But the fact that the GOP can afford to dump $330k into a race just to keep the opposition from scoring a few bragging points (or to punish the crime of lese majesty — take your pick) is a sign of just how much of a financial supercharge 10 years of DeLayism have given the machine.
Back to Main
July 29, 2005
WB: Sucker Pitch
Comments
Sam Smith offers some concrete suggestions for running a real Opposition Party.
DeA says:
am I suggesting “sauve qui peut”? maybe so. it is hard for me to say at this point which is the less responsible course — to invest our efforts locally in resilience and grass roots democracy, or to tilt at Washington’s windmills in an effort to affect the Big Picture. an argument can be made that either one is a waste of time or an abandonment of responsibility.
Both need to be done. You can only do one. People shouldn’t feel guilty about their finiteness. Which one is a better expenditure of your time? Do that, and support the people doing the other when you can.
Citizen K, it appears that your experiences in DumbFuckistan have left you unable to comprehend positions of any complication.
The reason we criticise the US now is that the US is doing this shit now. You think that spending our time beating our breasts about what the Belgians did decades ago will help organise the opposition? Your reaction to criticisms of the US is to bring up something that someone else did ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years ago that everyone here already agrees was wrong. Those people are dead. The ones that will be killed as a consequence US actions today are not dead as I write this. Do you see a difference here?
How big is the task?? Does it occur to anyone that w/all the time the Unpatriotic Act has been under discussion, there has been almost no discussion about it? So much for the much lauded “left blogistan”. Totally effing useless. Look what i just found – not great discussion, but better than anything else readily available for non-lawyers.
If anyone still thinks we live in a democracy, you had better take yr. blood pressure medication, wire your jaw, & read on. link
Let us consider the powers of the Patriot Act II:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the definition of “enemy combatant” to all American citizens who “may” have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is “any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.”) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn’t broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person “had inferred from conduct” that they were not US citizens. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the “enemy combatant” terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not have to tell the press who they have arrested, and they never have to release the names.
…
It gets worse & worse. It’s wayyy beyond the power of my brain even to allow the information inside. Does someone want to do a thread? But, what’s the point now? Where the f have the blogs been while this has been going on? Busy screaming “treason” over the mere release of the name of a goddamn CIA agent. Like big deal. We have just lost the constitution & any concept of freedom or the ability to dissent, except at the sufferance of the Godfathers. Which is more treasonable.
Oh, and two more things. Not One “Dem.” in the Senate said NO. So, much for that piece of garbage. And secondly, it is all now permanent. Gee, isn’t it great that Howard Dean is head of the Party!! Yea!! Go Howard Go!! Progressives are taking back the Party!!
Posted by: jj | Aug 2 2005 7:01 utc | 204
I want to take a small moment of everyone’s time to thank them for this invective-filled discourse. It has been in turns depressing, bracing, offensive, inspiring and irritating. The degree of frustration everyone is feeling and the contributions they have made indicate to me that we are not sinking into defeatism and apathy after all… and hearing a good many of my own suspicions and outrages spilling from other posters has reassured me that maybe I am not as far off the deep-end as I sometimes feel I must be when all I have to go by is the yardstick of the MSM.
Special thanks go out to Jassalasca Jape and DeAnander for helping me to refine some of my own ideas about the details and direction that healthy progress should be making; Alabama and Debs is Dead for affirming many of my own fears, misgivings and frustrations and for dealing with them more civilly and patiently than is my wont; Slothrop and R’Giap for their unwavering idealism and reminders of the bigger picture; citizen k, razor and groucho for their rebuttals, and everyone else (including Billmon himself) for their thoughtful, if divisive, diatribes and contributions.
This may sound like a lame, cheese-filled bit of peacemaking on my part. It really isn’t. We tend to learn more from our failures than our successes, and I have definitely been more inspired by the ideas I disagree with than those with which I am in accord. The disagreements we have had here have given me more to consider than a friendly and civil discourse would have. At the very least, I am reassured that there are still people out there who look at the world around them and are as pissed off about it as I am. I could see a left falling into collapse with internal bickering, but what I actually see is the ugly process of refining our ideas and putting our pent-up and too often unspoken nastiness out there to be dealt with and maybe even resolved. Catharses are very rarely pretty things to watch.
So take your swords back up and I will continue taking notes.
Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 2 2005 7:37 utc | 205
@jj
You snuck that one in there while I was waxing all conciliatory.
Yeah.
“But, what’s the point now? Where the f have the blogs been while this has been going on?”
