Structural Flaws

by Chris Bowers, Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 08:09:01 AM EST

Regular readers will know that I have argued the number one priority for the Democratic Party post-election has become an ideological one: we need to grow liberalism and shrink conservatism. What I have done comparatively little to discuss, however, is just how we go about such a Herculean task. John Judis has recently produced just such a piece over at TNR, which descartes has already produced a diary to discuss. Judis's piece is absolutely dynamite, as it brings a healthy dose of materialism to a public discussion of American political discourse that is typically only found within academia. Whether its blogs, talk radio, cable news, Sunday talk or print periodicals, more often than not materialistic viewpoints on contemporary American politics are hard to find.

When it comes to the condition of contemporary liberalism, the lack of materialist thought is a tragedy, since the economic structures and large institutions--material conditions--that form our society play an essential role in producing and shaping the thought of our society. In other words, Judis correctly points out that if the fortunes of liberalism are to be reversed, the material conditions that produce our politics must be structurally altered:

If you look at the history of liberalism, what you discover is not reassuring. From 1932 through 1974--even when Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were president--liberals got much of their program enacted, but, since then, they have failed abysmally. In 1977, Jimmy Carter championed bills that matched almost perfectly what Starr includes in his liberal agenda--"progressive taxation, affordable health care ... environmental [and] labor protection"--but Carter failed to get any of them passed even though he had a sizable Democratic majority in Congress; in 1993 and 1994, Bill Clinton couldn't enact his signature health care measure with an almost equally large congressional majority.

It is convenient to blame these failures on incompetence, but the truth is that structural factors were more important. Liberalism's success from the '30s through the 1960s was based primarily upon certain special economic and political conditions: popular pressure from below, business' acquiescence in reform, and the conviction of the nation's opinion-makers that reform was good for America. Since then, dramatic changes in the international economy have turned business against reform and weakened the other forces supporting reform. Liberalism is by no means defunct, but it has been put on the defensive--most particularly, in this second Bush term. If Democrats want to revive liberalism, and not merely win office for themselves, they will have to address--and, where possible, rectify--the conditions that have undermined it.(...)

To revive liberalism fully--to enjoy a period not only of liberal agitation, but of substantial reform--would probably require a national upheaval similar to what happened in the '30s and '60s. That could happen, but it doesn't appear imminent.(...)

Liberals would also have to rebuild the infrastructure of democratic pluralism through encouraging, subsidizing, and defending unions and whatever other form of countervailing social organization is feasible--from community groups to Internet-based virtual communities. The Republicans took this lesson from the older New Deal movement and have built a political infrastructure of their own while attempting to destroy what the Democrats have constructed. Liberals would have to do whatever is necessary--including, above all, tightening labor law--to rebuild their movement from below.

If you have a subscription to TNR, I highly recommend reading the entire piece. Without going into too much detail, I would like to present the outline of a program to structurally alter the electorate and the institutions that shape opinion that I believe would allow for the desired increase in liberalism and decline in conservatism nationwide:

Countering The Republican Noise Machine. As long as conservatives have built a message machine that completely dominates liberalism when it comes to the distribution and dissemination of political thought, there is absolutely no hope that liberalism will grow and conservatism will decline. This must remain our number one priority at all times. It entails not only altering the content of existing outlets of political information, but also the creation of new outlets. In other words, we must build our C3's and C4's, keep supporting blogs and listening to Air America, working against companies such as Sinclair, fighting media consolidation and trying to pass laws such as The Fairness Doctrine.
Structural union reorganization along the lines suggested by Andy Stern and the New Unity Partnership, in addition to revamped law surrounding labor organizing, including public and private sector card check nationwide. If workplace union density does not increase, liberalism will have a difficult time growing.
Election reform. This includes voting reform that serves to end the mass disenfranchisement liberal voters, campaign finance reform that reduce the power of the wealthy over the political process, redistricting reform that ends Republican gerrymanders, and even statehood reform that allows the residents of D.C. and Puerto Rico an equal voice in our national elections.
The fostering of new mass membership organizations on the left. I do not believe that the new online communities and expanding unions alone can be the answer. We need many new types of civic and grassroots organizations that will serve as outlets of information, action and coordination. In fact, the decline of such organizations has been instrumental in the effectiveness of the Republican Noise Machine. More than ever, people receive their information and arguments from pundits rather than each other.

