We are cluttering up Loren's blog with our own OT discussions, so I decided to answer anaxarchos here.


"PI? PI was potential on a very small scale. There is a need to talk in a broader group across tribes and generations and pitifully few opportunities to do it. Huge swaths of the Left are missing on PI and it was culturally so narrow as to almost abort the effort from minute one, but there were few other good alternatives. The odd part is that it was only the talk that mattered (the "action" was laughable and you can stuff the "social interaction" with "moral outrage"). It in no way represents "the Left"... merely a potential service to the Left that appears to have been stillborn. Oh well."

I agree completely.


The idea of a board done as a "collective" occured to me when we left DU. If a "voice across the tribes" is intended, the problem is that leftists are born faction fighters (a plus in other times). What is the protection against temporary majorities and coup d'etats?

I don't have a simple formula. However, I don't think anyone has ever seriously tried to tackle this. It is rare to find anyone that has identified and analyzed the problem.

Protection against minorities and coup d'etats is a much bigger, and more worthy and interesting challenge than merely one of how to run an Internet board. That struggle has been going on a long time and we have much historic precedent to draw from. Checks and balances, separation of power, representative democracy, a charter or constitution, courts for resolving disputes.

Is not the creation of structures that support and promote social justice and the achievement of social justice one and the same? Is not the larger society a reflection of the smaller societies we create?


Of course the counter argument is the obvious landlord problem. The landlord can ALWAYS declare that half the users are enablers of mass murder, or redefine "classist" to mean "you can't be mean to the ruling class", or demand, "Omigod, everyone stop what they are doing and do this and that...". Under the current conditions, it is probably not only plausible, but inevitable.

Sure. But this is no more - or less - likely to happen than the agent for the landlords of the country. otherwise know as the president, declaring half the population terrorists and tossing a few of them into detention and intimidating the rest.

Given that we have a dictatorship, the dictator could do anything, yes. So, let's not set up a dictatorship.



So... how do you propose to deal with the contradiction?
I don't. I don't propose that I deal with it at all. I propose that the community deal with it. I propose that we explore ways to run the smaller community the way we want to see the larger community run.

Now, it could be that people will say “oh ho hum, just tell me what to do and who the boss is and what the rules are. Self government makes my head ache, and it probably will never work anyway.” It could be that people are so used to being subjects, so used to having no power, that they are more comfortable being peons. We won't know if we don't give them an alternative. I know that there are many people outside of the tired old cynical liberal circles who haven't resigned themselves to conditions and given up. That is true for most people, actually. Of liberal activists don't want to come outside and play, and prefer sitting inside comforted by their world weariness and smug aloofness, sighing and posing as being above the fray, then the game will go forward without them.

Here is the rest of what I wrote the Kid (since he has given his permission):



What is PI? PI is an Internet board of people who would have continued at DU and several lessor boards except that the Democratic Party's fortunes shifted and the active "left" was largely cut-off. The composition seems to consist of a mix of "cultural revolutionaries" (some who were actual veterans of the 60's and some younger who came to identify with ideas that were rooted in that period or perhaps a little later) and of left Democrats (no matter what they call themselves... i.e. "Green", etc.) who were somewhat radicalized by the vast shift of the right Republicans and the utter bankruptcy of the political establishment. They are united by nothing except their concern for the present status quo. In addition to the above, there are a few who were genuine veterans (either directly or second-hand) of the very serious struggles of the sixties... but these seem to come from very disparate viewpoints. Their contribution seems to be a conciousness of and a distrust for American Imperialism, a geniune opposition to U.S. foreign policy, and a very loose understanding of the class roots of American society.

Some background... There REALLY was a "New Left" born in the sixties. The old Left had been upended and totally isolated by McCarthyism and the post-war economic prosperity. In it's place rose in the 60's, a New Left born of the Civil Rights Movement, the "Ban the Bomb" movement, the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, and a much broader cultural critique of the newly emergent American society. The nexus of that New Left was the University system which became largely egalitarian for the first time in American history and served as a mixing bowl for Black Nationalists and vets on the G.I. Bill and working-class kids on scolarships and returning hipsters, as well as a bumper crop of alienated middle class youths. Folded into this social souffle were also every kind of national and INTERNATIONAL persons and ideas (for this was, indeed, a global movement). From the university system, literally hundreds of thousands of radicalized youths re-entered the society. Some ended up in "community organizing", some in politics, some in "cultural experiments", but most back into the mainstream of society. The views these held were common on the most important issues of the time but hugely varied on everything else. More, they represented different points in political evolution and differing class partisanship, rooted in the differing locales and times and circumstances that they emerged with and in the differing conditions they found themselves in once they had returned to the "countryside".

