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TechnoratiBetween 1968-1972, when Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton began their political journey, the Democrats were gripped by a great wave of change, propelled mainly by young people, from the bottom up. The Chicago convention protests were a mirror into this transition. In these pivotal years, young people could not vote and most delegates to the convention were chosen in backrooms by party bosses. By 1972, the so-called McGovern reforms led to the displacement of the old guard and the seating of people like Rev. Jesse Jackson in place of Mayor Daley's cronies. Most important, unlike before, rank-and-file Democrats were empowered to vote for their preferences in presidential primaries.
The Clintons were part of that early wave. Now their hopes for survival may rest on so-called super-delegates, a category of appointed party loyalists which the McGovern reforms failed to erase. The super-delegates are a throwback to the old tradition of a top-down privileged oligarchy maintaining the citadel against the grass-roots, democratically-chosen delegates. They are not necessarily the rich and powerful, though there are plenty of them. Many are like Rachel Binah, mentioned in the New York Times, who is a former radical environmentalist grass-roots California Democrat who worked her way up the party ladder and now receives phone calls from Chelsea and Hillary Clinton soliciting her vote. It's an old style insider trading system, and now threatens to eclipse the reforms achieved starting in the early Seventies. It would be an ugly, contaminated way to seal the final decision in one of the best primary contests ever conducted.
Even uglier will be the establishment claim that Michigan and Florida should count for Clinton even though the Democratic Party ruled against recognizing those state's contests.
If Clinton is chosen by the super-delegates or on the basis of the Michigan/Florida results, I would not be surprised to see hundreds of thousands of young Obama supporters silently circling the Denver convention petitioning the party to recognize their historic achievement.
It may not happen that way. But it could.
Obama is poised to win eight straight primaries in the week since Super Tuesday, with only Virginia a bit uncertain at this point. In their staggering spin, the Clinton forces are denying that these eight states matter in comparison with California and New York. This spin will be challenged when and if Obama wins Wisconsin and Hawaii on the 19th, for ten victories in a row. Coming out of Super Tuesday ahead in 14 states to Clinton's eight (some are still counting), that would mean Obama finishes February with 24 states to eight against the former First Lady and a former president popular with Democrats. The delegate totals in those 24 states are more than Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania combined, and even if the Clintons win in those three big states they still stand to lose in the 14 states remaining. That would mean approximately a 38-11 Obama sweep of the primary states by June, with one unknown at the moment.
Obama needs to fight the media perception, prompted partly by the Clintons, that "it's all over" when the big three states weigh in. That may not be any more accurate than the previous dogma that it would be all over by Super Tuesday.
Obama needs to shore up his defenses in Texas, where he is at a disadvantage. In addition to hitting hard on Iraq, his campaign needs to enlist long- time Texas populists like Jim Hightower (which hasn't happened) and win a significant share of the John Edwards vote along with the modest black vote in order to offset potentially big losses among the state's Latinos. Obama has not yet tied the failure of NAFTA (job loss for Americans, more uprooted immigrants from Mexico) to Clinton's "experience" in the White House. Nor has he spoken of the need for a new good neighbor policy towards Latin America, a whole continent that has rejected the Clinton's "free trade" policies and been ignored during the Iraq war.
In Ohio, Obama needs to win both the anti-war and anti-NAFTA voters (as in Wisconsin) to do well. Pennsylvania, three weeks later, will be shaped by the previous contest, but is a good state for the Clintons. Keep an eye on North Carolina, approaching on May 6, the home state of John Edwards.
By June, Obama needs to be ahead in the total popular vote, the total number of states won, and at least be neck-and-neck in the delegate count. He has to show a significant margin of difference over Clinton in match ups with John McCain. He will have to demand that Howard Dean and the DNC hold firm against the contaminated outcomes in Florida and Michigan.
At some point, perhaps, a pact between the candidates will be possible.
If not, the massive and peaceful pressure for transformation heading into Denver may be unique in the history of American social movements. One generation of reformers, exhausted but still fighting, will have to decide whether power is so important that they are willing to roll over young people no different than themselves three decades ago.#
Tom Hayden is the author of Ending the War in Iraq (2007) and The Tom Hayden Reader
Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
69 Comments so far
Show AllTry to imagine a world in which our "leaders" were not "blogged" down with peoples cherished opinions about them. They could act within both their established long range vision, and the immediate unique, tailored to situations solution scenerios. They could, in a perfect world, present themselves in more than soundbites in three and possibly in even four dimensions to the american people. And they would listen. Without preconception. Americans would be doing what needed to be done, while turning the other cheek to hate, cutting off the hand that offends them, most of all: NOT JUDGING OTHERS!
Politics is the "Works of Man" beyond the reach of human hands. If Americans were not indifferent to the types of work, food, air, clothing, water, entertainment, waste, practicality of posting on a website, fornication and so much more, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. Love your neighbor as your self and don't hide your light under a bushel of blogorama, like I just did. Grassroots is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
I have two big problems with Obama ... first, I think he and his campaign have happily positioned themselves as the "anti-Hillary" campaign while leaving the republicans unscathed. When I hear Michelle Obama say she'd have to think about whether she'd actively work for Clinton should Clinton be the nominee ... I understand why so many Obama supporters insist they will simply vote McCain or not vote rather than even simply just voting for Clinton ...
What of the other tickets? The senators, representative, governors? Are Mr. and Mrs. Obama and all their supporters going to sit on their hands? I think Team Obama vastly overestimates the power of the presidency to effect change without a substantial majority in CONGRESS ...