For the past two generations Republicans have successfully put in place structural conditions that have fostered the rise of conservatism, and they are still doing o. Minorities tend to vote for Democrats, so minorities have been disenfranchised through voter intimidation and new crime laws. Unions and lawyers tend to support Democrats, so unions have been mercilessly busted and now legislation is being passed to defund the legal profession. With the decline of mass membership organizations, more and more people receive their information from the media, so a Noise Machine was constructed. Forward thinking Republican strategists understood that the material conditions that produce our political though and elected officials needed to be changed in order for conservatives to triumph, and if Democrats are to reverse this trend they must do the same. Victory cannot be achieved solely through some sort of idealized Democratic dialogue and Jeffersonian persuasion and showing people "the truth." It must also be achieved by altering the institutions and material conditions that determine what truth actually is.

Tags: Ideology (all tags)

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But you can't change the media noise machine

if you recommend subscribing to, or staying subscribed to "The New Republic"! It is part of the republican noise machine. Judis is their only good liberal and you will be mostly paying for people like Beinart and Martin Peretz, not to mention a bunch of neocons that lied us into the war. Let Judis get a job elsewhere if he wants to be read. He also could have published this in "The American Prospect". He works there too.

by noalternative 2005-02-19 08:31AM | 0 recs

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I agree that we need to defend our positions

But I also think that Judis is also arguing that we need to learn how to make Liberalism more appealing to 21st century Americans. At some point democrats are going to need to starting thinking of how reachout to other groups in order to expand their coalition beyond the frayed New Deal coalition.

by descrates 2005-02-19 08:36AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

The democrats are losing groups that previously voted for them.

The Catholics are gone because of abortion
The farmers are gone because the republicans decided to buy them out, and farmers hate gays.
Jews, more and more are voting for Republicans when they used to vote almost as a bloc for the dems.
The white middle class male laborer is gone because of three things welfare for minorities, immigration, and defense policy.

The republicans hold all the cards and are in a bad position if the policies they have enacted in the last 4 head to some major economic downturn.

Average people don't know alot about politics and all the insider knowledge, but they trust the republicans. Trust is easily lost but not easily gained.

by Christopher Hitchens 2005-02-19 09:14AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

The white middle class laborer is also gone because of weak unions. Middle of the road democrats that think outsourcing is a good idea like the people at TNR aren't helping us there.

The Jewish defection to the republicans is exagerrated way out of proportion to reality. Kerry only loss three percent at most relative to Gore. The only Jewish group the favors republicans is also anti gay marriage and anti abortion, namely the orthodox.

by noalternative 2005-02-19 09:52AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

If unions are weak its becuase when the GOP assulted them (Reagan era) the Democrats did nothing to help.

This is why union households do not identify with the D party.

Also agreeing with policies that outsource millions of jobs will not win you a labor constituency.

In fact you are wrong, middle class Americans do not agree that outsourcing is a good idea. What is happening is that the corporate media has played the issue in favor of that view for more than a decade and people have been heavily propagandized to the point where they have given up hope that the issue can be turned around.

In fact it can and it must be changed, otherwise the US is headed toward true thrid world living and working conditions.

by leschwartz 2005-02-19 10:16AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

Nicely said! Its about trust.

by Christopher Hitchens 2005-02-19 10:21AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

I would sum the problems of the middle class workers has more to do with the problems of globalization in addtion to the chaging nature of the economy with respect to computers, the internet, and robotics. Automation eliminates jobs. No union can stop that. That's why the Democrats need to articulate the need for a welfare state, and why there's is better than the republicans have to offer.