In my case, I was very lucky. Born of Civil Rights and the anti-war movement, I was one of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) that ended up in the factory and in the industrial labor movement. There we reconnected with the "old Left" and the old traditions and put on a fight that was truely memorable ...and one whose history has yet to written.

What happened? Where I was, it was an undermining from "below": runaway shops, right-to-work, globalization, the "rust belt" and so on. We were also affected by what happened to everyone else: the apparent "victory" of the Civil Rights movement, the end of Vietnam, the resignation of Nixon, the apparent turn against "imperialism", "Social progress", Reaganism, the Fall of the Soviet Union and the apparent retreat of Socialism, Social conservatism, and the "new prosperity" under Clinton. We had faded into history when the New Right called us back again from our slumbers. In large part, it was the Democrats who actually called us out, just as the Republicans called out the religious fascists, etc. That is why the Democratic Party figures centrally in the current discussion although probably not at all in the future.

PI? PI was potential on a very small scale. There is a need to talk in a broader group across tribes and generations and pitifully few opportunities to do it. Huge swaths of the Left are missing on PI and it was culturally so narrow as to almost abort the effort from minute one, but there were few other good alternatives. The odd part is that it was only the talk that mattered (the "action" was laughable and you can stuff the "social interaction" with "moral outrage"). It in no way represents "the Left"... merely a potential service to the Left that appears to have been stillborn. Oh well.

Where to now, do you think?

I have to think about it for a while.

Let's see if we can get this little surfboard of yours launched.

...Never know when you get to catch a wave.

I'll worry about trick riding later, as you proposed...


Damn sure certain we won't be catching anything sitting on the beach (except maybe sun poisoning).

I have been out reading and posting on AA, immigrant and Labor boards. There are some members at DU that might be interested in the project.

Have been trying to put my finger on the common thread among the people here and those who will show up if the ragged edge, intensely personal, passionate and eccentric people are speaking without being drown out by or harrangued by the gentrified peace and love crowd. Outcasts, intellectuals, but mostly self-educated, blue collar orientation...

Notice that the split at PI does seem to be around haves versus have nots, the gentrified versus those lacking in the proper upper class decorum. It isn't ideological. It isn't a split over intelligence. Really stupid and ignorant people pass as the "right" sort and are given full status as insiders if they know the language, while brilliant people are treated like dirt if they walk across the expensive imported carpet with their muddy boots.

But they are just wannabe groupies anyway. How else can Tinoire justify her outrage against the treatment of the Palestinians and then accept and excuse Kucinich's cowardly caving as necessary political expediency? How can she raise the peace flag as if it was unrelated to imperial ambitions of the ruling class and then protest discussion of class because it offended some influential personal political connections?

But they are just wannabe groupies anyway. How else can Tinoire justify her outrage against the Palestinians and then accept and excuse Kucinich's cowardly caving as necessary political expediency? How can she raise the peace flag as if it was unrelated to imperial ambitions of the ruling class and then protest discussion of class because it offended some influential personal political connections?
It isn't possible to do because there is a built in contradiction in what so many leaders on the Left are trying to do. You can't "work within the system" and be opposed to the system. Sooner or later you trap yourself in an unworkable situation, as Tinoire just did. You can't promote principles and ideals for the country while you are violating those same principles and ideals within the activist organization.

Is anyone factoring in DK's lack of wealth? Of how many others is it true, as it is for him, that if he crosses the Dem bosses or the Likudniki, he's looking for work...and I don't mean metaphorically. Surely that should be seen as a mitigating factor? *I*'d sure as hell gang cannily in his position. I'm sure the MunyLight debacle taught him a powerfully bitter lesson: even if you do the right thing and keep your promise to them, the public won't save you.