Secondly, when I hear Obama supporters say that he make them feel good about themselves and good about America ... I really wonder if they've been paying attention to Guantanamo, the amnesty for the telecoms, the ongoing problems with "homeland security" and it's mini-me FEMA and Katrina ... It's nice to feel "good" .. but all is not well in America, even within our immediate borders and installations) ...
All this "hope" talk -- to me -- feed the American tradition of DENIAL ... we are much weaker than we were 8 years ago.. economically, militarily, and in terms of our influence/clout. IMHO, flags, brass bands and "feeling good", conjures up Germany after WWI, when soundly BEATEN and abject, against all odds, they too found "hope" again in a working-class messianic figure.
Pay attention ... neither Clinton nor Obama have renounced military adventurism ... forays into Pakistan, bases in Iraq (WHERE ELSE can we put bases in that region? everyone else hates us!) ...
TeamObama has the responsibility to EDUCATE its followers and to work hard on "message discipline" ... I've seen very little maturation overall ... and this "take my ball and go home" attitude is potentially very destructive ... and that comes from the top ... not mature, not good, not constructive.
I have never liked Hillary Clinton ... and I was delighted when Obama won in Iowa ... in the last 6 weeks, he's lost me.
Has any developed an easily assembled parabolic reflector that can be taken to peaceful demonstrations like Tom's proposing for the Sound Cannons. You know, it could be like Cirque du Soleil when they explode the Volks beetle into dancing parts in "Love", only in reverse, "Hate". "That's the way of the world, all right. Sit tight, till it all blows over." ArtBears
I basically agreed with the article, but it is hypocritical to say that we should toss out the established rules in the case of superdelegates but not toss out the established rules in the case of Florida and Michigan. If you feel that out of a sense of election-by-the-people we should toss out the superdelegates (something that makes some sense to me; we wouldn't want to alienate Obama supporters), then we should also find a way to include the votes of Florida and Michigan. We shouldn't apply and not apply the established rules just to suit our favorite candidate.
By the way, it is dissapointing to see that the anti Hillary Clintonism we see among conservatives has spread into the "progressive" movement. I believe she is at the moment the more competent candidate, though Obama has amazing potential. (I did vote for him in 2004 in his Senate race and was just as excited about him then as his supporters are now.)
If you want to see something that will ready blow your socks off check out this speech by Michelle Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZiNtTq10i0
It's from a rally in LA on Feb. 3. The video quality is awful, but the sound quality is good. Her speech starts 30 minutes into the video, after a very screechy intro, followed by Caroline Kennedy and a long-winded Oprah Winfrey, and a short aside by Stevie Wonder. But it's worth the wait. Maybe click it on, go do something else for half and hour, then come back and listen.
There is an online petition asking the DNC to choose the candidate with the most votes and delegates rather than take the chance that Washington Insiders will override the will of the voters with a secret "backroom deal".
Please sign the petition and pass it on to your friends.
http://www.petitiononline.com/Superdel/petition.html
So, you would rather support a proven Neo-Con?
A vote for Obama is a vote against Clinton.
Is it perfect? No.
Is it an improvement over the alternative?
Based on spouses alone--I would say yes.
I'm not voting for a TV commercial. Period. Obama is a vacuous TV commercial.
One, he has truly sold out and is as big a corporate candidate as Hilary. If you look at his voting record and his contributors, it may be that.
Two, the hype will continue until he has a large following, especially among African-Americans, and then he will be assassinated, leading to riots and the imposition of the mOne, he has truly sold out and is as big a corporate candidate as Hilary. If you look at his voting record and his contributors, it may be that.
Two, the hype will continue until he has a large following, especially among African-Americans, and then he will be assassinated, leading to riots and the imposition of the martial law that is currently being planned.
They have flirted with a second terrorist attack, but there are too many people who are now wise to 9-11, then they pushed bird flu, but really, how do you control who dies in an epidemic? Black riots would be idealartial law that is currently being planned.
They have flirted with a second terrorist attack, but there are too many people who are now wise to 9-11, then they pushed bird flu, but really, how do you control who dies in an epidemic? Black riots would be ideal...
:eyes glaze over:
Hope! That's it! Wow, Obama sounds great after listening to that, Ms./Mr. Dark Cloud on a Flooding Day! Way to go with making the status quo sound so much better than listening to looming martial law after seven years of looming martial law! Thank you, I'm completely primed to drink the kool-aid now, and promise to never think about anything but smiling puppies and Yes We Can! You have completely anesthetized me from feeling anything but Hope! Wow. Thanks!
Yes, that's sarcasm. :p Do you see how this works?
It's not the preacher, it's the congregation. I've got no illusion about Obama's progressive credentials (or lack of). What Obama offers in contrast to Clinton is an infusion of newly energized voters who will vote "D" up and down the ballot in November. The African-American community alone will make a huge impact. They are one of the most solidly progressive voting blocks in the country.
I wouldn't be making this case if there were still a progressive left in the race, but there isn't. So, let's take what we can get. This ain't a bad deal.
It's not a great deal either - but otherwise, I agree. "We wuz robbed" stops working when you're out of the ring - and meanwhile, there's a whole world of organizing to do.
That being said, speaking up about the DNC, about Obama's militarism (which I'm sorry, is not the same as Clinton's, although he's more hawkish than most CD readers, including myself), Kucinich's win in the first debate getting rigged, Clinton whispering to Edwards about getting other candidates out of the race, etc, etc, etc - all of that is good, I think. It's still not going to change the outcome - *this* time, at least for the Democrats.