Anytime you lose anybody in your coalition that used to be rock solid for you, that's bad. I'd rather have all the people that would vote for me if weren't for abortion and gays, vote for me, than the people who actively support abortion and gays.

by Christopher Hitchens 2005-02-19 10:19AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

You are repeating the;

"globalization, - can't do nothing about it"
propaganda.

In fact a lot can be done about it.

Globalization does not have to proceed in a way that brings us all to third world living and working conditions.

That bit of propaganda is what the corporations have drummed into a gulible public. Don't fall for it.

None of the costs that business have externalized with these trade laws goes away when the corporation gets what it wants.

There is no free lunch in economics, but the coroporations think they have invented the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine for the wealthy classes. That machine is about to break down permanently.

For example, corporations like WalMart put BILLIONs of dollars of business and operating costs on the backs of tax payers in their communities across the US by not paying a living wage, forcing people onto welfare, displacing factories and employment in the US.

No business has a god given inalenable right to sell into the US market or right to use the US infrastructure and not help to pay for it, but that is just what the R and D party has let them do.

The US trade deficit is UNSUSTAINABLE.

The US budget deficit is skyrocketing.

Bush's agenda is unsustainable economically and politically. He wants four more wars but the costs and manpower will not be coming his way. He thinks he can get the money by killing all social welfare programs, but theat is not politically sustainable.

Meanwhile, both the R and D party never talk about the FACTs, that buankruptcy and forclosures in the Us have hit decades high rates, that poverty in the US has grown steadily for the past four years, that most homeless people have jobs, just ones that do not pay a living wage.

The GOP brags about creating 100k jobs a month when it takes job creation abot 150k a month just to keep up with the growth of the eligable workforce. Millions of people have been unemployed for years at a time and are no longer counted because the systems declares them "discouraged."

Real unemployment in many communities across the US is at 9 - 10%.

The twin deficit problem is bringing the US dollar to its knees and Greenspan's plan to raise interest rates in order to continues to finance these deficits will bring a weak US economy to a standstill. There is no evidence that rising US interest rates have stemmed the decline in investment into the US given the rise of the Euro and the economic boom in India and China, that is were world capital inflows are focussed.

We are on an unsustainable path in the US and if the D party continues to support this path, it is doomed. There is no need for two republican parties in the US.

This paradign of an economic model is on its death bed even if the average US citizen does not realize it yet, and even if (as you demonstrate) people have bought into the corporate porpaganda, "globalization - nothing you can do about it."

by leschwartz 2005-02-19 11:06AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

On the golbalization front, I agree that something can be done and should be done so that American workers aren't feeling the pain. I also agree that if the Dems don't wake up and take a stand a third party will rise that does care and will do something.

Still, the force of automation to eliminate jobs is one that is growing ever faster. In the long run, I think a some forward thinking is going to be needed as we make the adjustment to an economy that grows with less and less jobs- not more and more which is the intuitve way to look at the economy.

Take silicon valley that has, on the one hand, outsourced jobs, and on the other, had a big increase in productivity due to the computer hardware and software they help create. There you have the a large job loss. In the manufacturing industry the factories are going overseas never to return. At the same time industries that aren't outsourcing are modernizing and automating, eliminating jobs.

The dems need to tackle the changing economy, or else.

by Christopher Hitchens 2005-02-19 11:41AM | 0 recs

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You are dead on...

This from John Williams at Gillespie research.

The January 2005 popularly followed unemployment rate U-3 declined from 5.43% to 5.23% in November, seasonally adjusted, at the published +/- 0.2% margin of error of the household survey. The improvement, however, appears to have been due largely to poor-quality seasonal adjustments at a time of large seasonal gyration. Unadjusted, U-3 widened from 5.1% to 5.7%. In like manner, the broader U-6 unemployment measure widened from 9.1% to 10.2%, unadjusted, and it held at 9.3% in January, seasonally adjusted. Including the long-term "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton administration, total unemployment remained roughly 12.3%.

Setting the tone for a weak payroll survey, the January household survey showed a seasonally-adjusted employment gain of 85,000, after a 137,000 decline in December. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has never been able to reconcile household and payroll survey results to within a million aggregate jobs.

