Woody Allen, Tom Friedman and Joe Klein are hardly prominent liberals. Woody Allen, whatever his political views, is barely heard of. And the later two are squarely in the pseudo-middle.

There is a context here, that is dangerous to omit. If you take a second rate entertainer, and by some chance allow him to transform himself - through talk radio or by means of effusive commentary broadcast in the filler space of your 24/7 news cycle.

First, you're likely not .. thinking... anymore. You turn on the TV just to hear the noise.

Second, you're wont to pronounce his name - if all is said and done well. We seem to live in a world of manufactured consent.

I vote that we do not use it as an echo chamber. The term 'second rate entertainer' applies equally well to people who could not complete their term as Alaska governor,  as it does to mormons with talk radio aspiration - who choose to enrich themselves through demagoguery.

As it does to front page bloggers who ask the question "what else is there, besides democracy?" imho.

A catholic review of governmental structure around the world, yields growing economies in socialism, communism, capitalism, and to a lesser extent, fascism. Libertarian economies are the worst performing entitites on the planet, but they do a pretty good job of begging for cash when earthquakes rock the country.

 

The concept of 'liberal' or conservative, is staid. The question is no longer whether we should have larger or smaller government - a smaller, and more effecient government - passing small, and effecient bills like Alan Grayon's 4 page cash value to medicare bill - are easy points to prove. It's what government +does+ with power that is where our focus point should be. Smart government.

We need web-services enabled tracking, epa integration with the FDA, smart, simple, effecient single payer healthcare, streamlined fair tax, elimination of wars of convenience, and disintermediation in political process - to the exclusion of any sphere of influence a lobbyist should retain, our congressmen should be looking to their own blogs and websites to find out what their constituents want them to do. It should be verifiable, and we should be comfortable enough to let someone hold the tokens. And we should have pajama clad bloggers tracking down the facts.  Any person you quote or mention. Should be worth mentioning.

This is the context of the blogosphere. Use it well.

 

Winston Churchill said:

 

"It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary."

 

 

Lawrence Lessing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/neoprogressives_b_704715.html

 

The Neo-Progressive Movement needs to encourage these Republicans. It needs to be willing to put aside part of the agenda of each within the movement, recognizing that no change, on the Right or the Left, will happen until the fever is broken, because the disease has been stopped. Mainstream parties have lost the credibility for reform. As in 1912, only a breakaway, trans-party movement, possibly with no single leader, could have an effect in 2012.

...who are losing hope in democracy to solve our great problems. When you look at the vast array of very serious problems that we face, and it seems like we are not even able to seriously approach even the least difficult of them, it does not give one much hope. It seems obvious to me that a great experiment is taking place in the world and the world is watching. What is the best way to get things done? In a system like the United States, or a system like China? I don't think our government or our country gets this. If we lose this competition of ideas, then we will become more like them, not the other way around. And what use is freedom, if it does get you freedom? That was the argument of the conservatives during the Bush admin as they endorsed things like torture and warrant-less wiretapping, and it is what liberals were saying as they endorsed ideas like mandatory health insurance. If democracy cannot solve problems, then democracy is going to fail.

You might look into a topic before you write on it.

"A signature beauty of the American system is that we have wonderfully smart mechanisms that allow for the change that is often necessary."

Very much a debatable topic. Numerous writers - George Packer, Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, Eric Alterman, Ezra Klein, Gail Collins among journalists; Mike Lux, Chris Bowers, and myself among bloggers; Norman Ornstein, Mickey Edwards, Matthew Mayer and Barbara Sinclair among academics (to name just a few) have written on the limitations of our Constitutional system and its increasing inability to produce meaningful legislation quickly or transparently. It is not just that our politics have become poisonous which is a separate matter but that there are good reasons to believe that the American political system is showing its age and has design flaws. But I guess in your view we are all just over-educated elitist establishmentarians apparently beleaguered to boot.