Organize in the Greens, push the left wing of the DP, say "fukkit" to elections and focus outside the system (which is completely corrupt, after all) - but the horse's vitals are dropping, ok? Dead is dead until the next time around.
It most certainly is not a "miracle" that Obama has gotten this far. He is being hyped by the corporate media. Why, I don't know. I can see two scenarios.
One, he has truly sold out and is as big a corporate candidate as Hilary. If you look at his voting record and his contributors, it may be that.
Two, the hype will continue until he has a large following, especially among African-Americans, and then he will be assassinated, leading to riots and the imposition of the martial law that is currently being planned.
They have flirted with a second terrorist attack, but there are too many people who are now wise to 9-11, then they pushed bird flu, but really, how do you control who dies in an epidemic? Black riots would be ideal, because they could round up African Americans and put them into camps, and white America would complain about as much as the Germans did. We already have more people in prison than any other country, and prisoners are disproportionately people of color. You don't see a lot of complaint about that, do you?
The more Obama is the beneficiary of misogyny that he does not disavow...
The more Obama is the beneficiary of hype he has never lived up to...
The more zombie-like and empty-headed Obama's supporters sound...
The more times I hear that one substance-free Obama speech that I didn't find especially inspiring the first time...
The more Obama makes clear that he's more interested in the white, male Republican vote than in mine (female, Hispanic, lifelong Democrat)...
The more the same mainstream media that pushed George Bush and the Iraq war on us coddles and endorses Obama...
The more I hear people who should know better excusing and explaining away Obama's errors and lack of substance...
...the more convinced I am that I'm voting Green if Obama is the candidate for the Democrats.
I sure hope they don't use the Florida results. Being a Floridian I voted for Edwards because I liked his populist platform and was hoping that the other candidates would incorporate it into theirs.
That being said had I known the vote would count I would have voted Obama because I didn't think Edwards had a real shot of victory and I don't want Clinton as the nominee.
So Democratic Party stick to your decision or hold another vote from scratch
Obama has said he'd close Guantanamo and restore Habeas Corpus. Those are specifics, and important ones to me. He has also spoken out against torture.
Yes, he's voted for funding the war, but I've actually funded it with my taxes (as, probably, have most of you), so I can't damn him for that.
Damn! Have some of you calcified lefties lost the capacity to dream? Don't you think that Obama might be a tad better than the fascist war criminal infecting the Whitehouse,now?
I was and continue to be a supporter of Kucinich, and agree with those who say that the Democratic Party showed its true colors when it colluded with DK's exclusion from the debates (and it continue to show its true colors everyday in Congress with its non-resistance to neo-fascist policy and refusal to hold the Bushies accountable).
When I voted in the NY primary, I voted for Obama (after having voted for Hillary in her two Senate elections). I did this despite the fact that I worked to get Kucinich on the ballot, and despite the fact that it is difficult to discern any profound differences between Obama and Hillary on their policy positions.
I chose Obama over Hillary and Kucinich for the following reasons:
--Kucinich had withdrawn from the race and I wanted my vote to count.
--I chose Obama over Hillary because at least he did speak out against the war in 2002, while Hillary gave a speech in 2002 supporting the evil vote to authorize military action that basically reinforces all of the Bush/Cheney lies. She also blatantly went against the wishes of her constituency--or at least that of many of the people who put her in office. A MILLION people were on the streets of NYC in Feb 2003, no matter what the papers said, and she basically ignored us. My vote was in part a vote against Hillary. It is a sad reality that Obama has voted to fund the war. I am not saying my vote is not contradictory.
--Hillary represents the past: we have a sense of what she will do and what kind of people she will put in power and how the Republicans will gang up and spew pea soup with a whitewater base for 4 or 8 years. For better or worse, she is tied to her husband's policies. We are sick of it. Better an unknown but promising quantity than the Clintonian repetition compulsion with its death drive--maybe they'll help the economy but everything else is centrist veering to the right (NAFTA, welfare).
--Before the primary, I saw an African American kid, around 16 years old, on the subway totally engrossed in a book. Being a nosy type, I peaked at the title. It was Obama's autobiography. I realized that Obama being elected would be really a huge symbolic boost to the black community in this country, and that's not nothing. I would love to see that. That moment was probably what clinched my vote.
Sincerely,
One of those white women who was supposed to back Hillary
Thought his speech was pretty good last night. He seems to building up confidence and hitting his stride. He is a much better speaker than Clinton and getting better with the process.
The question I would have to ask of Clinton who keeps on touting her experience and readiness and attacks the Bush years, is:
Where the hell have you been, Hillary? I haven't heard your singular voice of leadership opposing Bush. I haven't heard your outraged call for accountability. If anything, you were enabling and complicit while Bill was out golfing with Pappy Bush.
Obama may not be ideal--buy hey, we could do a whole lot worse.
We live in a time wherein the life of a Brittany Spears can be endlessly covered in every detail, and she is richer than a Mozart ever was. It is a celebrity-soaked world, that is forced upon us by shady manipulative entities who remain in the background. Obama is one such celebrity. Who is putting him forward and lavishing his campaign with funds? Sure, he is a natural celebrity, but there are truly better choices for a liberal, progressive president.
