Democratic (Party) Direction

wait, what? are you talking about this vote? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13477664/. 39 Democrats opposed a counter-proposal for troop withdrawal with no date specified, but only 13 voted for Kerry's proposal of a complete withdrawwal by July 1, 2007. The previous proposal for a complete withdrawal by 12/31/06 was the one only 6 senators voted for.

"Senate Rejects Dems' Pullout Plan

By a decisive 86-13 vote, the U.S. Senate today rejected John Kerry's proposal for a complete withdrawal from Iraq by July 1 of next year--a completely arbitrary date that replaced the equally arbitrary date in Kerry's last proposal, December 31, 2006.

More Democrats supported the leadership's odd alternative, which called for troop withdrawals to begin but specified no end date. Since the administration is already reducing troop levels and will continue to do so, it isn't clear how, exactly, this measure would represent a change in policy. The Senate rejected it in a 60-39 vote. Lincoln Chafee voted with the Democrats, and six Democrats--Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Joe Lieberman, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson and Mark Dayton--voted with the Republicans."

perhaps you can refer back to my actual words which clearly do not say that 39 senators voted for a complete withdrawal by 12/31/06

b-b-but this is not true! The 39 voted to withdraw troops with no timetable...

its weird that you won't admit you're wrong here. it's okay, it's not that big a deal.

"the question remains whether there is any home in the Democratic Party for a true progressive. Lamont’s victory in the primary certainly doesn’t answer that question. On most issues he’s almost indistinguishable from Lieberman. On Tuesday you had only to travel down I-95 to Georgia to see what happens to real progressives, where the Democratic Party conspired with Fox News and the rest of the press to try to destroy Cynthia McKinney’s political career. For the second time.

The Democratic Party won’t tolerate any outspoken dissent. It is a cheerleader for Israel’s destruction of Lebanon...."

http://counterpunch.org/editors08092006.html

The email they sent out announcing this:(this is a little long)

In this preview of the new book, Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, A Progressive's Handbook by George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute, we present twelve traps to avoid as we make our case to restore an America that is true to its best principles.

Twelve Traps to Avoid
(Excerpted from Chapter One of Thinking Points. The full chapter is available to download for free at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints.)

1. The Issue Trap

We hear it said all the time: Progressives won't unite behind any set of ideas. We all have different ideas and care about different issues. The truth is that progressives do agree at the level of values and that there is a real basis for progressive unity. Progressive values cut across issues. So do principles and forms of argument. Conservatives argue conservatism, no matter what the issue. Progressives should argue progressivism. We need to get out of issue silos that isolate arguments and keep us from the values and principles that define an overall progressive vision.

2. The Poll Trap

Many progressives slavishly follow polls. The job of leaders is to lead, not follow. Besides, contrary to popular belief, polls in themselves do not present accurate empirical evidence. Polls are only as accurate as the framing of their questions, which is often inadequate. Real leaders don't use polls to find out what positions to take; they lead people to new positions.

3. The Laundry List Trap

Progressives tend to believe that people vote on the basis of lists of programs and policies. In fact, people vote based on values, connection, authenticity, trust, and identity.

4. The Rationalism Trap

There is a commonplace--and false--theory that reason is completely conscious, literal (applies directly to the objective world), logical, universal, and unemotional. Cognitive science has shown that every one of these assumptions is false. These assumptions lead progressives into other traps: assuming that hard facts will persuade voters, that voters are "rational" and vote in their self-interest and on the issues, and that negating a frame is an effective way to argue against it.

5. The No-Framing-Necessary Trap

Progressives often argue that "truth doesn't need to be framed" and that the "facts speak for themselves." People use frames--deep-seated mental structures about how the world works--to understand facts. Frames are in our brains and define our common sense. It is impossible to think or communicate without activating frames, and so which frame is activated is of crucial importance. Truths need to be framed appropriately to be seen as truths. Facts need a context.

6. The Policies-Are-Values Trap

Progressives regularly mistake policies with values, which are ethical ideas like empathy, responsibility, fairness, freedom, justice, and so on. Policies are not themselves values, though they are, or should be, based on values. Thus, Social Security and universal health insurance are not values; they are policies meant to reflect and codify the values of human dignity, the common good, fairness, and equality.

7. The Centrist Trap

There is a common belief that there is an ideological "center"--a large group of voters either with a consistent ideology of their own or lined up left to right on the issues or forming a "mainstream," all with the same positions on issues. In fact, the so-called center is actually made up of biconceptuals, people who are conservative in some aspects of life and progressive in others. Voters who self-identify as "conservative" often have significant progressive values in important areas of life. We should address these "partial progressive" biconceptuals through their progressive identities, which are often systematic and extensive.

A common mistaken ideology has convinced many progressives that they must "move to the right" to get more votes. In reality, this is counterproductive. By moving to the right, progressives actually help activate the right's values and give up on their own. In the process, they also alienate their base.