The US Constitution is now 221 years old. Being the first modern written constitution, it served as a model for other political constitutions the world over sometimes almost word for word, clause for clause. But whereas other countries have found and corrected the designs flaws, we haven't.

In México, for instance, the Districto Federal is modeled on DC. Originally residents of the DF were denied voting and representation rights. That was long corrected (in the 19th century) but here DC is still denied voting representation in Congress. 

I have written at least three major substantive posts on the dysfunctional US Senate noting that it over-represents rural, conservative interests and under-represents urban, progressive interests. This isn't even controversial. Any political scientist can tell you that rural interests are over-represented in Thailand, Japan and the United States. It's common knowledge and the reason is that in the US each state gets two Senators. I've argued that this is becoming an issue that is tearing the fabric of the country apart.

Now other countries have Senates but they are able to overcome representation problems in different ways. Australia has a bicameral legislature. Its House is a pure Westminster system but its Senate is more like the US Senate than a British House of Lords. While each Australian state is guaranteed 12 senators and territories each get two, they are elected via proportional representation. That has a huge impact. It's why five Greens were elected to the Senate and why only one Green was elected to the lower House which is elected in a first past the post single member district system. Electoral systems do make a difference.

Colombia elects its Senate nationally. That is no Senator represents any Colombian department (province) but must run on a national list. Moreover, Colombians living abroad get to vote and both indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities each get their own Senator. In Uruguay, the 30 member Senate is also elected nationally but unlike Colombia which uses a first past the post system, Uruguay elects its Senate via proportional representation. These electoral mechanisms provide a far different outcome and thus impact policy. The Senates in Colombia and Uruguay have a national constituency instead of a local provincial one. In Uruguay's case, that representation is proportional to the desires of the electorate.

In Brazil, each state gets three Senators in the Brazilian Senate. Even though the Senate has more competences - the Senate must approve govt appointments and all treaties - than the Chamber of Federal Deputies, there is no difference between them when it comes to voting laws; there is not an Upper and a Lower House. Every law must be approved both by the Chamber and the Senate (and eventually promulgated - or vetoed - by the President of the Republic); if one of the Houses changes anything in the draft of law being appreciated, the draft returns to the other House for a new appreciation. Senators are elected for a eight year term; every four years, either 2/3 or 1/3 of Senate is renovated in a first past the post system. The Chamber is selected via proportional representation. But the biggest difference between Brazil and the US is that Brazil is a multi-party system while the US is technically a two party system though some argue that it is effectively a mono-political system (i.e. corporatist). Multi-party systems have one advantage, they tend to forge consensus. Belgium is the big exception to this tendency but Belgium's has other factors that explain its dysfunction.

Argentina is another country whose Senate is chosen just like the US. Each Senator serves a six-year term with a third of the Senate elected every two years. Each province get three Senators. Buenos Aires also get three Senators because the city has been made into an autonomous district separate from the historical province of Buenos Aires. However, Argentina does not use a first past the post system to select its Senators. Instead, the party with the most votes is awarded two of the province's senate seats and the second-place party receives the third seat.

But Argentina, like most Latin American nations, have much more powerful executives. Latin American presidents have power of decrees. In Argentina, that power is known as Decrees of Necessity and Emergency (DNUs) and is often referred to as a decretazo. Carlos Menem and Néstor Kirchner were both profligate in their use of DNUs, signing an average of 67 a year each. DNUs have the force of law but are temporary, that is, they expire. Laws require Congressional approval and are permanent. Often a President will issue a decree and then attempt to codify it into law later. Kirchner, for example, used decree powers to jump start Argentina's high speed rail project and then sought Congressional approval later. His wife and successor, Christina Fernández de Kirchner ran into problems when she tried to raise export taxes on soy and wheat via a decretazo.  She was forced to back down and ultimately the Congress overruled her. Chávez and Ortega rule by decree. The National Assembly in Venezuela has effectively abdicated its constitutional powers and widen Chávez's presidential powers. My point is that institutional design matters. And ours has serious flaws. I personally would like to see way the Senate governs itself changed but ultimately giving Wyoming and California equal representation is a fatal flaw. Until that changes and until the role of money in politics changes, you're going to get poor public policy outcomes. 