Why won't the public save you? Doesn't that seem to be an important question?

but the media might destroy you. See Dean.

Something irks me about Kucinich--maybe the impression I got when I watched him sidestep important issues with that new age mush he used to justify human brutality. Can't say I respected his calculated manuever. Is this the best we can expect--and is there a certain amount of ego involved in his role to coral the Progressive vote into the tent by throwing crumbs that we all know are little more than enticements by a politician not perceived to be a real threat to the party?

Is he really on our side?

Is he really on our side?
Do we have a "side" for him to be on?

Dean has done much more for us than Kucinich. It isn't about ideology, let alone about a grab bag of positions on issues.

Newswolf had this brilliant insight. The ruling class is not trying to suppress a certain ideology. They are trying to suppress participation at all by the public in politics and government. We miss the mark when we judge all politicians, or media hacks, through an idealogical lens. Wellstone, MLK, and the Kennedys weren't murdered because they were promoting an ideology, they were murdered because they were inspiring people to get involved in self government.

Dean is a similar threat to the ruling class. There was a huge uproar when I suggested that at PI. The response was a litany of Dean's "wrong" positions on issues - he is a heretic, he speaks blasphemy, he doesn't pass the purity test. he obviously has the wrong belief system and is therefore the enemy. All of that is irrelevant to all but the very few who approach politics as though it were a religion for the enlightened few. Dean's 50 state strategy is what overturned the Republican stranglehold on power, because it encouraged and supported grass roots populism in the rural parts of the country and thousands of counties were in play that had been solidly Republican for decades. That isn't about Dean's positions on issues, and it isn't even about the Democratic party.

For a couple of years, blue collar people and farmers here have been saying “have you and your brainiac friends got that third party started yet Mike?” That didn't change after the election. One guy said the other day that the people didn't hire the Democrats, they fired the Republicans and the need for a new party – a new social and political movement - is as great as ever.

but the media might destroy you. See Dean.

Something irks me about Kucinich--maybe the impression I got when I watched him sidestep important issues with that new age mush he used to justify human brutality. Can't say I respected his calculated manuever. Is this the best we can expect--and is there a certain amount of ego involved in his role to coral the Progressive vote into the tent by throwing crumbs that we all know are little more than enticements by a politician not perceived to be a real threat to the party?

Is he really on our side?

Newswolf made a comment about how Kucinich's actions as mayor of Cleveland revealed him to be a totalitarian somehow. I haven't researched that and it was like 30 years ago, but does anybody know what he meant by that?

Maidread? It looks like you're more familiar with his history..

'What happened?

First, Kucinich himself bolted in the name of party unity to the Kerry camp and pressed his supporters to follow suit. "Unless we have a firm and unshakeable resolve for John Kerry, we will have no opportunity to take America in a new direction," he urged. In effect, Kucinich’s message was: In the name of party unity we must back the candidate who supports war and free trade to defeat the other candidate who supports war and free trade.

Kucinich employed much of the same rhetoric he used during his campaign, criticizing Bush for lying his way into war, demanding economic and social justice. This rhetoric, as Kucinich himself explained after his speech, was employed not to provide an alternative to Kerry, but to swing voters behind Kerry: "This speech to me was about reaching out to those Democrats who may not have supported John Kerry during the primaries and caucuses," he said. "My job in this election is to bring them in, and I will do that." He made the same point earlier in his campaign: "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I’m trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy." Kucinich, in other words, was the party’s secret weapon against the Left who swung toward Nader in 2000.

The process was painfully on display in Portland, Maine last August. According to the Portland Press Herald:

Mariah Williams wept the first time she heard presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich speak. His words in Portland last August echoed her interests, and helped transform her from political neophyte to party activist. "I feel like we have one party in this country and it’s the party of corporations," said Williams of Liberty, who switched from being a Green to a Democrat because of Kucinich. "We need a party of the people." '


http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/kerry_bagman.shtml

I don't know whether Kucinich can really be singled out for this because it was pretty much consensus across the board--but how can anyone be receptive to a replay at this point? The part that bothered me at PI is there was to be no discussion of it and we all knew which camp was holding the cards--and who the hell were they to demand it of us? To hand over that forum to Kucinich was capitulation at the core--no wonder they are so focused on infiltrators. Every subject for discussion now seems irrelevant. [/quote]