8. The "Misunderestimating" Trap

Too many progressives think that people who vote conservative are just stupid, especially those who vote against their economic self-interest. Progressives believe that we only have to tell them the real economic facts, and they will change the way they vote. The reality is that those who vote conservative have their reasons, and we had better understand them. Conservative populism is cultural--not economic--in nature. Conservative populists see themselves as oppressed by elitist liberals who look down their noses at them, when they are just ordinary, moral, right-thinking folks. They see liberals as trying to impose an immoral "political correctness" on them, and they are angry about it.

Progressives also paint conservative leaders as incompetent and not very smart, based on a misunderstanding of the conservative agenda. This results from looking at conservative goals through progressive values. Looking at conservative goals through conservative values yields insight and shows just how effective conservatives really are.

9. The Reactive Trap

For the most part, we have been letting conservatives frame the debate. Conservatives are taking the initiative on policy making and getting their ideas out to the public. When progressives react, we echo the conservative frames and values, so our message is not heard or, even worse, reinforces their ideas. Progressives need a collection of proactive policies and communication techniques to get our own values out on our own terms. "War rooms" and "truth squads" must change frames, not reinforce conservative frames. But even then, they are not nearly enough. Progressive leaders, outside of any party, must come together in an ongoing, long-term, organized national campaign that honestly conveys progressive values to the public--day after day, week after week, year after year, no matter what the specific issues of the day are.

10. The Spin Trap

Some progressives believe that winning elections or getting public support is a matter of clever spin and catchy slogans--what we call "surface framing." Surface framing is meaningless without deep framing--our deepest moral convictions and political principles. Framing, used honestly at both the deep and surface levels, is needed to make the truth visible and our values clear. Spin, on the other hand, is the dishonest use of surface linguistic frames to hide the truth. And progressive values and principles--the deep frames--must be in place before slogans can have an effect; slogans alone accomplish nothing. Conservative slogans work because they have been communicating their deep frames for decades.

11. The Policyspeak Trap

Progressives consistently use legislative jargon and bureaucratic solutions, like "Medicare prescription drug benefits," to speak to the public about their positions. Instead, progressives should speak in terms of the common concerns of voters--for instance, how a policy will let you send your daughter to college, or how it will let you launch your own business.

12. The Blame Game Trap

It is convenient to blame our problems on the media and on conservative lies. Yes, conservative leaders have regularly lied and used Orwellian language to distort the truth, and yes, the media have been lax, repeating the conservatives' frames. But we have little control over that. We can control only how we communicate. Simply correcting a lie with the truth is not enough. We must reframe from our moral perspective so that the truth can be understood. This reframing is needed to get our deep frames into public discourse. If enough people around the country honestly, effectively, and regularly express a progressive vision, the media will be much more likely to adopt our frames.

You can now download the complete chapter in which this excerpt appears (as well as the preface and introduction) at the Thinking Points section of the Rockridge Institute's website.

Tasini's run, much like Rep. Dennis Kucinich for president in 2004, is just one more pitiful illustration of how antiwar politics in the Democratic Party amount to nothing. They possess no teeth, no backbone, and more importantly, no tangible goals. If antiwar progressives like Jonathan Tasini really want to put pressure on Hillary Clinton and the war party she represents, they wouldn't be Democrats in the first place. Hillary is already piecing together her campaign for the White House in 2008, and the drive to stop her must begin this election season.

Essentially Tasini's campaign against the war ended the very day he conceded to Sen. Clinton. Instead he ought to have passed his torch to another candidate who could carry his antiwar flame up to Election Day. But he didn't. And we shouldn't be surprised. Tasini remains a Democrat and his supporters are now left traversing the murky waters of party politics with no hope for future change within their ranks. And even more depressing -- no hope for bringing our troops home anytime soon.

http://counterpunch.org/frank09202006.html

Bill Curry:

To blame Republicans ignores a glaring truth: Obama’s record is worst where they had little or no role to play. It wasn’t Republicans who prosecuted all those whistle-blowers and hired all those lobbyists; who authorized drone strikes or kept the NSA chugging along; who reneged on the public option, the minimum wage and aid to homeowners. It wasn’t even Republicans who turned a blind eye to Wall Street corruption and excessive executive compensation. It was Obama.

A populist revolt among Democrats is unlikely absent their reappraisal of Obama, which itself seems unlikely. Not since Robert Kennedy have Democrats been so personally invested in a public figure. Liberals fell hardest so it’s especially hard for them to admit he’s just not that into them....

If Democrats can’t break up with Obama or make up with Nader, they should do what they do best: take a poll. They would find that beneath all our conflicts lies a hidden consensus. It prizes higher ethics, lower taxes and better governance; community and privacy; family values and the First Amendment; economic as well as cultural diversity. Its potential coalition includes unions, small business, nonprofits, the professions, the economically embattled and all the marginalized and excluded. Such a coalition could reshape our politics, even our nation.

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/27/my_party_has_lost_its_soul_bill_clinton_barack_obama_and_the_victory_of_wall_street_democrats/

lol make up with Nader

his ideas, shall we say (ie the new book heavily referred to)

In all sincerety, since when did the goalposts move? When were Democrats ever ok?