Good questions. I don’t run a blog of my own and am reduced to haunting the comments sections of places like this. When the first USAPATRIOT Act came out, I ordered a copy from the National Defense Library and spent about two hours xeroxing the damned thing. I read it, realised the implications, and screamed bloody murder for about a month while people patted me on the head and told me I was over-reacting. “Put the tin foil hat back on and don’t worry about it. You’re not a terrorist, so it doesn’t apply to you.”
By the time the second USAPATRIOT Act came out, I was beaten down about the subject. I could cite passages from the first one, but because nobody ran any substantive stories about it (and nobody I was speaking with had actually read the damned thing), I could not link to anything to support what I was saying. Besides, I was just posting comments on someone else’s blog. What the fuck did I know?
I’m filled with a mixture of horror and smugness now that my worst predictions have come to pass. Not here, of course… I hadn’t discovered MoA before I got beaten down on this issue. More than the Iraq War (which I also took to the streets to protest), the USAPATRIOT Act was my personal bête noir issue. Having seen all of this coming, and having done all I could do to alert people to it, what I feel is not surprise. I am just gravely disappointed. And angrier than ever at the damned Democrats. Kucinich alone opposed the first draft… I haven’t the heart to check to see how he responded to this one.
I’m sure this is how Cassandra must have felt. Or possibly George Orwell. I don’t feel vindicated at all (who could possibly?)… I just wish each new issue after this wouldn’t meet with the same scepticism this one did.
Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 2 2005 7:54 utc | 206
@Mono – if you have any other things similarly weighing upon you pls. don’t be shy about sharing them in the future, whatever future we may have that is. I stupidly figured it was getting taken care of ‘cuz I’ve read so little about it.
For all the squawking mistaking courage for testosterone, it’s only the Librarians, overwhelmingly women, who’ve protested & fought against this, one should note.
We also have not discussed what plans the Pirates have for us such that they’ve thought it necessary to Destroy the Constitution.
Does anyone know how the WSJ editorial page has weighed in just out of curiosity?
Posted by: jj | Aug 2 2005 8:06 utc | 207
@jj
I’ve shared my misgivings in very abbreviated form here. The issues I am most concerned about now are the decimation (and elimination) of environmental laws (and the prosecution of environmentalists as “terrorists”) and the war against the poor. Of course the atrocities of the Iraq War make me positively sick, and the people who voted for it while simultaneously maintaining that we have $US350 billion to kill and torture people with but can’t afford to have a universal healthcare program… but this issue, at least, is getting some nominal press. (Actually, there is no contradiction about the money issue. As I stated elsewhere, if we could give people access to healthcare, fewer of them would feel desperate enough to join the US military… and those poor recruiters are having trouble enough as it is.)
“For all the squawking mistaking courage for testosterone, it’s only the Librarians, overwhelmingly women, who’ve protested & fought against this, one should note.
Perhaps this is why I have viewed the USAPATRIOT Act as evil from day one. I live with a University reference librarian. People can scream about supporting gun-toting neanderthals all they want, if you want to talk to a true patriot, talk to one of our archivists, librarians and their support staff. Just don’t talk very loudly or they’ll shush you.
Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 2 2005 8:28 utc | 208
Mrs. Cleaver! I see you made it back from that Little League meeting. Did all you mothers get socked out on meth and trash the clubhouse? It’s always the same with those suburban moms, isn’t it?
Make sure while I’m gone that you and Bettie don’t stir up any trouble around here with her lewd, crude, rude and socially unacceptable innuendos. You should ignore her if she shows up. This is high church high dudgeon, you know.
Or did you hire her after all?
Watch out for those nannies. Jude Law and all that.
Well, I’m off to do my part to pervert the minds of young men. tata for now!
Posted by: fauxreal | Aug 2 2005 12:50 utc | 209
Colman: The people who support the EU agriculture subsidy that starves and displaces tens of millions worldwide, at the least, are dead? The French and British and Czech arms traders are retired? The mischief of the French and Belgian armies in Rwanda is ancient history ? (- oh, I forgot, it is justified by the deficiencies of the present government of Rwanda who are, according to the most reliable French sources, responsible for the murder of 2million of their countrymen under a French armed and trained army while France stood by. ) The zealous enforcement of pharma patents by Germany (which has moral qualms about software patents that they don’t hold) is from medeival times? The Dutch troops that closed their eyes at Sbrenica are distant memories – in fact, the sad reality that it took Al Gore to force a late and ambivalent intervention against genocide in Europe – that’s all yesterday, man? And of course, we all know that British banks stopped collecting debts from poor nations like hundreds of years ago?