As per James Fishkin, he is a professor of Communications at Stanford and someone with whom I am well acquainted. I've heard him speak a number of times and I've read his work. He's one of the foremost advocates of deliberative polling which is a subset of the Deliberative Democracy movement which judging by the tenor of your post you've never heard of. It's not exactly a new movement. John Rawls now deceased and Jürgen Habermas still alive have long written on the subject. Amy Guttman, formerly at Princeton and now the President of the University of Pennsylvania, has written extensively on deliberative democracy. In fact, she and Dennis Thompson, a political scientist at Harvard, have a new book on Deliberative Democracy out just last month. Their 2004 book Why Deliberative Democracy? is highly recommended for anyone interested in political theory. 

More importantly to your diatribe towards Klein, deliberative polling, Fishkin's speciality, has been used to derive public policy the world over with great success. In the United States, the Utah 2050 project used it to develop a long-term land use and transportation infrastructure policy. County and city governments in Texas and Vermont have used deliberative polling to help set energy policy. Denmark used deliberative polling in its decision to adopt the euro. And Australia used deliberative polling to formulate policy on aboriginal issues and as well over the constitutional debate over whether to remain a monarchy or become a republic.  

I'm not sure how the above leads to a comment like this:

"This fantasy experiment of Joe Klein’s is straight out of some sterile utopian future where sex is banned."

Clearly, you don't know what you are talking about. Klein is talking about local governance participating in determining budgetary priorities. Nor is Thomas Friedman advocating for Chinese-style authoritarianism, he's simply pointing out the obvious - the Chinese are getting things done and we're hindered by our political process. He wants to fix our broken government, not replace with it a Politburo. Senator Bennet of Colorado has said pretty much the same thing when he complained about the arcane rules that govern the Senate.

But to trash Klein's kleroterion reference without doing the necessary background research is just poor scholarship. You might look into a subject before you dismiss it out of hand. 

And does a "symbiosis of ganja and righteous indignation" imply that you were stoned when you read/wrote this? if so, I think that's highly unprofessional. The readership deserves better than drug-fuelled rants. You should know that members of Congress still read MyDD on occasion. In the two years, I've been associated with MyDD, I have never seen a front-pager use profane language like you did in a previous post. It's uncalled for and it reflects poorly on MyDD.

You write well stylistically speaking but your posts are more off-the-cuff rants than anything else. While you add to the growing encyclopedia of Obama Deranged Syndrome, I can't say I've learned anything reading your rants. 

But what do I know I'm an over-educated elitist. 

and turn it into a diary.

 

One thing you did not mention is that the US constitution is designed to prevent action.  The gridlock is by design...and I suppose the rationale is that a government that cannot do anything is less likely to do some harm.  That is an understandable rationale, given the immediate history preceding the framing.  The framers, much like generals, tend to fight the last war.

Probably just a plain "welcome", but you make it feel like an old friend has returned to MyDD!  This used to be the most honest and uncomprosing blog in the real progressive 'sphere, but those with open minds were driven away.  Thank you for returning this to place for HONEST and THOUGHTFUL discourse instead of inane following in the footsteps of a mistake.  

 

I drifted away from MyDD for too long, with more excellent, thoughful, and uncompromising front-page diaries like this I can assure you that a whole lot of us will be back writing, commenting and contributing!

 

but The Pact is an ubsubstantiated load of crap.  Please stop. 

Further, normally blue ribbon commissions are used by politicians when they want to take talking points away from their opponents to say, here, I'm dealing with this, when they don't intend to do anything at all, which would be the right response to the fake ss crisis.  Obviously, this isn't what Obama's doing for the reasons you cite.  For the record, Clinton's commssion ended up dead locked because it WAS NOT stacked with those who wanted to cut SS, as Obama's plainly is.