Is Obama set-up by Republican operatives? The scenario is this: Joe Lie-berman (who is now going to see his presidential candidate win no matter who is elected as he is Obama's mentor and is backing McCain) has his wealthy Republican cronies flood Obama with money through cut-outs. Obama takes out all the real progressives. He then takes out Hillary, angering women who wanted to see a woman president in their lifetimes. Women sit on their hands in the general election. The Hispanic vote goes to McCain, for his immigration policies, and because the Hispanic vote is for Hillary. Sorry, black dude.
So with all the celebrity hoopla and media bias about a candidate who says nothing wonderfully with much ado (like a local tv news anchor) Obama gets the nomination with much divisiveness within the party (so much for Obama's 'kumbaya- can't we all just get along' blather as he kicks Hillary's ass). And then he goes on to win about twelve cities in the general election, after Rove's swift boat goes into action, morphing Hussein O-sama into an al-Quaeda stooge and naif liberal Democrat surrender monkey up against Big John Wayne McCain. Obama gets his head handed to him in November, losing to McCain, Lieberman's guy, in a landslide victory for Republicans. And progressives and liberals are left to ask WTF?
When you are at the party, you think the whole world is dancing. Outside in the dark, there is another reality. And it is way bigger.
I wish Obama the best, and hope he is sincere, but I just can't see any of the red states going his way in the general election. And I think the Republicans know if they can get a Barack Hussein Obama (couldn't it have been a Denzel Washington?) to run against a warrior John McCain, the presidency is, once again, theirs. They will have, and may have created, this year's McGovern. And Tom, I think you do remember how well George McGovern fared. The Democrats are, once again, pulling a defeat out of a sure victory.
Now at the last count Obama is 25 ahead.
Hi there ~DERAN~. What is it exactly that you find strange about Tom Hayden's article?
He wrote the facts about what has transpired with the Obama campaign to date and what MAY very well happen if the Super Delegates, or the states of Michigan and Florida decide who the Democrat nominee will be. He laid it out like a blueprint and gave some excellent observations and opinions.
BTW, if you think it is just young people who are voting for Obama, you are sadly mistaken. The Democrats, along with Independants, are out voting the Republicans almost two to one. ___ Wonder why? Democrats and Independants are voting in much larger numbers than ever before in my recollection, but so are Democrats and Independants of EVERY factor. The young, old, women, men, blacks, whites, browns, greens, yellows, reds and purples, the wealthy and the poor, the intellects and the morons are voting almost 50-50 for both Obama and Hillary.
It will be very difficult for any Republican to win in November. It could happen McCain could win ___if the Democrats have a great big shit fight at their convention and the voters become disgusted. Even then, it will likely be close, the VAST majority of Americans don't want McCain or any other Republicn in the White House next time and many would instead elect a blithering idiot. ___ As we have done on occasion in the past.
Look, the Green party, Edwards and Kucinich just can't gain momentum . So who do YOU want to vote for? McCain?
Obama is the least harmfull of whats left.
If the Green party was smart they would have called themselves
"the Green Democratic Party"
and they would have been more able to swing Democrats to thier side.
Also, you'd think someone from the left would have started a fake 2,nd Right wing conservative party to split the Republican vote by now. Just more proof the Dems suck at politics.
My goodness; call a doctor, Tonm Hayden's gone totally round the bend, and alzheimers is wrecking his memory.
I mean, I wasn't there, dude, but, from what one reads and sees, the Obamarama is similar to the '68-'72 period only in that young people are scared shitless and acting on things. Or, at least, they think they are. The problem is, they've hitched their need for a savior to a reality tv cypher.
Some have talked abt how in order to keep a Obama preidency progressive there needs to be a mss movement of the Obama voters. Errrr, do you see any such movement organized anywhere? In the 60s there was organization, actual ideas, etc. With Obama we get a well spoken tv friendly cypher. All these kids have poured their fear and hope into the Obama vessel.
And once it is shattered when it turns out Obama is as much a grifter as the rest, I worry the boomers kids will suffer the same apathy as their parents after 1980.
It didn't edit, no puns intended in that last blog.
This is a very good article, ___ excellent.
Obama has to win TWO of the three major states left, Ohio, Texas or Pensylvania, to have more delegate votes than Hillary, not counting ANY of the Super Delegate votes, even though he is nearly 20 ahead, as of this Tuesday night. That difference has been fully expected by the Clinton campaign since almost two weeks ago.
"IF" Hillary wins two of those three states, Ohio, PA, or Texas, she will have more delegate votes when the democrat's convention begins, and she will recieve the necessary super delegate votes to be nominated.
"IF" Obama wins two of those three states by a 54/46% margin, he will likely have the most delegate votes at convention time. If so, the super delegates __ better go__ to Obama, ___ or the shit WILL hit the fan. It they are tied, or within a handful of votes either way, and then the Michigan and Flordia votes are allowed and Hillary is then given the necessary super votes, the shit WILL also hit the fan and we will have a President McCain.
Therefore, if Hillary takes two of the three states, Ohiio, Penna or Texas, by a 55% to 58% margin and is close or wins the third, she will have the most delegates. ___ With that scenerio, it would be perfectly legitimate for her to garner the majority of the super delgates. That is NOW the KEY for Hillary. ___ It is also the KEY for Obama, __ he must win two of three states and be close in the third, or win all three. If he does manage to do that and the Democrats then play games with the Super Delgates, or put in Michigan and Florida, so that Hillary is the nominee, ___ we will have McCain for our next president.