Newswolf made a comment about how Kucinich's actions as mayor of Cleveland revealed him to be a totalitarian somehow. I haven't researched that and it was like 30 years ago, but does anybody know what he meant by that?
Wolf has said a number of things that I don't believe he could find evidence to support, if so tasked. It's not my intention to be mean to him, so I feel a little hesitant to even say anything (I wouldn't do it if he weren't going to join and thus be able to engage me in his own defence), but my perception is that he doesn't do something that I've always thought to be the sine qua non of journo-ism: fact-check. He doesn't seem to check his facts. He comes out with things like his anti-muslim statements that, as far as I'm aware, are at least a radian off-target and can't be defended by citing unbiased scholarship.

Likewise his assessment of DK. For example, he interprets the Department of Peace proposal to be all about confiscating personal weapons. But if you read the DoP proposal, you see it's about nothing more than funding the study of how to solve problems non-violently. That's a far leap from forced disarmament and flushing the RKBA down the toilet. Of course, he might believe that such disarmament and RKBA-flushing is indeed part of the DoP agenda, just hidden. I don't know where the hell anyone could go with that, because the nature of hidden things is that they can't be distinguished from things that aren't there.

In Cleveland, DK was on the council and got a rep for being a fang-and-claw opponent of corporatocracy. That's where he got the nickname "Dennis the Menace"--he was and looked young and was a menace to corporate domination of the city. He got elected mayor on the promise to save MunyLight. The privately owned utility competing with MunyLight for years had been screwing the city and forcing it into debt. The goal was to be able to buy MunyLight at a fire-sale price. The banks were in bed with the owners of the private utility, and they called in the loan--either Dennis would sign off on the sale, or no more money and the city would go into default on its loan repayments. DK said no.

So it was his refusal to "go along to get along" that got him called "immature", "hard to work with", "not a team player", etc. Those were the labels applied by the city corporatocracy. He was "totalitarian" only in the sense that he refused to give the corpos what they demanded. He went his own way, trying to run the city for the benefit of the people rather than the business owners. In doing so, he made a lot of mistakes. Which is what anyone does when trying something unprecedented. And, because he wasn't a member of the establishment, there was nobody to hide, gloss over, or explain away the mistakes the way, e.g., the MSM hides, glosses over, and explains away BushCo's unending series of not mere mistakes but catastrophic mistakes. BushCo's are minimised when they can't be completely hidden, DK's were inflated and painted day-glo red. Big difference.

'What happened?

First, Kucinich himself bolted in the name of party unity to the Kerry camp and pressed his supporters to follow suit. "Unless we have a firm and unshakeable resolve for John Kerry, we will have no opportunity to take America in a new direction," he urged. In effect, Kucinich’s message was: In the name of party unity we must back the candidate who supports war and free trade to defeat the other candidate who supports war and free trade.
[/quote]

Tinoire told me she was hoping to get Dennis to come to the site and take questions, along wiht a couple other 'names' that I didn't recognize.

Wolf has said a number of things that I don't believe he could find evidence to support, if so tasked. It's not my intention to be mean to him, so I feel a little hesitant to even say anything (I wouldn't do it if he weren't going to join and thus be able to engage me in his own defence), but my perception is that he doesn't do something that I've always thought to be the sine qua non of journo-ism: fact-check. He doesn't seem to check his facts. He comes out with things like his anti-muslim statements that, as far as I'm aware, are at least a radian off-target and can't be defended by citing unbiased scholarship.


Right after I asked that quesiton it occured to me that it almost had to be an allusion to Kucinich's position on guns which had me laughing when I read your reply :)

Speaking for myself, I'm definitely not okay with the outcome. I think DK should have done the principled thing. BUT I also remember that when he DID do the principled thing, and it was a huge principled thing with a gigantic, measurable benefit attached to it---he lost his ass! And so I ask myself what the hell am I looking for? Do I *really* believe someone should throw themselves on their sword for no measurable benefit to anybody? Just for the frigging *look* of the thing? As a frigging *gesture*? Exactly how crazy would someone have to be to do that?