The January payroll survey showed a weaker than expected, seasonally-adjusted gain of 146,000, including all adjustments related to the annual benchmark revision. December's previously reported 157,000 jobs gain was revised to 133,000, with annual growth rising from 1.66% in December to 1.69% in January.

And if anyone is not noticing the size of the civilian labor force declined by 254,000 people in the latest report, from 148.203 million to 147.949 million. The trend for the last six months in the size of the labor force is down...

And of course in addtion to all of those deficit numbers you raise, consumer installment debt now stands at 2.104 trillion, meaning that each houseold is now in debt to the tune of 20k on average, add in the federal debt which stands at about 10 trillion (including the trust fund debt) and all of those houseolds owe nearly 110,000 bucks before you add in such things as mortgages, and any other expenses.

Of course, just paying back all of that debt, if it were to stop being incurred right now, would take the sum total of the federal taxes paid by 60% of the country 30 years to pay off...

And that's before you factor in the fact that incomes are falling as be compete with 10 cents an hour labor in the third world...

But were not in imminent danger of fiscal collapse according to the talking heads...

by laughingriver 2005-02-20 06:22AM | 0 recs

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Re: I agree that we need to defend our positions

Healthcare should be the issue that will win back the core. The fear of socialized medicine is not as great as it was back in the early 90's. Everyone is fighting their insurers, coverage is being dropped and ordinary people are being bankrupted. Take the win I expect we will have on Social Security and frame the health debate in the same terms. Working collectively to make all of us stronger. This issue transcends the workplace dynamic and it doesn't stimulate a huge amount of corporate resistence.

by giff56 2005-02-20 04:36AM | 0 recs

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Great diary

I just want to add one thing under the heading of increasing our number of civic organizations that have the effect of unions: We've got to win some more churches.

Don't get me wrong, now; I completely support the strategy of largely forgetting about the South, particularly in presidential elections. We don't need white churches in which hatred and racism poisons the loving doctrines preached by Christ, but we do need to do more to reach out to Northern and MidWestern white churches--both protestant and Catholic, and including the evangelical church--where the argument can be fruitfully made that the message of Christ is loving one's neighbor as oneself, caring for the poor and the widows, and meekly turning the other cheek.

I'm not a Christian myself, but I've had a lot of success in my life speaking with Christians about the ethical implications of the New Testament. Sure they frustrate us these days, and certainly it seems that they are on the other team, but we have to make more inroads into Christian communities. It'll be hard to win presidential elections without such an effort, and, on the positive side, such communities of progressives talking weekly about values wuold be a huge ally.

For info on one area where Christians are already hard at work on the side of Dems, see the excellent responses of these guys to Bush's budget: that budgets are statements of moral values. In the context of expanding liberalism, then: How can we in the 'sphere better leverage their efforts?

by Colorado Gringo 2005-02-19 09:20AM | 0 recs

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Re: Great diary

You can't completely forget about the South. It's too many electoral votes, congressional votes, state houses, and senate seats to write off. Dean is right, we need to win in South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi.

More importantly, not all Southerners think alike. After all, the last two Democrats elected to the White House (three if you count Gore) were white Southern Baptists. Also, black Churches are one of the biggest places where Democratic policies are supported in the South, and the South has a lot of black people who go to Church.

There needs to be an alternative voice to that of the religious right. A voice that views Jimmy Carter as what a "born again" President should be and not George W. Bush. There is no reason why any sort of "values based" messages should not be tried in the South.

Likewise, not all Christians think alike. Catholics were terribly cross-pressured in the last election. Most couldn't stand Bush for the war or his economic policies, but didn't like Kerry for his position on abortion and a few other moral/ethical issues. I talked to one Catholic woman who told me how much Bush's economic policies were hurting her family, but said she would vote for him anyway because of the abortion issue.