Personally, I believe Hillary will take at least two of the three states. That's my opinion, based upon how the vote went in New York, Mass, California and New Jersey. Right now, Obama has momentum,__ momentum can change almost overnight for a wide variety of reasons. Hillary has raised enough money this week, other than her loan, to run suffecient TV ads, to counter Obamas TV ads. If Obama maintains his momentum, he will have the most votes. If not, ___ he will lose. [The KEY:] Whoever wins two of the three states, either Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Texas, should be the Democratic nominee.
I believe Hillary would be very wise, to 'seriously' consider, Obama for a VP slate, IF SHE WINS with NO game playing. __ Even if she wins legitimently, there will be "very hard" feelings. In that case, a Hillary/Obama ticket would erase the hard feelings withn the party and the with the electorate. Of course it would not please everyone, ___ nothing ever does.
With that ticket, Hillary will be the next president, even if McCain has Huckaberry or Jeb Bush as his running mate. In fact, in that case, I doubt McCain would take more than two states in the general election, __ maybe none. If Obama is the nominee, he could have Danny Quale as his running mate and take at least 40 states. In fact, if Obama did have Quale as a VP, he would probably never require any secret service protection. We'll have to wait and see, how those three states votes come out. Right now, it's a toss up, and for certain, Hillary weighs more than Obama. ___ That's the KEY, two of three states. If Obama wins two, Hillary will have to say, the jig is up.
Noisefactor, Right f***ing on.
Very interesting and informative posts above.
I learn more reading this stuff than on TV, radio, even on CD articles themselves.
Iowa Blackbird, I'll see you in the streets of Denver too, if it comes to an uncertain and possibly unfair outcome. I'm not young either.
Please. Obama voted to fund the wars. That's a WAR SUPPORTER. Why can't people here just remember this fact?
Once you understand that, you can see that there is no meaningful choice between the Democratic and Republican Party frontrunners on this matter.
As for Hayden's point, what does it matter that the DLC Democrats pull a backroom deal? It would be corrupt (nothing new there), but please remember that the only progressive Democratic presidential candidate who ran (Kucinich) is already gone from the race.
The battle between Clinton and Obama is essentially an old-guard party-line battle because their positions are so similar. Yeah, the DLC is evil. And what does it mean if the other candidate holds the same positions as the DLC candidate?
Noisefactor, well said. The end doesn't justify the means, but also, which should be pointed out to the spoilers, the means don't justify the ends. Putting McCain in office to make sure your conscience is clear, that your ideological purity is untarnished, is hell on the rest of us, the pragmatists. War is hell. Take your lumps and lend a hand, as this is war, and we need to win this one.
It continues to amaze me how the lefties here continue to tar Obama as a Clintonite militarist. After making his views on the war clear in 2002 he decided to run for office. Given the power balance in the U.S., a candidate who is honest about the merits of Bush foreign policy, like Kucinich, is not in the race long enough to matter. So are all the people criticizing Obama going to vote for Nader because they would rather have John McCain and their good conscience than have Obama, who has one of the most liberal voting records in the senate? It's clear he's not Fidel Castro, but come on! He and his wife are talking about the class divide in America; he's obviously informed about race issues; he's taking less money from lobbyists than Clinton, and he has the potential to carry more liberal representatives into the house and senate in 2008. Isn't it time people here stopped pretending that we're going to do better than Obama in '08?
thank you t hayden, good article. question? what happens if the party disintegrates?
how can socially activated citizens make the loudest voice? and when?
"If Clinton is chosen by the super-delegates or on the basis of the Michigan/Florida results, I would not be surprised to see hundreds of thousands of young Obama supporters silently circling the Denver convention petitioning the party to recognize their historic achievement.
It may not happen that way. But it could."
as i noted yesterday theres no guarantee the youthful masses would walk in circles and sulk, i'm not youthful but have every intention of being present (in denver) and fired up.
iowablackbird February 11th, 2008 9:33 pm
"who in the hell do activists imagine they represent? most people (%95) can not visualize cynthia mckinney (not party, region or voting record). dennis wasn't going to win the nomination, nor mr edwards (he didn't have the resources or national organization capable of winning). clinton is the DLC (dem leadership council - conservative wing of dem party not to be confused with the dnc - the national committee –) candidate. obama is the r kennedy, mcgovern, carter, hart, dean, the insurgent candidate of the dems. the fact obama has made it to this stage is a miracle. dean is in obama's court, the only thing stopping a dem victory in nov is the clintons. hopefully dean will demand caucuses in michigan and florida. obama (especially w/ edwards' support, carter's support and gore's support) would fare well in michigan and split florida to the point where only superdelegates could make the decision (it's imperative the superdelegates vote the will of the people from their states even if it is politically embarrassing to some. if this scenario (direct democracy) doesn't play out, the people in the street should shut it down (the dnc). just like the WTO. the sound of the people would be heard round the world (beyond the fiasco in mexico last time…)"
also theres another scenario, i'll call it the 1912 scenario: brokered convention, the populist loser (as party hacks fell in line) goes into the streets and announces the formation of the 3rd party (in 1912 they called themselves progressives). the repubs splintered, in 1912 the insurgent lost (roosevelt) but that doesn't mean history will repeat itself this time. obama is pulling independents (lib and consv) republicans (folks who do want an anti war candidate) and the vast majority of youth voters, urban voters and minority voters. the numbers of new dem voters is so much higher than in the repub primaries. so if obama splintered (major set back for dem party as progressive congressman like sanders, leahy, feingold and others realign themselves - as sanders and lieberman already have, it's feasable-) he would pull voters from all directions as mccain himself is not popular in his party. it's a historic moment. edwards and his ideas would help this fledgling. remember roosevelt carried utah, washington state and minnesota in 1912. these plains states are places where obama has won decisevely.
dean, carter and gore need to sit down and have a talk with clintons soon, obama has stated earlier this is his one run for the presidency....