Hiroshima was destroyed while the ovens as Auswitzch were still warm and Japanese doctors were still practicing vivisection in Manchuria. You all live in the sausage factory and, covered in the same stinking debris as us, shake your fingers in disgust.
Posted by: citizen k | Aug 2 2005 12:54 utc | 210
Debs: I’m neither in denial nor excusing the US Imperium. My first observation is tactics. It appears to me that the theo-cons will be defeated in only two ways: a combination of outside pressure and internal opposition or eventually by self destruction accompanied by general destruction. The second course, the one tried by the Wiemar era german communists doesn’t have much appeal. For the first course, if our enlightened friends in Europe don’t start a program more useful than whining about America there will be no effective outside pressure while inside the beast, the slogans “Americans are criminals and so crass to boot” and “I’m washing my hands as fast as I can” don’t seem like good candidates for rousing much of an opposition outside the faculty lounge.
My second observation is analysis. Venting makes a poor substitute for analysis. Yeah yeah, bad America seems like self-therapy more than an effort to understand the world.
History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken, said some dead white man or another.
Posted by: citizen k | Aug 2 2005 13:50 utc | 211
Further to Mon and jj’s discussion above on Patriot and those Dem reptiles who voted for it.
It is pretty obvious to me that this, passage and making it permanent, and many other legislative moves like funding the war etc., don’t reflect the conscience or the personal sense of these legislators or of their constituents. Sure, some are that evil; they have been sucked in. But most are not that stupid.
The power of threats and bribery must have a lot to do with it, but certainly there is a force at work whose definition is still much too hazy to grasp. I say this because I find it impossible to accept that a “developed” human society can be so vicious to certain classes of its membership.
We appear to be flailing at the perceived perps and not taking much time to study the cause of the problem. It would be worth our while to do so. (That’s an invitation)
BTW, Tom Flocco has a new piece this morning entitled, BUSH AND CHENEY INDICTED. Go check it out.
Posted by: rapt | Aug 2 2005 14:07 utc | 212
This thread, despite the tendency to get personal, is one of the most important I’ve read anywhere and I’m grateful for its existence. This discussion, every bit of it, is badly needed in America.
As I said a couple of days ago I am the organizer of a group of people (not necessarily in Dumbfuckistan) although I do belong to an antiwar group in the heart of this region where I lived for 7 years recently and they are anything but dumb fucks. Our focus is on supporting progressive (whatever that means these days) candidates whether or not they are endorsed by the party.
We do this two ways. Educating ourselves on issues, such as depleted uranium, electronic voting machines, Iraq, medical care, the environment, etc. We invite experts in and hold public forums on these issues.
We invite all candidates to speak with us, Greens, even moderate Republicans. We welcome all opinions. Some of us to the chagrin of Citizen K will not vote for for or support candidates like Paul Hackett. Others will.
No one in our group suffers illusions that we will be able to do very much but we’re trying.
So why don’t y’all put up some suggestions here and say what you think the most effective way to encourage the Democratic party to change apart from just providing more obedient poll workers and voters.
Posted by: jd | Aug 2 2005 14:08 utc | 213
Colman
Who can’t handle complications without defensiveness?
The ones that will be killed as a consequence US actions today are not dead as I write this. Do you see a difference here?
Which ones are those? As best I can tell, deaths of innocents only register with you if they can be comfortably, if uncomplicatedly, identified as, “killed as a consequence of US actions”
Prove me wrong. All those woefully lost innocents from Hussein and Khameni, cite your diary entries woeing the losses and raging against tyranny. Cite you diary entries woeing a Europe that won’t do shit about its own monsters feeding on innocents until the United States, once again, acts to stop the slaughter.
I’m not defensive about the Untied States. I’m offensive because precious few are in the position to criticize.
And, when it was time to do something about Iraq, and the United States government was in the grip of fools, what did Europe do, collectively, individually, and as a group of critics, to address the problem.
Abso
fuckinglutely
nothing.
The Iraq adventure did not happen in a separate universe. It happened in a universe where it is more important the Poles keep their mouths shut than that the French deal with real problems. Even today there is much that could be done by Europe to change the dynamic for Iraquis for the better. And what is being done?
Talking shit that Europeans like to talk.
Thanks.
Posted by: razor | Aug 2 2005 14:10 utc | 214
Teuton:
I’ve heard that silly monologue too. Have you heard this variant which is not much better?