Speaking for myself, I'm definitely not okay with the outcome. I think DK should have done the principled thing. BUT I also remember that when he DID do the principled thing, and it was a huge principled thing with a gigantic, measurable benefit attached to it---he lost his ass! And so I ask myself what the hell am I looking for? Do I *really* believe someone should throw themselves on their sword for no measurable benefit to anybody? Just for the frigging *look* of the thing? As a frigging *gesture*? Exactly how crazy would someone have to be to do that?

Thats absolutely true that is an absurdly high bar to hold him to BUT the question is what did he expect when he entered national politics? He had to have been battle-tested/scarred enough to know his place would be tokenism, so why was he OK with that in the first place?

How about the quotes Raphaelle put up showing that he considered himself to be a steward of New Deal Dems into the Kerry camp? How would not endorsing Kerry have been falling on his sword? Would he lose his position and status in the party?

If he is always so fearful of his standing in the party, what good will he ever be able to accomplish within the party?

Those strike me as the more relevent questions.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/32/kucinich.shtml


Kucinich’s record is also less than consistent regarding racism and criminal justice. While Kucinich was reprimanded for being one of the many Democrats to skip the NAACP convention this year, he is campaigning on support for affirmative action (including quotas for university admissions), opposition to the death penalty and to key elements of the racist criminal justice system.

Yet in 1997—98, he voted in favor of a juvenile justice bill (HR 3) that would allow children as young as 13 to be tried in adult courts and sent to jail in adult prisons.6 He also introduced an amendment to another juvenile justice bill in 1999 (he ultimately voted against the bill, which passed) that called for expanding record keeping and broad dissemination of information about juvenile offenders. The amendment–which was strongly opposed by the ACLU and other human rights and civil liberty groups but supported by the Fraternal Order of Police–instituted statewide computer systems for compiling and sharing youth offenders’ records. The new system helped spread youth offenders’ records to federal and state officials including the FBI, the National Crime Information Center, courts, police and schools around the country–including schools to which offenders sought admission.7

Kucinich’s days of running for city council and later mayor of Cleveland in the 1970’s also reveal his checkered past on the issue of racism. Kucinich–who used to wear a long black trench-coat and carry a gun for fear of being mugged–regularly used the race card in order to appeal to white immigrants in his district. In the early 1970s, Kucinch handed out campaign literature featuring a photo of Black City Council President George Forbes leering at one of Kucinch’s white female opponents with the title "What’s Going on Here?" As the Cleveland Plain Dealer describes, "It showed a lascivious-looking picture of Forbes gazing at a picture of Oakar, who is white. According to accounts in the Plain Dealer, it said Oakar was a pawn of Forbes and elements "east of the river," a reference to Blacks and the racial dividing line of the Cuyahoga River." In fact, Kucinich regularly attacked white politicians who supported Blacks in office as "puppets." In 1974, Kucinich criticized political rival Ron Mott for voting in favor of instituting Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a legal holiday.8

Kucinich opposed busing programs to integrate Cleveland schools. Before the issue had even taken hold locally, he made a point to introduce a resolution in the city council asking Congress to oppose busing as a means of integration. While Kucinich supported social and economic programs that would benefit the white immigrant neighborhoods that made up the majority of the district he represented, he disparaged similar improvements in Black neighborhoods. One of his campaign workers remarked in 1972 that Kucinich has "learned to play dirty pool…. It’s a racial issue. There are a lot of bigots in that district and someone has to represent them, let’s face it."9

Kucinich once told a reporter, "I think the federal government has a role in providing for the poor and disadvantaged who have no means to provide for themselves, but I don’t think the role should include spreading out public housing into just any areas."10

Kucinich’s pandering to racism and his recent flip-flops over abortion rights and gay rights precipitated by his run for president should raise questions in people’s minds about what else he might "change his mind" about if he actually reaches higher office. Of course, the fact that he does not have a chance of actually winning the presidency makes it easier for Kucinich to say whatever he wants because he knows he will never actually have to back it up with action. For example, Kucinich made huge promises to workers at the AFL-CIO Democratic debate in August, including ending Taft Hartley, raising the minimum wage and lowering the retirement age. But he knows that the political establishment and their corporate backers would never put up with such sweeping reforms coming from the White House. In fact, he knows from his own experience. One time when he did stick to his guns, on the very controversial issue of refusing to sell Cleveland’s energy to a larger corporation, Kucinich was nearly recalled and then finally lost his bid for re-election.