--------
not to be gauche twice, again from yesterday.
iowablackbird February 11th, 2008 8:14 pm
firewall, what an orwellian term considering the stakes during this particular primary. obama is the firewall.
obama is one of 2 people who can prevent 32 consecutive years of 2 families controlling our administrative government; the folks who ultimately stack our courts, and point us off to war, the people who determine our standing with others in the world fairly or exploitatively. it is important, i always believed that the impulse of the russian people as the ussr tumbled wasn't economic but was political, based on the notion the people were tired of the cronies of the state circumventing fair distribution of wealth, meaningful standards of living, education, health care, responsive environmental and labor practices. the ussr over strained itself spending untold fortunes to compete w/ the west. the price… 17 years after the collapse of the ussr, the people still find themselves at the mercy of gangsters, oligopolies and corrupt politicians that resemble stalin and peter the great.
and so it is with the bushes and clintons. this democratic contest will go to the convention. if the people can shut down the WTO, they can shut down the dem nat convention. the convention will occur in the summer (aug 25-28) when 1000's of college students will be on break (many of whom are part of obama's youth movement) if the left (pda, move on, others unhappy w/ clinton 1 and the first vote on the authorization of force) would participate to shut the city down, it would be an incredible message to the world that americans will not tolerate absolute corruption within the ranks of the left-center party. the people in russia went to the streets they stood in front of tanks (im sure they would have stood in front of tasers and msnbc as well). t roosevelt was the last third party candidate to recieve a significant amount of the vote in 1912 (2nd place less than 30% of the vote). this occurred because the republican party splintered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1912
"For the first time some delegates to the national convention were elected in presidential preference primaries. Primary elections were advocated by the progressive faction in the GOP, which wanted to break the control of political parties by bosses. Altogether, fourteen states held Republican primaries. Robert LaFollette won two of the first four primaries (North Dakota and Wisconsin), and Taft won the other two early primaries (New York and Nevada). Beginning with his runaway victory in Illinois on April 9, however, Roosevelt won nine of the last ten presidential primaries (in order, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oregon, Maryland, California, Ohio, New Jersey, and South Dakota). Of the last ten primaries, Taft was only victorious in Massachusetts."
The Republican Convention was held in Chicago from June 18 to June 22. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, Taft had started much earlier in rounding up delegates, and the delegates chosen by primary election were a minority. Taft had the support of the bulk of the party organizations in Southern states. These states had voted solidly Democratic in every presidential election since 1880, and Roosevelt objected that they were given one-quarter of the delegates when they would contribute nothing to a Republican victory (as it turned out, former Confederate states supported Taft by a 209-40 margin). When the Republican National Convention gathered, Roosevelt was challenging the credentials of nearly half of the delegates. By that time, however, it was too late. The delegates chose Elihu Root — once Roosevelt's top ally — to serve as chairman of the convention. Afterwards, the delegates seated Taft delegations in Alabama, Arizona, and California on tight contests of 597-472, 564-497, and 542-529, respectively. After losing California, where Roosevelt had won the primary, the progressive delegates gave up hope. They voted "present" on most succeeding roll calls. Not since the 1872 election had there been a major schism in the Republican party. Now, with the Democrats holding about 45% of the national vote, any schism would be fatal. Roosevelt's only hope at the convention was to form a "stop-Taft" alliance with LaFollette, but Roosevelt had alienated LaFollette, and the alliance could not form.
Unable to tolerate the personal humiliation he suffered at the hands of Taft and the Old Guard, and refusing to entertain the possibility of a compromise candidate, Roosevelt struck back hard. On the evening of June 22, 1912, Roosevelt asked his supporters to leave the Convention. Roosevelt maintained that President Taft had allowed fraudulent seating of delegates in order to capture the presidential nomination from progressive forces within the Party. Thus, with the support of convention chairman Elihu Root, Taft's supporters outvoted Roosevelt's men, and the convention renominated incumbents William Howard Taft and James S. Sherman, making Sherman the first Vice President since Richard M. Johnson to be nominated for reelection."
it's an interesting parallel.
t roosevelt (i mean obama) lost in the general election but came in second place, in front of the republican candidate taft (wilson D 6,296,284, roosevelt 4,122,721, taft R 3,486,242).obama is the reason the new youthful dems have been drawn to the party, he also is the reason republicans are voting for him (many of whom are not happy w/ mccain) obama appeals to independents as well. considering john mccain and hillary clinton both have a myriad of quesitons concerning their electability their own party; it's not implausible that obama could run and win as a 3rd party candidate (drawing many dems from the current congress to his side), effectively redrawing the lines of american politics, opening up the reality of third party politics. He's publicly stated he has no intention of running again. obama/edwards 3rd party candidate, policy focused on class inequities ? ok im dreaming………..
list of superdelgates and website devoted to superdelegates
http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/superdelegate-list.html
if your planning to go to denver to shut down the city, be a witness for peace or participate in demonstrations against the party platform, check out the dnc convention site.
http://www.demconvention.com/
please donate to kucinich and sheehan……….
see you in the streets of denver………….peace………..
The Memorized Masses for Obama is really annoying - and this article reflects that. Barack is not a new religion and therefore can't be criticized or critiqued. I listened to an interview with a 'super delegate" today on the radio. Guess what he said - he was not only contacted by Hillary's campaign, he was contacted by Obama's Handlers also! (note: religions should be criticized or critiqued when appropriate but it is considered taboo to do so and the word 'handler' was mine term).