Unfortunately, this party is losing too many of the "cross-pressured" voters. It's depressing to have someone agree with you on 95% of the issues, but vote the other way on the 5%. The right wing is winning, not because they are people agree with them on the issues, but because their positions on the issues tend to draw more single issue voters. We need a strategy to counter-act this, so that people see health care as being as pro-life (if not more so) than opposing abortion, and so that protecting game lands for future generations is seen as important to hunters as protecting gun rights. We need to win these voters.

by wayward 2005-02-19 05:45PM | 0 recs

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Rebuilding the D party is not an exercise in

political theory.

It requires rebuilding the constituencies who once identified and supported the Democratic Party, having them once again define themselves around the issues that the Democratic Partry targets rather than identifying themselves with the GOP noise machine issues, which they have now increasingly drifter over to.

The most crucial of these issues are those of economic health and security.

You can not say in one breath that you are going to foster unions and attract union memberships around the issues of jobs and worker's rights to attract them to the democratic party and then as a partry support so called "free trade" policies which send jobs overseas by the millions and which in turn weaken union labor in negotiations to the point where workers rights continue to erode.

The fact the upwards of 40 million people in the US have lost their health care is proof of the decline of the influence labor and worker rights issues on the congress, the senate, and on the federal executive branch, while big corporations have seen their influence and agendas supported by both Republicans and by so called Democrats.

This is not an exercise in theory.

If democrats want to rebuild the party they will have to change their stance on so called "free trade". They will have to admit they were wrong in supporting the agreements they have supported, otherwise they will not be trusted by people who organize around worker rights and labor issues in the future.

You might think that the Democratic party, given its history of supporting labor and unions and all of its past work on workplace issues, you might think that by in large people believe Democrats are more concerned about preserving their jobs and income.

You might think that but you would be wrong.

See the Red State Road Trip by Chris Hume, Truthout to see what the average person who votes for Bush in America's non-coastal states believes about which party is more concerned about their job and economic security.

by leschwartz 2005-02-19 09:26AM | 0 recs

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Unionize the computer game industry

One way to strengthen unions in this country could be to go after high-tech industries, such as computer games. These high-skill jobs were supposed to make up for the loss of American manufacturing jobs, but these techie jobs are at risk too. Furthermore, high-tech employers can be just as ruthless as the robber barons of old. Electronic Arts is a good example (requires Salon subscription):

The hottest new game from Electronic Arts these days isn't "Madden NFL 2005," a new installment of "The Sims," or the latest title in the James Bond series "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent."

No, the company's unexpected smash hit is a Web-based soap opera of sorts. Call it "Electronic Arts: Rogue Employer."

The characters are some of the company's current and former employees -- and their families -- who have created an addictive drama simply by posting accusations online that one of the industry's largest computer game shops, with revenues of $2.96 billion in its last fiscal year, routinely squeezes hundreds of hours of uncompensated overtime from its programmers and artists.

In short, there workers are in need of protection just like Wal-mart employees. They also make good money, are well-educated and probably have a more culturally liberal sensibility. They are probably with us already politically, but organizing them would be a good political asset.

by vawolf 2005-02-19 09:30AM | 0 recs

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I admire all of you for your prescient thoughts...

...but it all gets back to ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY, and noalternative touched on it. We can write 5,000 word blogs and diaries and shout from the rooftops, but until we do something about that VAST RIGHT WING PRESS CORPS it doesn't matter what we say or do. Because it all gets filtered through them, and that's what gets through to the public. News is like fast food. All junk for people on the go.

Look, I'm older than most of you who post here, and I swear to you it wasn't always so. We used to have a media that sought out the truth no matter where it lead or who's toes they had to step on. Even The New York Times has become a joke. Brian Williams is the anchor at NBC, a Rush Limbaugh "admirer." Do I have to repeat the usual suspects for you? You know who they all are. Do I have to repeat the corporations who filter our news for us? You know who they are, and their only motivation is their shareholders and the number of tax breaks and government contracts they can get for themselves. I swear again to you it wasn't always so. The stewards at our great newsgathering sights gave their news divisions autonomy. I remember William Paley, the CBS chairman used to brag about his news division's autonomy. It is the only issue folks. Solve this one issue and the rest of the issues will quickly fall in line and order. We all know that there are truly way more Democrats than Republicans, but they've been bamboozled into thinking against their own interests. Until we do something about it we're whistling past the graveyard. I think it's worth fighting and dying for myself.

by fred 2005-02-19 11:02AM | 0 recs

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Re: I admire all of you for your prescient thought

Yes, I agree with you totally.