Kucinich has gained support from the left by promoting the idea that he is an outsider in the Democratic Party. But nothing could be further from the truth. Kucinich has been a Democratic Party politician since the tender age of 23. Those on the left who are considering voting for him should ask themselves why Kucinich has spent his entire political career participating in and supporting a party that he claims to oppose on so many major issues.

Thats absolutely true that is an absurdly high bar to hold him to BUT the question is what did he expect when he entered national politics? He had to have been battle-tested/scarred enough to know his place would be tokenism, so why was he OK with that in the first place?
When he first gave his Prayer for America speech in Feb 02 out in California, it went around the web like a wildfire. Tens of thousands of people, I among them, mailed him begging him to stand for president. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to run a non-local campaign and didn't have the money to hire someone who did.


How about the quotes Raphaelle put up showing that he considered himself to be a steward of New Deal Dems into the Kerry camp? How would not endorsing Kerry have been falling on his sword? Would he lose his position and status in the party?
Can you think of any candidate who (a) had an office to keep and (b) didn't endorse Kerry? I can't. The price of not having the Dems oppose him in the primary was endorsing Kerry.


If he is always so fearful of his standing in the party, what good will he ever be able to accomplish within the party?
Good question. I'll offer a SWAG: he's being water. Taoist water. He's trying to pervade our national consciousness, and dissolve the accretions of years of rightwing propaganda.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/32/kucinich.shtml

Kucinich–who used to wear a long black trench-coat and carry a gun for fear of being mugged–regularly used the race card in order to appeal to white immigrants in his district.


OMG, Kucinich was part of the Trenchcoat Mafia?! I wonder where he is on 420

I would never try to argue, Raph, that DK is any sort of paragon of virtue. He's a politician.

I think about the best that can be said for him is that he's pro-working-class and has unquestionably put the public wellbeing before his own at least once in his career. But those two things by themselves put him miles in front of every other politician I can think of. Even Cynthia and Conyers. But perfect? Not even close.

What's the old advice to lawyers? If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue equity. If both the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table. The late psychiatrist Eric Berne said much the same thing about the way we look at people we don't like: if their intentions were good, we find fault with the outcome. If they got a good result, we criticise their intentions. If both their intentions and the outcome were good, we say it was no better than they should have done.

Not demanding purity, but rather expecting accountability. What bothered me over at PI is they were going all ga-ga and starry-eyed and that is dangerous. As you say, he is not perfect and as a messenger, quite honestly, he makes the message a joke and with his juvenile dating games and cosmic platitudes --which serve to make him less credible and silly.

Not demanding purity, but rather expecting accountability. What bothered me over at PI is they were going all ga-ga and starry-eyed and that is dangerous. As you say, he is not perfect and as a messenger, quite honestly, he makes the message a joke and with his juvenile dating games and cosmic platitudes --which serve to make him less credible and silly.
Oh, no argument about the PI debacle. I was so appalled by that, I could hardly believe it was happening. The idea that Tin would be so cackhanded AND so impervious to signals that she should re-think the parameters...yeesh! I still can't really get my head around it.

As to DK and making the message a joke, what would you rather he did? Would he connect with more people by being a tailor's dummy like Kerry?

Shit or get off the pot.

Shit or get off the pot.
Okay, but what does that mean in operational terms?

and actually serves, at this point, to sabotage any new direction or enthusiam for new directions or alternatives by always coraling the faithful back into the free speech cage. He is the gatekeeper of the status quo. He is blocking the road when he makes his appeals to the party faithful to flock for his prayer thereby creating DIVISION and fractured hope. Also, I don't care for the constituency of new agers who revel in their contempt for the ignorance of the common man who got suckered by Bush's common man act. How will that ever forge the bonds of common cause? Kucinich isn't really a populist-he appeals to a niche group for the most part.

and actually serves, at this point, to sabotage any new direction or enthusiam for new directions or alternatives by always coraling the faithful back into the free speech cage. He is the gatekeeper of the status quo. He is blocking the road when he makes his appeals to the party faithful to flock for his prayer thereby creating DIVISION and fractured hope. Also, I don't care for the constituency of new agers who revel in their contempt for the ignorance of the common man who got suckered by Bush's common man act. How will that ever forge the bonds of common cause? Kucinich isn't really a populist-he appeals to a niche group for the most part.
I'm still struggling, Raph. Are you saying he should shut up?

if he reels in the ranks with the rhetoric and then buckles again.