Sharon
Tom Hayden, as usual, has his finger on the pulse of history. His piece lays out a real question as to how the Democratic Party leadership will respond to this massive rank and file upsurge of angry voters. The answer is very much yet to be decided.
In the 1930's, the Democratic Party responded to the demands of the people's movement, resulting in the New Deal and the greatest gains for working,regular, American people in the past century. That is a real possibility, if the people's movement is strong enough and the upsurge now for Obama could actually elect the president and Democratic majorities.
The other possibility is raised by Hayden. What if the Democratic leadership opts toward surpressing the uprising of young, enthusiastic voters? This would create the conditions that could force labor, minorities, others to move toward setting up a new political movement. However, if that happened, it would probably mean a long-term realinement of the govt to the ultra-right.
I believe it is extremely important to try to force a positive outcome, to try to help win the gains our people need so badly.
The article's bias is annoying. I heard an interview with a "super delegate" And Obama's Handlers also contacted him, not just Hillary's campaign. I am saddened by seeing the mesmerized masses fall for a candidate because they can give a great speech. I'm an Edwards Supporter but voted for Hillary when he left the race. Based on what she is saying CURRENTLY I think Hillary would be more Progressive than Barack. I'm not Liberal in all my ideas and I liked that she said part of the path to Legal Status would be to learn English.
Sharon
I just now perused the comments above and had to stop and offer unrestrained kudos to doug-n-wagner for his journalist trumping acumen. If only the so called real journalists in our miserable media could be so concise and yet so informative. Mr. Wagner obviously has a hard on for Wal-Mart, but what better mercantile entity than that corporate windmill to tilt against.
Bravo Wagner! Ausserordentlich Wagner!
Let me say with all due respect to Tom Hayden, who I greatly admire, that here is a kindred and able spirit that is every bit as on the mark as you are.
Hillary/Obama...Hillary/Obama...why do so many people feel satisfied that THIS is the choice given us, ignore the process that eliminated the other candidates before most people had even a chance to vote, and ignore the fact that little of importance describing the very real crises of our nation are even part of this "primary debate"?
And calling Mr. 'Invade-Pakistan-to-get-Osama' Obama an anti-war candidate...is beyond the pale.
Read "The Election Is Over...and America Lost" to get a list of all that remains behind the blue curtain in this Wonderland of Election-Distraction that keeps us unfocussed and un organized from now until November.
Work for Impeachment.
Help the Green Party grow whether you end up voting Green at the top of the ticket or not. You cannot get to a better place if you do not describe it. All Green candidates are anti-war, pro-impeachment, and favor single-payer healthcare. We cannot allow these two corporatists Democrats to monopolize the discussion AWAY from things important to over half the country! Dems do that. It's the role they're paid to do. Stop falling for it.
The words and actions of potential candidate McKinney, for example, are an inspiration that we need to hear daily in these times. Otherwise we shut down the minds of Americans even further, inured to torture, pain, war, lying and stealing. SUPERdelegates, indeed!
sphne: You are right, but I don't believe that is the case. The history says otherwise. No corporation or elite drugged the American people into killing off 95% of the native population. The Spanish didn't do that, they made them slaves. In the US they killed them and imported slaves. Who forced that?
The Clintons should not be given a third-term in the White House for obvious reasons. But that doesn't mean that just because the Big Media is not publicizing yet the degree to which the Obama campaign's National Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker, was involved in the Superior Bank S&L Scandal (which cost U.S. taxpayers $440 million after the Pritzker's Superior Bank board engaged in financially reckless subprime mortgage lending during the 1990s)that anti-corporate and anti-war activists should support Obama (instead of someone like an anti-corporate/anti-war African-American woman such as Cynthia McKinney). For more info on the Obama campaign's link to the 2001 Superior Bank S&L Scandal, see the following article:
Obama Campaign's Pritzker/Superior Bank S&L Scandal Link?
Penny Pritzker is the National Finance Chair of 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign. Yet the Obama campaign's national finance chair served as chairman of the Superior Bank from 1989 to 1994, before the savings and loan institution collapsed in July 2001 as a result of its board's financially reckless engagement in subprime mortgage lending.
Created at the end of 1988 as the successor bank to the failed Lyons Savings Bank, the Oakbrook Terrace/Hinsdale, Illinois-based Superior Bank was 50 percent owned by Chicago's billionaire Pritzker family. Yet, according to an Oct. 16, 2001 statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs by Ely & Company Inc. President Bert Ely, the Pritzker family's Superior Bank "started life with enormous tax benefits and a substantial amount of FSLIC-guaranteed assets under a FSLIC Assistance agreement." In a Dec. 2002 article ("Tremors In The Empire") that appeared in Chicago Magazine, Shane Tritsch noted, for instance, that for investing $42.5 million in the failed Lyons Savings Bank before it was reopened as Superior Bank, the Pritzkers and their business partner received an estimated $645 million in federal tax credits and loan guarantees; but "by one estimate, it would have cost the government $200 million less simply to shut Lyons down."
Yet according to Ely's Oct. 16, 2001 statement, "Superior's trick, or business plan" under Penny Pritzker's chairmanship was apparently "to concentrate on subprimelending, principally on home motrgages, but for a while in subprime auto lending, too," after the Pritzkers' bank acquired its wholesale mortgage organization division, Alliance Funding, in December 1992.
