pageviewsThis weekend, progressive bloggers of all stripes have gathered in Las Vegas (Sin City) to organize, network, and participate in what will be the first of many annual gatherings for the emerging progressive blogosphere that has assumed immense power and influence in a few short years.
What we are witnessing today is the birth of a new political era, one powered by people, not politicians. We are seeing the rise of ordinary Americans who, because of the power of technology, have the means to channel their energy, their passion, their talent, and their intellect into taking back our country from the money-dominated, special-interest-kow-towing, corporate-loving, hate-mongering, demaguoging, Republican elitists that are destroying our Constitution, bringing shame to our flag, dimming the beacon of hope that we once shined on the world, and crippling the American Dream for all Americans who have bet their life's work on achieving it.
People-power, the netroots, and the new political era is bringing power back to Abilene, KS, Franklin, IN, Miami, FL, Bangor, ME, Pasadena, CA, Paramus, NJ, Cedar Rapids, IA, and Big Sandy, MT. The elites in Washington who so disdain the netroots for their amateur, naive, and idealistic view of politics that they think will lead to the downfall of the Democratic party (although the elites haven't exactly done a good job of electing Democrats these last few decades) are waking up and realizing that the netroots "have arrived," as Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of the political blog, DailyKos, said this weekend.
Harry Reid, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Tom Vilsack, and even Democratic operatives like Jennifer Palmieri were there at YearlyKos to lend their voice (and seek some support) from the powerful netroots.
It was the netroots, their ability to raise money, their power to recruit candidates, their capacity for revealing the truth, their influence in undermining the conventional wisdom of the mainstream media, and their tenacity in debating ideas and devising practical solutions, policies, strategies, and tactics that led Paul Hackett to nearly become a congressman, when the elites had written him off. It was the netroots, who can, in twenty-four hours, debunk the President's lies about Social Security and reveal the Republicans' sinister plan to privatize FDR's legacy, that propelled Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the DNC, without opposition, even though the elites in Washington were adamantly opposed to it. It was the netroots, who will never stop believe in the impossible, that forced the NRCC to spend $5 million, that's right, $5 million, to defend a congressional seat that was won a year and a half ago by 22 points, where Francine Busby still almost won (by the way, Francine is still running for Congress in the regular election in November, where she could still win, so help her out if you're from the San Diego area).
Some people doubt the power of the netroots. But they are not looking at the facts. DailyKos, the largest political blog, now gets millions upon millions of unique visitors each month, and its growing monthly by 5%. The progressive political blogosphere now has a bigger audience monthly than FOX News, the largest and most popular cable news network (and a propaganda piece for the far right). The netroots were born in 2002, barely even noticed by the world, and exponentially grew in the last couple of years. Their influence is growing. Jon Tester, a grassroots, progressive Democrat from Montana, who is unapologetically supportive of progressive values, just won in a blowout of 25 points in his Democratic primary against a DLC (Democratic Leadership Council, or as I like to call it, the Dunces, Losers, and Creeps) hack who outspent him two to one and was favored by everyone in the political establishment.
Joe Lieberman, who unfortunately has decided that being Sean Hannity's favorite Democrat is more important than standing up for his party when everyone else is attacking it, is going to lose in his primary for renomination to the US Senate. Ned Lamont, a fantastic progressive businessman, has closed the gap in the polls between Lieberman and him by 31 points in a month and is now only 15 points behind a three-term incumbent.
Technology is changing. Ten years ago, no one knew what texting meant, no one had ever seen a BlackBerry, no one imagined watching television and movies on their computer, no one thought radio, newspapers, and magazines would predominantly be read online, and no one understood that politics would take on an Internet personality. In the next few years, and the next couple of election cycles, politics will nearly be done entirely online. Money will be raised at online fundraisers, town hall meetings will occur by video over the internet, voting will be done from the comfort of your desk, campaign organizations will be decentralized, volunteers from Iowa will help a state Senate candidate in Georgia get elected, news will be broken online, people will read political books off Amazon.com, and Americans from every nook and cranny in our country will be able to share ideas, debate policies, and consult individual campaigns, not as professional consultants, but as concerned citizens helping to make everyone engagedin our democracy.
The fact that I can sit here in my dorm room and communicate with all of you and explain my thinking about these issues is a testament to the power of democracy-driven technology and technology-driven democracy. College Dems will be updating our web site this fall and will make it much easier to get involved as members without having to be a full time committed leader. The power that we can have to effect change and make a difference is unlimited. We have the blogosphere to thank for that.
Okay. Adam brought his 20th century political hero into the mix, so I’m going to introduce mine. Harry Truman once said, “It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince them, confuse them. It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.”
