, something, somehow, will sort of be somewhat "better."

Actually, it's worked to keep "progressives" occupied and out of mischief for the last fifteen years or so. Why not forever?

We are doomed.

What's the Point of Lifting the Veil?

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

This is Metanoia's long-awaited documentary follow-up to their previous exposés about what's really what, and while I think it is an excellent piece of documentary filmmaking of the utter outrageousness of the economic situation we've been facing for years now and the complicity of the political system in keeping things this way, unless there is an action plan to really change things, knowing what's behind the curtain doesn't help in the least.

Knowing how Our Betters have been misbehaving and robbing the rest of us blind all these years without any plan or even intention to reclaim any of what's been stolen from us -- and is being stolen -- by the High and the Mighty Bandits gets us nowhere at all. It's just adding to the worry and the frustration and the anger that's already there without any productive outlet.

When lifting the veil is an end in itself, as it is more and more to the many Veil Lifter Entrepreneurs that proliferate in bad times and good, there's little point in it.

At some point, we don't need to know any more about how rotten Our Rulers and their Sponsors are.

At some point, action is more important than knowing what's behind the curtain.

Nevertheless, watch the film. Take your blood pressure medicine. And be on the lookout for strategic actions in your neighborhood.... ;-).

On Which Party Should Expire

Hm.

Got into an interesting series of conflicts last night over the implication that one or the other political party should disappear -- and which one it should be.

The CW that's trying to gel in the Lefty Blogosphere is that the Dems are so fundamentally corrupted and incompetent (viz: the Coakley-Brown Thing) that they should have their ticket punched for the last time and be sent packing, never to return. And Goat for Azazel-like, they will be our Sin Eaters and sent into the desert, there to... disappear.

Or the Dems should be shunned and ostracized and a Third Party formed by all the hot-headed Internet Progressives. Yeah. That'll work. G'head. Try it. How about putting Ezra in charge, since everybody loves him.

Oddly, the psycho party -- the Republican Party -- is left immune from all this puerile "one of the parties has got to go or I'm gonna form a Third Party" harrumphing.

When I point out that our electoral system only allows for two parties at a time, and third parties cannot, to a mathematical certainty, ever reach the point of significant power, it's generally understood that is the case, but there is much fussing over it. "Why can't a third party succeed?" It's the Math. The two established parties have priority of place (and more money than God, thanks to their Corporate sponsors -- the same corporations sponsoring both parties, how convenient) and an upstart third party, except under very extraordinary conditions, cannot reach a plurality sufficient to take the election before one of the established parties does. It's a built in feature of our winner-take-all electoral system.

Ok, runs the thinking, then one of the parties has to go away: "I know!" chimes the chorus: "The Democrats! Let's make the Democrats go away! I don't like them! They make me sick!"

How... intriguing.

So I point out that we have two wings or branches of a single Corporate Party to choose from right now, and the only viable choice a voter has when one of the Parties is unsatisfactory is the other party. One of the Parties, the Republican Party, is psychotic, demonstrably dangerous, bloodthirsty, rapacious, etc, etc. The other one, the Democrats, is their enabler. So you want the Democrats to go away?

Why not have the psychotic Republicans go away instead?

It's like a new and impossible thought for many people. The idea of disposing of the Dems once and for all is easy to grasp, it seems. They are so disappointing they deserve to expire. "At least with Republicans, you know what you're getting." OK... but they are psycho, certifiable, deeply dangerous.

Why keep them around?

"Well, you just can't 'exterminate' the Republicans! Anyway, there will always be bloodthirsty psychos in politics! It's the way things are!"

Jeebus.

In most civilized societies, bloodthirsty psycho political parties aren't even allowed to begin with. This has to do with something that happened a while back, which fewer and fewer are remembering, when some bloodthirsty psycho parties rose to power in Europe and Asia, primarily, but they have also done their dirty work elsewhere, and commenced to... erm... "misbehave" as is their nature. Leading to, oh I don't know, genocide, mayhem and World War among other things. Psycho parties are dangerous not just on the micro scale of countries, but globally.

We've had experience.

Thus, most civilized societies today ban psycho parties outright.

Yet our psycho Republican Party is constantly indulged, not just by Democrats but by practically everyone. Why?

Why would anyone think that if our current political conundrum calls for the creation of a New Party, in a two party system, the one party that should expire is the "enabling" party, not the "psychotic" party?

This makes no sense, none at all.

It's self evident (at least to me) that if the psychos were locked up and their party was eliminated, the enablers wouldn't have to... enable that psychosis any more and might be free (yay! freedom!) to be and do what they want to be, which is apparently to become the Good-Burgher Moderate/Conservative Technocrat/Manager Party. Of the Republic.

In other words, pretty much what Republicans were in the 1950s.

So my proposal is that we work to get rid of Republican-psychotics, let the Democrats be the Moderate/Conservative Party they really, really, really want to be, in other words, let them become the Right Wing of our political spectrum, the sole (and perhaps appropriate) Corporate Party, and let us build a New Party by coalescing the many leftish "third parties" (Greens, Progressive Labor, Socialists, etc.) into a single People's Party (of the Republic) and go from there.

Makes perfect sense to me. It's OUTRAGEOUS!!!!™ to some others, who insist that it's the Democrats who need to go away or be transformed, infiltrated, turned Left.

I say no. Let the Dems be the Corporate Party they really want to be, and get rid of the Rs. Legally. Build a new People's Party from the kernels already extant, that will operate well to the Left of the Democrats.