I am probably older than you suspect most people writing into these boards are.

These young people do not realize that they have been propagandized into believing that things are as they are because they must be so. But in fact they have been propagandized into believing lies and do not know or act on their best self interest becasue they are ignorant, propagandized and just do not know any better.

I too remember a different US, socially and economically, and aside from the (then) worse racial discrimination situation, we are much worse off from the standpoint (as you indicated) when it comes to a balanced policial discussion and real - influential discussions of views in the US.

We are in this situation becasue the political right in the US not only captured the GOP, but they also bought the DEMOCRAT party as well.

What does it tell you when the Democrats have voted on average 85% to support the radical Bush agenda and nominees? Even when their constituencies litteraly begs them not to support these policies, the democrats do so anyway. And with impunity, because so many are too ignorant to know that they have the right to assert themselves politically and to abandon the political parties which have turned their backs on them.

Democrats do not honestly represent the interests of the average working class or middle class citizen.

And don't wait for the US corporate media to start being genuinely fair and blanced, they see their interests as identical to the major corporations who want a larger base percentage of impoverished workers who are more pliable and will and can do nothing about the erosion of workplace rights, health care, cost of the social safety net, cost of health care, standard of living of the average worker measured in every way.

We do have two "republican" parties and no one representing the interests of the average working and middle class person.

Because of the media situation you discussed, we have the majority of people brainwashed into thinking the most important issue in their lives is "homosexual marriage" or some other cultural hot button distraction total horse shit issue.

While in fact, the top level of US income earners have never been so favored by laws and their income levels, never so high comparitively since the days of Hoover and Harding.

by leschwartz 2005-02-19 11:30AM | 0 recs

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We need Lou.

Lou Dobbs for president.

by Christopher Hitchens 2005-02-19 11:43AM | 0 recs

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Judis on Carter

I enjoy John Judis's work, but I can't believe that he wrote this:

"In 1977, Jimmy Carter championed bills that matched almost perfectly what Starr includes in his liberal agenda--"progressive taxation, affordable health care ... environmental [and] labor protection"--but Carter failed to get any of them passed even though he had a sizable Democratic majority in Congress"

I teach a course on environmental protection, and Carter's record on environmental protection should not be discounted. He signed a revision of the Clean Air Act in 1977, and lobbied for the successful passage of the Alaska Lands Bill and Superfund.

Judis's sloppy analysis in this case is just another example of Democrats beating up on each other while the Republicans laugh their heads off and undermine all worthy environmental protections.

by rayspace 2005-02-19 12:36PM | 0 recs

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Necessary Triage plus Long-term Context

First, thanks to you and Descartes for the Judis piece and the conversation you started.

I agree with you that Judis' article is fantastic and that he "correctly points out that if the fortunes of liberalism are to be reversed, the material conditions that produce our politics must be structurally altered." Also, your outline flows from what he is saying about building up "countervailing social organizations" like labor unions, and re-building our infrastructure from below. All of this makes sense as 1) providing the necessary triage for our current situation and 2) directing our line of vision away from the old liberalism, which is gone forever. Let's not get trapped in thinking we are moving forward while we are actually looking in the rear-view mirror.

However, there is real difficulty in turning people's vision and thinking in a new direction. What you and Judis outline is essential right now, but, at the same time, it does not lay a long-term foundation for doing changing how people see and think and talk. Building our own message machine is the beginning of this, but all we can use that for in triage is reversing the short-term situation, or, as you phrased it, "countering the RWNM". We need a long-term, proactive vision with powerful narratives to give us the context for how to use and develop our message machine.