You know, shit or get off the pot.

Two themes are running around my head--one is this call to arms in terms of unity--and the recent expose of how that demand is actually destructive--and it is completely overlooked by those demanding unity. Who can forget ABB? It is like Tinoire is caught up in some figurehead cult that she seems to view as our salvation and she sacrificed(there's that word again--the new emerging battlecry) everything to follow some fantasy, while revealing some ugly character traits and biases if we question it. Another thought, this demand that we should "do something" which is always something that doesn't work. Maybe the best thing we can do now is talk. Brainstorm. Think and then organize and act. It worked for the Right, so how come when we get together and bounce ideas around it is considered a waste of time or not doing anything?

if he reels in the ranks with the rhetoric and then buckles again.

You know, shit or get off the pot.

Two themes are running around my head--one is this call to arms in terms of unity--and the recent expose of how that demand is actually destructive--and it is completely overlooked by those demanding unity. Who can forget ABB? It is like Tinoire is caught up in some figurehead cult that she seems to view as our salvation and she sacrificed(there's that word again--the new emerging battlecry) everything to follow some fantasy, while revealing some ugly character traits and biases if we question it. Another thought, this demand that we should "do something" which is always something that doesn't work. Maybe the best thing we can do now is talk. Brainstorm. Think and then organize and act. It worked for the Right, so how come when we get together and bounce ideas around it is considered a waste of time or not doing anything?
You keep saying "shit or get off the pot", but I'm still having trouble getting that into operational terms. He's been "politicking"--making speeches that nobody listens to, introducing bills that his "colleagues" don't want to support, and now again standing for prez even though absolutely none of the people who supposedly support his becoming prez were willing to do the needed work to make it happen (I know, because I tried for months to generate interest in building him the machine he needs). So if there's a problem, is it really located within him? Does it matter? If you were going to tell him SOGOTP in a way that would get him to do one or the other, what would be the choices you'd present to him? Obviously you wouldn't mean him to take you literally, so you'd have to explain it. What would you say?

I'm sort of ignoring the PI debacle for the purposes of our discussion here. Is that a mistake? To me it seems like Tin stepped on her own tongue and still doesn't really understand what happened.

but I see it as part of the problem that everyone keeps on ignoring while preaching about unity...grumble...
grumble. Kucinich just represents regression.

Say is anyone else allowed in our underworld, here? It feels like I graduated to another grade and am waiting to see who else in my new class.

Maybe the best thing we can do now is talk. Brainstorm. Think and then organize and act. It worked for the Right, so how come when we get together and bounce ideas around it is considered a waste of time or not doing anything?

What we have been doing for over a year now is to meet weekly with local farmers and workers and debate all of the things discussed at PI. The other thing we do is try to get right to the politicians, and we have been successful in getting Stabenow to kick off her campaign in farm country, and we got a farmer to introduce her with a ringing call for a return to New Deal politics. We also met one on one with several reps and the governor and both senators, many reps, and are in ongoing communication with the staffs of all of the politicians, not just here but around the country. How is all of that not "doing something?" What is the correct "something" that the activists are always trying to steer us to "do?" Why is brainstorming seen as "not doing anything?" What the hell do they think we did with the governor's staff? We brainstormed. Then we went back to our community and brainstormed with people there, and then reported back to the politicians. That is politics.

I don't understand this business of standing at a distance from the people around you, and debating how to convert or bamboozle them into agreeing with your ideas, or run fear campaigns to drive the public one direction or the other, and then standing at a distance from the officials, forming annoying and half-crazed special interest activist groups to spam them with slogans to “speak truth to power” and judging them remotely by some absurd set of ideological litmus tests.

“Doing something” for the party amounts to working the phone banks and canvassing. In other words, telemarketing and door to door Fuller brush sales – the two things that people hate more than anything else.