― Frederik B, Tuesday, May 17, 2016 3:14 PM

From 2012, the Dem platform throughout the quadrennials:

“Today’s Democratic Party believes the first responsibility of government is law and order,” the ’96 document says. In 1972, the party slammed the Nixon administration for using those same words, “ ‘law and order,’ as justification for repression and political persecution.”

The ’96 platform also boasts of establishing “the death penalty for nearly 60 violent crimes,” a sharp reversal from a promise in 1972 to “abolish capital punishment, recognized as an ineffective deterrent to crime, unequally applied and cruel and excessive.”

The Democratic evolution on capital punishment tracks with a shift on pro-gun-control rhetoric, from the 1968 platform’s promise to pass and enforce “effective . . . gun control legislation” and 1996’s praise of “courageous Democrats who defied the gun lobby” by banning assault weapons, to ever-stronger statements in 2004 and 2008 that vow to “protect Americans’ Second Amendment right to own firearms.”

The 2012 document proposes to “focus on effective enforcement of existing laws,” as well as seek to reinstate the ban on assault weapons.

The most radical statement of the party’s liberal vision appears in 1972, when the platform proposes to “guarantee a job for all,” greatly expand public employment, immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam, abolish the Electoral College, break up corporate monopolies and “establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans . . . federally-financed and federally-administered.”

Democrats soon back off that concept, vaguely suggesting in 1992 “a uniquely American reform of the health-care system” and then settling in later years for just making care more affordable....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-party-platform-an-uneven-progression-over-the-years/2012/09/04/b793213e-f144-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_story.html

if there is Clinton-Schumer 'leadership' a year from now, get back to me about how the party has 'swung to the left'

will do!

Democratic Party is the Republican Party. Hillary owes her vaunted "foreign experience" to Bush family policies and neoconservative imperialism. Forget about your precious habeus corpus, she voted for the Patriot Act multiple times.

that isn't totally fair. the left still has values. habeus corpus is still good for undead citizens like corporations and banks.

should I just post a bunch of links to scott lemieux takedowns

Mario Lemieux takedowns please

you can try thinking for yourself

the internet is nothing but links to other things. you have a chance to create something new. something wonderful.

nah that's dumb, I prefer reading, writing and arithmetic

the internet is nothing but links to other things. you have a chance to create something new. something wonderful.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau)

I like your punctuation choices.

Democratic Party is the Republican Party.

funny how the Republican Party doesn't see it that way. Funny how the parties don't work together. Funny how one party is all angry old white guys and the other isn't.

etc.

you are aware of the basic concepts of entertainment? mass media? heightening the drama by playing up their differences is all they have. this is a personality war. this has little to do with actual votes on actual laws.

the parties work together in favor of war spending and corporate special rights. regardless of what any one figurehead presents as the public truth.

the supreme court doesn't even exist!

the parties work together in favor of war spending and corporate special rights

no they don't

yes they do. when they wrote Obamacare they literally had lawyers from the pharma lobby writer drafts of laws for both sides of congress and the senate.

war spending is at record levels with a Democrat president right now.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/02/president_obama_s_military_budget_is_still_one_of_the_biggest_ever.html

there is not across-the-board coordination. Dems have long tried to strip tax breaks from petroleum industry, for ex., which is opposed by the GOP.

as for war spending, remember this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/libya-funding-house-vote-obama-war-powers_n_884029.html

that kind of shit happens all the time. The GOP throughout Obama's tenure has fought to withhold every single thing he could count as a legislative accomplishment, there is not uniform cooperation because the parties have different goals and constituencies. Sometimes those constituencies overlap, but not always. It was Dems that passed Dodd-Frank, and it was GOP that opposed it etc. There are millions of examples of this.

Adam, are you gay?

He's definitely never needed an abortion

Just based on his punctuation choices? Project much?!

war spending is at record levels /= falls only a few billion dollars short of the largest defense budget since the start of the century

the latter also features some major hedging ("since the start of the century" = oh just the last 15 years then, ok). Military spending is always going up because spending is always going up in general (the magic of inflation), what you want to look at is what it's percentage of the overall budget is. I have a hard time believing the current defense budget is anywhere close to Iraq War spending levels as a percentage of the total budget.

If so, then you can see differences between the parties immediately. You're making good points about the corporate money fueling both parties, but even to accuse Dems of being neoliberals is not to say they and the GOP are the same or stand for the same things.

observe the handy "Historical Spending" table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Historical_spending

and draw your own conclusions

steady decline over Obama's tenure:

20.9 17.1 20.7 20.4 19.1 17.5 16.8 16.0

er defense spending as percentage of total budget

2008 - 20.9%
2009 - 17.1%
2010 - 20.7%
2011 - 20.4%
2012 - 19.1%
2013 - 17.5%
2014 - 16.8%
2015 - 16.0%

90% of Americans having health insurance would totally have happened under McCain, though, it's true