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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Another story we don't get from the main stream media is the role of 3rd parties in delivering our greatest reforms. It was socialist party that pressured FDR into the NEW DEAL. Teddy Roosevelt busted trusts only after the Granger and Progressive movements threatened to upset the close political divide.
Fortunately McCain didn't really loose by that much. Only by being fickle and eager to flake off to libertarian or progressive parties the Republicrats will have to shore up their base.
If we don't threaten to vote our conscience we will never be heard. So long as you vote blindly D or R you've muted your vote. I dare say the Ron Paul revolution bullied the conservative Republicans to vote against the bailout. This was done lightly and with little threat.
We must poll 3rd party, think 3rd party and read 3rd party. These offer viable critiques of American policy. I think little effort is needed to understand the Rep. and Dem. positions as those come by osmosis.
Those who read this blog are more prone to vote 3rd party, but we really need to stress this point. Another fine piece Glenn.
But it should be done soberly. Haven’t we had enough jumping up and down without empirical facts for the last eight years?
No, we had remarkably little jumping up and down considering the dreadful facts we did know.
Jebbie - "Bush, to the best of my knowledge never once went against the rightwing whackjobs once they meowed, much less roared. If someone can nudge my memory, it would be appreciated."
Immigration reform comes to mind. Although it never came to fruition it certainly was a stance against the wishes of his most conservative supporters.
Without some more specific reference to who is "jumping up and down" (not to mention what makes some facts "empirical" and some not), it's really hard to know just what you're so up in arms about.
...However, not in stating that a politician is by definition one who responds to political pressure. In our system (supposedly a republican democracy) the one group that is supposed to count the most counts the least - the citizens! Our politicians respond exclusively to the members of a very small elite club: #1 Moneyed interests #2 other political office holders #3 elite media...EXCEPT during some periods in our history when the people get off their ass and organize!...
The Obama Team has allowed the re-entry of a fourth member to the club: mass media/mass people last seen somewhere, sometime in the 1970's surrounded by a bunch of hippies and a large ganja love cloud. This time it takes the form of a virtual constituency staging a blog-in, e-in, viral communication and becoming a real constituency going out and getting something done. So far that is just getting a guy elected, but who knows what will be accomplished if they keep it up!
The danger is that Obama will enter the bubble that is the u.s. presidency never to really be seen or heard from again. It is his supporters and, as Greenwald points out his critics, that have brought Obama to where he is. Obama himself constantly said if you actually really listened to the guy that basically he is going to do nothing; that we would have to do what needs to be done, but we/he can't do it if we allow the good 'ol boys to get back to business as usual...
Haven’t we had enough jumping up and down without empirical facts for the last eight years?
What we've actually had is too little questioning of the President, too much blind support for him, too much power and trust placed in him and the apparatuses he controls that they know what's best, are doing the right thing, are telling us what we need to know and no more.
Glen,
I think that we need to avoid applying "political pressure" just for appearance sake. He said that "...we are going to close Guantanomo." He was unequivacal about it and offered some rather pragmatic insight into the difficulties in unraveling this particular Bush mess. You run the risk of being Hannity's evil twin by exagerating and conflating Obama 's words at every percieved slight. For example, by pointing out that Bush has said similar things, you conflate obama's intentions with Bush's. Another example was when Obama responded to the "advice" of Dick (the) Cheney:
"Before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it. Because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead and it would be a tragedy if they threw over those policies simply because they’ve campaigned against them."
Obama's response:
"I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric,"
He has been criticized for apparently agreeing with Cheney when in fact the context and tone of his reply was to imply that Bush et al did not "...know what’s going on before we [they] make judgments ".
... but loudness and moral high ground have nothing on $$$ put in politicians' pockets. Haven't the past 8 years more than demonstrated the feeble effects of "criticisms, political pressure"?
...you believe that Obama read some blogs and suddenly changed his mind. How dumb can you get? At the most -- the very most -- he released his policy earlier than intended. To believe he fashioned a policy after a few days/weeks of blog outcry is nuts, and even an insult to the man. What next...blogs will demand big cars will be banned and he'll go for that, too?
Of course, Bush never bent to political pressure where it really mattered.-- behindthecurtain
Samuel Alito and Harriet Miers would beg to differ.-- Scientician
So would advocates in both parties of comprehensive immigration reform.-- GlennGreenwald
And don't forget the best moment of Bush buckling under to political pressure and having to eat a shit sandwich: Believing he had earned enough "political capital" in 2004 to privatize Social Security.
I notice the GOP's newest tactic in trying to eliminate Social Security is to claim (in their usual lockstep, intensely orchestrated manner) that "everybody now agrees on both sides of the political spectrum" that FDR's New Deal failed... Thankfully, that 'belief' in 2009 has gained about as much traction as the privatizing scheme did in 2004.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