My argument is that liberalism's `countervailing forces" model needs radical revision. This is about making reforms to contain or offset capitalism running amok. These reforms keep failing, old Liberalism being the latest and most assertive attempt.
Market fundamentalism--the driving ideological and financial force behind the Radical Republicans--is, for the third time, again rampantly dominant. And our whole society is, for the third time, again going out of whack because of it. This period is, as in the past two periods of rampant laissez-faire, revealing that there is an irreconciliable conflict between our democracy and the way we have mandated the corporation to operate for the sake of the shareholder only.

So I keep thinking that a radical re-design of the corporation needs to become the cornerstone for a progressive movement in the 21st century. The idea is to re-design it so that it and capitalism in general are fully incorporated into our democracy without being destroyed, rather than us allowing it to operate in opposition to it if that is what is needed for the shareholders' profits.

If this makes sense then it would seem to follow that now is our `post-Goldwater' moment, and it is the time to be thinking about how to initiate and carry forward an ongoing national conversation in which we re-think the very basis of the relationship between democracy and capitalism, and end virtually forever the opportunity for large corporations to dominate our regulators, our political process, our media, environmental policy, and the material wealth we hold in common. And to do this without crushing capitalism's wealth creating capacities. No easy deal.

I don't mean that this should take precedence over what you and Judis are saying. I mean that it needs to be going on simultaneously. Maybe some other focus would emerge, but somehow and sometime relatively soon we need to anchor our immediate and necessary triage work in a 50-100 year context. And I can't think of anything more fundamental than ending this contradiction that we have set up in our legal system.

by joncehart 2005-02-19 12:49PM | 0 recs

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Structural Flaws

Excellent post.

I'd like to add 2 more things:

COLLECT MONEY IN SMALL AMOUNTS - We tried campaign finance reform and it did not work. It must be bipartisan and in the current environment that is close to impossible. However, if Democrats choose to accept money in small doses from ordinary people, we will show the public that we are for the average guy, as opposed to Republicans who are for the rich.

RUN TOWN-HALLS - If we want to spread the Democratic message, unfiltered by conservative pundits and by the "liberal" media, we must have discussions and debates that ordinary people attend and contribute to.

by PaulSiegel 2005-02-19 01:03PM | 0 recs

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The future of the Democratic Party is

left-libertarian, embracing gay marriage and school vouchers, abortion rights and faith-based funding, progressive taxation and limited bureaucracy, universal health care and free trade, technology and sustainability. This is in fact the Dutch model, where two women can be married and evangelical Christians (who make up a very sizeable minority in the country) can receive state funds to provide social services or open a school of their own, where taxation is fair and the economy outperforms most if not all of western Europe. Neither the American right or left is probably quite ready for a politics that embraces all these contradictions (one can imagine [especially baby boomer and older] heads exploding), but one sensed a glimpse of this kind of politics, and this future, in Obama's speech at the DNC. Like it or not, its the future of our country, and its time for the Democrats to get ahead of the curve, and embrace it.

by robinthehood 2005-02-19 02:14PM | 0 recs

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Just a couple of nits to pick...

One is subscribing to a rag like The New Republic, I asked the computer about that and it crashed, came back up, asked again and it crashed again.

So that's out of the picture! :>)

Good news and bad news there, this country is most certianly going to experience a fiscal failure within 10-20 years (quite possibly much sooner) that will make the 30's look like a cakewalk. There is simply no way to avoid it at this juncture it is most definately imminent.

And when that happens, liberalisim will most certainly become very popular again, and it'll happen overnight.

The challenge for all of us is,

We need to be able to surive the crisis, this would be best accomplished by washing yourselves out of any and all debt now.
Once we have the upper hand we can never get complacent again, lets face it the reason we're all in this pickle is because the liberals of the 70's and 80's did not defend it strongly and became complacent

by laughingriver 2005-02-20 05:31AM | 0 recs

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Liberal billionaires need to buy some media

We need a counterpart to Murdoch and Sinclair.

by jasmine 2005-02-20 02:43PM | 0 recs