Nice try, Adam.
In his last post (a response to my response to his original post—nice to see they’re working us interns real hard over here at All America PAC), Adam basically made it seem as though us libertarian types hate helping people. It was an admirable effort at confusing the issue, to be sure, but I’m not going to let that one slide, so I’m going to respond briefly before, y’know, actually doing my real job.
I think that any time you give a government a task that could be completed by someone or something else, you need to justify it. Thus far, big government liberals have utterly failed to convince me as to why the federal government should be performing tasks like providing drug counseling or deciding one single nationwide criteria for what constitutes a “successful education.” I believe that these are tasks that are performed much more effectively on a local level, and so far, liberals, Adam included, have yet to make an effective argument as to why these are tasks that can only be performed by the federal government.
I think that helping those that are less fortunate is important. In fact, I believe that each and every person on this planet has an obligation to help their fellow human beings.
I just don’t think the government should be telling them how to do that.
I think that most people have an innate sense of right and wrong. And I think that given the opportunity, the vast majority of Americans will rise to the opportunity to help those in need.
But it is quite simply not a government’s job to do that. That is not what a government is. A government doesn’t exist to enforce moral behavior; it exists solely to keep order and provide services that can only be achieved through collective action, like trash collection.
Our founding fathers never intended for government to become the giant machine that it is today. That is why they initially wrote a ban on income taxes into the Constitution. This is a rule that is of course long gone, but the issue still stands. Hobbes argued that government was an issue not of moral good, but of self-interest—that is, citizens cede certain rights to the governments in exchange for physical protection. Nowhere in that argument does helping the less fortunate come into play. It is simply not the domain of government. The social contract between a citizen and his government is not one of morality, it is one of pragmatism. Government does not exist to serve as an equalizer; not all people are necessarily equally deserving of reward in their lives. It’s why communism failed; governments have no place controlling the distribution of income amongst their citizens. In my view, if you earn your money, you should get to keep as much of it as humanly possible, taxing only what is necessary to keep anarchy at bay. Taxes should only be imposed as an absolute last resort, and laws passed only when a problem of order, security, or equality cannot be solved any other way.
I am a big fan of Bobby Kennedy. He is my favorite leader in American history and I wish he had lived to become President. Senator Kennedy once said, regarding the struggle to give equality to everyone in our nation, that "We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do." Rachel talks about how government is sometimes good because helping us can help ourselves. But there are moral imperatives, things that are instinctively right and just regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or nationality. Everyone deserves basic dignity, basic equality, and basic freedom. Everyone deserves enough food to eat, a warm place to sleep in the cold, a decent doctor to treat you when you're sick, a good teacher to give you the skills to succeed, and a good job to fill you with pride and dignity for earning your success.
I understand Rachel's assessment in the last post that government is not always the best solution to every problem. I respect Rachel's opinion and respectfully disagree; nonetheless, I believe Rachel is a good Democrat and I hope she stays in our great party of the people. But it is telling that Rachel condemns government by using Republican myths such as the myth that all government programs don't work, are wasteful, overstay their welcome, and punish good people by intervening in their lives and draining away their freedom.
I believe in a government that empowers. I do not like higher taxes for the sake of higher taxes. I sometimes support fairer taxation because there are certain needs that only government can perform best, and I think deficits hurt our economy.
I do not support big government for the sake of big government. I support government that relieves suffering, not just because it helps you and me if there are less people in poverty, without health insurance, and without a good education, although that is true. I support it because it is right. Because I cannot live with myself knowing that there are people who are suffering in the world and I think every American, yes, even you Rachel, agrees with me.
I support taxing people as little as is necessary. I support a government as small as it needs to be. I don't want burdensome regulation more than is justified. But we must take care of basic needs.
Liberals do not need to be attacked for being against freedom. I love freedom, I love my country, and I love that we have a free market that allows everyone the chance to succeed and achieve the American Dream. But economic and social justice is not about freedom and authority, power and liberty. It is about who we are as a nation, about who we want to be. Do we want to settle for a country that provides a strict and narrow definition of freedom that benefits a small few, and does nothing to make us the envy of the world and of history? Or do we wish to strive for a time when poverty is obsolete, when happiness is universal, when government is less and less necessary? We can create a better America, not just because it will make us all better off, although it will, but because it is right.
I would like to build off my reply to Adam’s post about the principles of liberalism by saying the one thing I never thought I’d say: take a look at Tom DeLay’s retirement speech from the House floor yesterday.
For those of you who can’t bear the thought of any more DeLay than is absolutely necessary, I’ll excerpt it here.
“Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy and a proud one with a great tradition in this country, with a voracious appetite for growth.