On edit - Here is what we are heating from the people: they are ready to move way, way to the Left and can't understand why there are no activists on board to lead with organizing, writing and speaking. Here is what we are hearing from the staffs of the Dem politicians - they are ready to move far, far to the Left, but the liberal activist organizations and pressure groups are in the way.

The liberal activists and special interest liberal organizations are standing between the everyday people and the politicians and blocking communication and paralyzing political and social action that doesn't fit their criteria and serve them. They blame the politicians and they blame the sheeple. but they will not look in the mirror. They have all the answers and are right about everything, don't you know.

Are the politicians perfect? Are the people perfect? No. That isn't the point. The point is that the liberal activists - so devoted to perfecting themselves and so committed to bullying every one else into acknowledging their superiority, are the ones who are the farthest from being perfect and are the biggest obstacle to social progress.

but I see it as part of the problem that everyone keeps on ignoring while preaching about unity...grumble...
grumble. Kucinich just represents regression.

Say is anyone else allowed in our underworld, here? It feels like I graduated to another grade and am waiting to see who else in my new class.
I'm certainly not suggesting or trying to chivvy you to "get past it and move on", Raph, I'm just trying to understand what you'd have him actually do. I can tell that you don't like him :lol: Maybe I should rephrase the question: is there anything that he could do, apart from commit political suicide again, that would redeem him in your eyes? Or have you decided that he "just represents regression" and you're agin it? :P

Apropos our underworld, I haven't a clue. I don't even know who owns the place.

... is there anything that he could do...
Apropos our underworld, I haven't a clue. I don't even know who owns the place.
Do you mean is there anything Kucinich could do, Mairead?

As far as ownership, we envision the members owning it.

As far as who is invited, I haven't been thinking in terms of excluding anyone, rather in terms of a place for those who are excluded elsewhere.

We live in some sort of inside-out backward world the liberals have created. Those who are excluded are accused of excluding; those who are not being tolerated are accused of being intolerant. Those trying to open up the discussion to more views are accused of promoting group think.

... is there anything that he could do...
Apropos our underworld, I haven't a clue. I don't even know who owns the place.
Do you mean is there anything Kucinich could do, Mairead?
Yes. Raph is very down on him, but I've so far been unable to get her to say what he could actually do to redeem himself in her eyes apart from again committing political suicide only this time as a gesture.


As far as ownership, we envision the members owning it.

As far as who is invited, I haven't been thinking in terms of excluding anyone, rather in terms of a place for those who are excluded elsewhere.

We live in some sort of inside-out backward world the liberals have created. Those who are excluded are accused of excluding; those who are not being tolerated are accused of being intolerant. Those trying to open up the discussion to more views are accused of promoting group think.
Yep. It's pretty damned amazing.

What's in a way worse for me than the "sovietisation" (if I can call it that) is watching people over at PI fall into line. Several of them are people I'd have bet money wouldn't do that, would see through the calls for unity, submission, and making-nice and say "Bugger that for a game of soldiers!". That they apparently haven't feels a bit sickening.

Yes. Raph is very down on him, but I've so far been unable to get her to say what he could actually do to redeem himself in her eyes apart from again committing political suicide only this time as a gesture.

His whole platform is political suicide in any conventional sense of the word so I can't see how you can finesse away obvious cop-outs on his part as political expediency.

What can he do? Well, start by NOT diverting a sizeable chunk of people who are far left of the Democratic Party back to the Party. Either make it about the message and not winning or stop wasting people's money, time, and patience.

Yes. Raph is very down on him, but I've so far been unable to get her to say what he could actually do to redeem himself in her eyes apart from again committing political suicide only this time as a gesture.

His whole platform is political suicide in any conventional sense of the word so I can't see how you can finesse away obvious cop-outs on his part as political expediency.
Okay, except I'm using "political suicide" in reference to him keeping his job, not in any larger sense. As long as he keeps his job, he hasn't committed p.s. Political self-exile yes, suicide no.


What can he do? Well, start by NOT diverting a sizeable chunk of people who are far left of the Democratic Party back to the Party. Either make it about the message and not winning or stop wasting people's money, time, and patience.
How is he doing that? I didn't think he had that much power over us.