–
“Why do they hate us?” (The pronoun clearly indicates that the people who allegedly hate all the time are not addressed at all. The answer is to come from the peer group.)
“Um, sorry, we don’t hate ‘you’. We abhor your government and what it doesn’t do in the name of democracy, freedom and what not.”
“But we mean well. We stand for all that is good. We protest against agribusiness at the McDonalds every Saturay unless it it is raining (The EU has an agri subsidy?). And we ride bicycles to work and read Liberation (or similar) religiously. We protest big American corporations, because Siemens and EDF and Barclays and Shell are not our business.”
“Beg your pardon, but you don’t have a clue. You don’t do anything except feel good about your goodness. Look at what your gov is doing in your name outside the EU and how horribly it treats immigrants to your country.”
“But it’s all the fault of American imperialism. Our media tell us that our governments either do good or are hapless puppets. In any case, it is not our fault.”
“Your media stink. Independent and/or truthful reporting has all but vanished in your country.”
“That’s a lie.” [Turning away, addressing their peer group:] “Why do they hate us?”
Hope the contributors at MoA do not feel that they are being addressed here, but I have had at least two conversations along those lines fairly recently.
Posted by: citizen k | Aug 2 2005 15:02 utc | 215
Good suggestion, JD.
I’ve been trying to get something like you suggest going everytime this type of discusion has come up here in the last two years.
Seems like many prefer to gnash their teeth, proclaim their purity, or throw pity parties for their alleged or self-perceived political impotence.
Then the subject comes up 3 months later, with the same result.
You might want to ask b to create a separate thread for this discussion. it would keep us of the Billmon threads and the open threads
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 2 2005 15:27 utc | 216
citizen k,
no, I haven’t heard that variant (our media haven’t reported it!), but it sounds not quite unlikely. I guess I deserved that – and knew it was coming when I posted that oversimplified thing.
There is no monopoly on smugness, so I thought I was entitled to my share.
But I have to wonder: Why do you hate me? 😉
Posted by: teuton | Aug 2 2005 17:11 utc | 217
You all have something worthwhile to say. Its all good. So why not give me suggestions on what I can do to help our group change things, starting in our own community and beyond. We have a good group of smart, dedicated, demoralised, suffering human beings who want to do something besides send money and get the vote out for traiters who go to congress and vote against us.
Posted by: jd | Aug 2 2005 18:47 utc | 219
@JD:
The DeA link that Citizen K referenced above would be as good a place to start as any.
As usual DeA has brought us some very interesting food for thought.
Posted by: Groucho | Aug 2 2005 18:57 utc | 220
(Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is “any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.”)
oh boy. so I can finally get the schmuck who habitually drives his SUV through my residential n’hood at 45 mph arrested and carted off to Gitmo, for endangering human life while breaking State law? how about an industrial combine that emits life threatening toxins in excess of EPA (Fed law) regs? terrorists! take them away!
this wording is so damn vague that “selective enforcement” is blinking on and off in red lights off every page. what was that tight little crooked beach burg in the Chandler novels? the one where all the cops belonged to the local mafia guy… where Marlowe wakes up in a cushy mental hospital after interfering one time too many… anyway, Karl Rove and the Rovesters, with their opening act G. W. and the Cheneyettes, seem to be working on turning the whole damn country into that town. and it’s working…
Posted by: DeAnander | Aug 2 2005 19:57 utc | 221
Re: Sucker Pitch
In your post about the Hackett campaing you made reference to Ohio’s “Hillbilly Belt”. You may have intended this in jest or in some light way but I believe this kind of comment is destructive to the causes you advocate. We all know that the Right delights in describing liberals as a bunch of elitists. This kind of comment does nothing but give them ammunition. If I were an undecided OH-2 voter and read this I would be a little more motivated to vote against a candidate that has the support of people who regard my district as the home of subhumans. We should be focusing on converting the wavering not pissing them off.
Posted by: Seth | Aug 2 2005 20:13 utc | 222
Well, Billmon, what say you now? 52 – 48. And those pricks doubtless cheated too.
I think the thugs are in deep shit, not just in OH, but lots of places. Like the Fish that’s sucked dry by a lamprey, it just takes a while.
Posted by: Duckman GR | Aug 3 2005 4:13 utc | 223
The whole thing is a mess.
We’ve got Europeans defending Brussels Freemasonry by blaming Americans.
And we’ve got Americans defending DC Freemasonry by blaming europeans.
And NOWHERE on this blog do you ever see the forbidden word.
Posted by: john | Aug 3 2005 12:56 utc | 224