In any place or any time on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More—more government, more taxation, more control over people's lives and decisions and wallets. If conservatives don't stand up to liberalism, no one will. And for a long time around here, almost no one did.”
DeLay shows us the problem with the blue-red divide within America. It is characterizations like these.
Indeed, I believe the Hammer to have, pardon the pun, nailed the problem right on its head. Too often, Democrats come across as tax-happy spendthrifts who claim to know exactly what’s good for you, whether or like it or not. While this philosophy is obviously an exaggeration, it has its basis in some ugly facts.
Democrats seem to be quite fond of taking your money and sending it halfway around the world. I agree that we should be spending more on foreign aid—because, after all, we live in a global world where civil strife thousands of miles away will inevitably affect our peace at home—but I understand the plight of many Americans confused as to why Democrats want to send their money to Africa when there are people starving and unemployed here at home. And foreign aid is only one example of a correct policy that is often the victim of Republican mudslinging.
Democrats need to take control of the debate, and for this problem, I offer a three-pronged approach:
1) Spend wisely. Let’s take a look at the way we spend the taxpayers’ money. Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that approximately 29 billion dollars were spent on pork barrel projects in 2006 alone. This is an issue that stretches across party lines, but an issue Democrats can use to their advantage. Democrats should step up to the plate and take the lead on cutting spending. If Democratic senators and representatives can look past the short-term personal interests served by wasteful pork barrel spending, we can make the Republicans look pretty wasteful. We cannot allow the GOP to have a monopoly on fiscal responsibility. Democratic support for social welfare programs needs to be reexamined. I am not advocating we withdraw our admirable support for those who have fallen on hard times and need a safety net, but we need to make it clear that what our party is proposing is not a “get out of work free” pass, but rather just a hand to catch you and get you back to work when you fall on hard times. While this may be what the party already believes, we as a party seem to have trouble articulating our vision. We cannot concede the high ground to Republicans on this issue; we must make it clear that Democrats are for hard work and the American Dream every bit as much as the Republicans. This brings me to my second point, which is…
2) Articulate the vision.With a few exceptions—Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama come to mind—our party seems to be sorely lacking in an effective verbal advocate. Democrats are not all about liberal tax-and-spend policies, but that does not seem to be the impression of at least half of the country. We are the real party of fiscal responsibility, as the booming economy and Clinton surpluses of the 1990s show, but that is frequently overlooked. Too often, Democrats allow the Republicans to control the direction of the debate. It’s embarrassing. Take, for example, the recent leak of the 2006 DCC agenda (think a Democratic version of the Contract with America), which included, among other things, a hike in the federal minimum wage, reinstating pay-as-you-go budget rules, and… “a sixth plank that has not yet been settled upon.” Yes, we’ve got image problems in this country.
And 3) Explain yourselves. Want to send my tax dollars to Africa? That’s great, now explain it. I am a big advocate of increasing the foreign aid budget, and I’ll tell you why. If a civil war erupts in some two-bit banana republic in South America, no matter how unimportant the country is, it affects the entire region. This in turn destabilizes the world economy. Similarly, in today’s technological world, you can travel halfway around the globe in not much more than a day. Diseases know no borders. AIDS probably started when a few dozen African tribesmen ate some infected chimpanzees. A decade later, we had nothing short of a global health crisis on our hands, one that did not discriminate based on nationality or sexual orientation. If a man catches the flu in Indonesia, he could be on a plane and roaming around New York City within the day. We need to prevent epidemics before they happen, and sometimes, that means treating them before they reach our borders. But we need to make that clear to American voters. It’s easy to fall into trap of acting morally superior, but “it’s the right thing to do” just isn’t cutting it. While the moral obligation to help our starving brethren abroad exists, it isn’t an effective argument for increased foreign aid. Self-interest is. The reason we help those in need around the world isn’t out of selfless interests—it’s out of selfish ones. We want to alleviate conflict and disease abroad before it becomes a problem for us at home. That’s all there is to it, but we seem to have trouble making that clear to the voters.
I’m sure y’all are tired of hearing me beat the drum of the DLC, James Carville, and other moderate (and I believe, highly effective) Dem strategists, but you’re about to hear me again: We have got to learn how to defend ourselves. We need to stop worrying about BS issues Americans don’t care about—stop freaking out about big agribusiness farm subsidies, for example—and get our act together.
We must advocate a vision. We need to offer a way to get out of the mess in Iraq, propose a legitimate plan for the national defense and comprehensive immigration reform, and promise to and then actually cut wasteful spending. We can’t just be about negatives—the failed Busby campaign in California showed us that. Francine Busby ran a campaign that was almost entirely negative. She offered little to the voters of the 50th District in the way of political goals, but instead ran a campaign based on little more than the argument that “Republicans are evil, evil, evil.” She almost won on that alone, but almost isn’t good enough. The Republican Party is irreversibly corrupt, but that alone is not an argument on behalf of Democrats.
To take back our rightful control of the House and Senate in ’06, we have to construct and then successfully advocate for a real vision for America.
But let's start tomorrow. Tonight, feel free to crack open that bottle of champagne (I'll buy), let your hair down, and celebrate the fact that Washington will soon be rid of Tom DeLay. read more...
No, I'm not calling for Al Gore to run for President in 2008; though I think he was rightfully elected in 2000, but that's a matter for another time.
I saw Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth, last weekend and I was inspired! Al Gore is witty, funny, smart, and prescient. Everyone should go and see the movie.
But what the movie tells us and has informed me is that we must think about long term problems now and address them before it's too late.
Too many of our politicians think in 2, 4, and 6 year terms and don't think in 20, 50, and 100 year terms, as they should. Climate change is real, and if we don't address it now, we'll pay for it very seriously in fifty years.
Republicans should be with us on this issue. This is pure science. Last year, a random sample of 928 peer-reviewed studies on climate change reported a unanimity that the planet is warming, and carbon emissions from human activity is the primary cause. A vast majority of scientists also believe the effects are accelerating and we have a ten year minimum at most before the effects of global warming become nearly irreversible.
Al Gore has a website, climatecrisis.net, that provides information on climate change and ways we can personally, at the individual level, and socially, at the national and global level to reverse the effects of global warming. Let's begin to save our planet, and our lives, and the human race, by demanding that all Democratic presidential candidates in 2008 commit to reducing carbon emissions around the world and help them get elected President in 2008. We can do it!
I've given a lot of thought recently to the idea of what progressivism is. What makes me a progressive? Why do we liberals believe what we believe on every issue? What unites us on the issues? While I have no slam dunk answer, I have come to believe that my liberal values stem from a sense of responsibility, deeply engrained into my moral fiber, that commands me to serve others, as an obligatory responsibility. Further, I have come to realize that there are five forms of responsibility that inform my political beliefs and I will take the time now to explain them.
1) Individual Responsibility - Liberals believe that individuals must take responsibility for their personal actions, and therefore, government must protect their liberties and choices so that individuals will take responsibility for their actions. This means that government cannot regulate our sex lives, our reproductive decisions, or the ways in which we pursue our happiness.
2) Mutual Responsibility - Liberals believe that we have a responsibility to each other on the individual level. If my neighbor is sick, I have a duty to take care of him. If my friend's son is failing school, I have an obligation to lend some time to help him succeed. And if a total stranger in a foreign land is oppressed and desperately poor, I have a responsibility to send them money to help them live and to support my government's penalizing their tyrants to further the cause of liberty.
3) Social Responsibility - Liberals believe that we have a responsibility to society at large. When 46 million lack any health insurance and hundreds of millions more lack adequate health care, we must sacrifice some of our earnings in taxation so that society is healthy. If one third of young black men are in jail instead of college, we have a responsibility to promote educational opportunity, whether through affirmative action, universal preschool, college tuition assistance, improving teacher quality, and increasing tutoring funds.
4) Civic Responsibility - Liberals believe we have a responsibility to our country. We are deeply patriotic; we love our Constitution and will do anything to preserve, protect, and defend it against government abuses, infringement on liberties, and efforts to undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers. We also believe we have a responsibility to serve our country, whether it is in the form of community service, military service, or public service. We accept JFK's call to ask what we can do for our country and we want our leaders to mobilize us for a cause bigger than ourselves.
5) Global Responsibility - Liberals believe in the exceptional nature of our country, so much so that we are disappointed when we see our country ruined by Republican stupidity. Because we are exceptional, and the United States is uniquely powerful, we have an enormous responsibility to lead the world, spread liberty and freedom (but not with military force), alleviate poverty, protect the Earth from degradation, fight disease, prevent genocide, and unite the global community toward peace and prosperity.
I'm sure some of you will disagree with me, so please comment. But I think, for me at least, this formulation best represents how my liberalism came to be.
Dear George,
Well, you did it again. You went back on TV and told me about how important it was that you and your cronies work to change my Constitution to protect marriage. In your first speech about the Defense of Marriage, not only did state that marriage is the "most fundamental institution of civilization" (yeah, Britney Spears ruins the fundamentality of every institution...). But the most important thing you said in your speech was that the government should listen to the people on an issue as important as this one.
George, this Amerian wants to be heard (along with at least 47% of the population, including your wife and VP). How dare you try to change my Constitution into a vehicle for hate and inequality. How dare you try to use your religious agenda to gain more votes and call yourself compassionate! Compassion is about trying to understand others and you have tried only to understand Christian conservatives.
I think you should try being compassionate about AIDS. You may have forgotten (what with the war and oil problems), but the world is facing an epidemic. I think instead of protecting Americans from gay people, we should protect Americans (and all people) from AIDS. Today marks the day that people were first introduced a strange pneumonia 25 years ago. This 'pneumonia' later became known as AIDS, a disease that has destroyed the lives of countless millions (we may have forgotten about Poland, but you, my friend, have forgotten about Africa).
The only protection I want to hear you talk about today is the condom (which is one of the best sources of protection against HIV, besides your favorite, abstinence). Besides, you should be worrying about the protection of your precious Republican house. Let the states worry about protecting their people from gay marriage!
Here's to hope for a cure. Let's be the generation that ends AIDS.
For a long time, I doubted that we could win back the House and while publicly I touted my belief that Democrats would win a majority this year in the House of Representatives even though secretly I thought we would fall just short. But I have realized now that not only will we take over the House, I truly believe that we will win in a landslide and pick up more than 30 seats. This might seem like quite the optimistic prediction. But what I have realized over the last few weeks is that we have some amazing candidates running for the House of Representatives, and the Republicans are asleep at the wheel. First of all, Democrats have now broken the record for most contested congressional election. So far, there are 424 districts where Democrats are running for Congress and we have a chance to fill seven more to reach 431 contested districts. In recent years, we have not run more than 400 Democrats and in 1994, Republicans set the record for most districts contested by running candidates in 419 districts. Now some say this is a waste of time because most of these people in hard red districts won't get more than 25% of the vote against their extremely entrenched Republican foes. However, what this does is it forces Republican incumbents to stay at home and campaign and spend money in their home district as opposed to spreading their money and time around the country to help their fellow Republicans. As well, in a year that is favorable to Democrats, the more candidates we have running, the greater the chance that we will win more upsets in a number of conservative Republicans districts, beefing up our majority.
Just look up some of our great challengers like Larry King, Eric Massa, Herb Paine, Paul Aronsohn, John Courage, and Colleen Rowley. The GOP will probably keep control of the Senate, but by a reduced margin. But we will win back the House, mark my words.
I have to admit, on occasion I watch the weekend morning Fox News roundtables. I mock, and I cringe, but I do it. It's like a car crash, sometimes you just can't look away.
So as I often do, I was half watching this morning while doing some other things, and I was appalled (as I often am) at the discussion I was hearing. The topic for the morning was the recent allegations that American troops are regularly, and needlessly killing Iraqi civilians.
The talking heads weren't discussing the fact that soldiers who kill civilians in war zone are committing crimes. In fact, they weren't framing their discussion about the crimes themselves at all. Instead, the conversation revolved around the international market and how these rumors will effect the United States' economic position at home and abroad. The general consensus was affirmative: yes, if stories about these alleged and rumored crimes continued, our economic health could be impacted in a negative fashion.
Now, I had a problem with what they were saying. It seemed to me that in the face of this shocking news cycle, their priorities were a bit misplaced, but at the same time, I didn't really expect much more from the channel of Fair and Balanced News.
What really shocked me, was the gentleman who interrupted the discussion of economics and international relations to rant about how the crimes of our enemies justify any actions on the parts of our soldiers.
"You have to remember, people, that we're fighting people who think killing babies will get them into heaven," he began.
Now, I'm not even going to comment on how badly the gentleman needed to educate himself about Islam, and the many men and women of faith who live in Iraq. Nor am I going to take time to clearly distinguish between our military enemies (the people we're fighting) and the civilians (they people we're being accused of murdering). If you're reading this, I'm sure you have a better grasp on those concepts than he did.
Instead, I'm just going to offer a reminder that we should all keep in mind as this debate goes forward. The attitude I heard on Fox this morning-- that whatever we do is okay because of what they do-- is the same opinion espoused by those we are fighting. They justify their actions by looking at what we do.
Another Bush administration invasion of privacy that speaks for itself: the New York Times reports today that the Justice Department is apparently asking internet executives and the companies they represent to save data on which users visit certain sites, and who users send e-mail to. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want Gonzales & Co. to know all about my embarassing obsession with buying vintage Beanie Babies online...
Can someone do us all a favor and please send these guys a copy of the U.S. Constitution, with the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th Amendments circled in big red ink? I'm sure the nice folks over at NSA have a copy lying around somewhere that they're not using...