With a business loss estimate of between $350 million and $1 billion, the 2001 failure of the Pritzkers' Superior Bank represented the largest U.S.-insured deposition institution to fall between 1992 and 2001. But according to a Feb. 7, 2002 report of FDIC Inspector General Gaston Gianni Jr., "the failure of Superior Bank was directly attributable to the Bank's Board of Directors and executives ignoring sound risk management principles."
Coincidentally, the Obama presidential campaign's National Finance Chair was a member of the Superior Bank's board of directors which apparently ignored sound risk management principles. As the Aug. 7, 2001 issue of the New York Times observed:
"The Pritzkers controlled half the board seats. Penny Pritzker…was on the board, and Glen Miller, a top financial officer in the Pritzker organization, was chairman of the audit committee…Penny Pritzker…was designated…to watch over the Superior investment."
Business Week magazine also noted in a Sept. 10, 2001 article ('The Pritzkers' Empire Trembles") that "as of July [2001]," Penny Pritzker "was still a director of the thrift's holding company, Coast-to-Coast Financial Corp…."
The Superior Bank board of directors on which the Obama presidential campaign National Finance Chair sat "paid dividends and other financial benefits without regard to the deteriorating financial and operating condition of Superior," according to FDIC Inspector General Gianni's Feb. 7, 2002 report. As Ely & Company Inc. President's Ely's Oct. 16, 2001 statement observed:
"Superior paid $188 million in dividends in the 1989-1999 period, which gave Superior's stockholders an 18.1 percent pretax cash return on their initial investment of $42.5 million in Superior."
Before Superior Bank's 2001 collapse, stockholders like the Pritzker family members also "may have reaped additional profits from the substantial tax benefits the Federal Government gifted to them" when they acquired the failed Lyons Savings Bank in 1988 and created the successor Superior Bank, according to Ely's Oct. 16, 2001 statement. Between 1992 and 1998, for instance, Superior Bank claimed a Federal tax credit of $10.6 million and only began to pay a meaningful amount of Federal income tax in 1999.
To avoid being punished for the failure of Superior Bank, the Pritzker family agreed to pay the FDIC $460 million. Yet even with this settlement, the failure of the Superior Bank due its board's apparent mismanagement cost the federal thrift insurance agency (and U.S. taxpayers) about $440 million.
The 1,400 Superior Bank depositors whose savings deposits in excess of $100,000 were uninsured, however, brought a federal civil racketeering suit against Penny Pritzker and other former Superior Bank officials. Not surprisingly, Business Week magazine reported in September 2001 that "the collapsing Superior Bank, a $2.3 billion thrift that" Penny "Pritzker chaired from 1989 to 1994" was " putting the family business savvy under the klieg lights in Washington and beyond."
Less than two years after the U.S. Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing on "The Failure of Superior Bank," former Superior Bank Chairman of the Board Prtizker, coincidentally, began to financially back Obama's 2004 campaign to become a U.S. Senator from Illinois. As David Mendell recalled in his 2007 book Obama: From Promise To Power:
"Obama was confident that he was destined for more than a day job running a foundation or practicing law or languishing in the minority party in the Illinois senate…He invited a group of African-American professionals to the house of Marty Nesbitt, who had served as finance chairman of his congressional campaign. Nesbitt is…vice-president of the Pritzker Realty Group, part of the Pritzker family empire…Nesbitt arranged a weekend gathering to help Obama reach inside the deepest pockets he knew—those of the Pritzker family…
"…Nesbitt knew that if Obama could sell himself to Penny Pritzker, her support would not only reap huge immediate financial dividends but also be a crucial step in the foundation of a fund-raising network.
"So in late summer 2002, Obama, Michelle [Robinson-Obama] and their two daughters drove to Penny Pritzker's weekend cottage along the lakefront in Michigan about forty-five minutes from Chicago…"
Given the past involvement on the board of a failed savings bank that engaged in financially reckless subprime lending of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign's National Finance Chair, it's not surprising that an article in The Nation magazine (2/11/08) by Max Fraser, titled "Subprime Obama," reported that "only Obama has not called for a moratorium and interest-rate freeze;" and that Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute said that "There's been less emphasis from the Obama campaign on the really dysfunctional role of the financial industy in the subprime mess."
Incidentally, former Superior Bank Chairman Penny Pritzker contributed $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee [DNC] in 2000.
Nice to see Hayden finally wrote somthing worth reading. The question remains: what happens if the super delegates disenfranchise voters? Will Hayden resign his membership in the Democratic Party? Or will he just put his tail between his legs and when the Clinton smear machine says jump, will he ask "How High"
This is the real question for a pack of losers assimulated into the status quo...
AdeleTheCzech February 12th, 2008 3:11 pm
I stand corrected. Years ago I was entranced by Jim Henson's "Dark Crystal". In it the Skekzi's (sp?) keep shouting, "Me FOR Em-PER-OR". Screwed up my visual image of the word ever since. People can spell well only if they make pictures of the actual words. Can't spell phonetics, phonetically, only good for sounding out words in the early days.
Any way, the internal visual picture is the baseline that produces a dissonance when we see a word that mis-matches. The auditory version INVADED my picture - no dissonance. Sort of like Mr. Smith overwriting other programs in the Matrix. At least that's my story and until I get a better one, I'm sticking with it. Whaddayamean Spellchecker? Whasssat?
See what you started? Glad you got a smile. You are right, little enough of that these days.
Peace.
Good chance for Bush to go for a fake terrorist attack and marshall law should Obama win.
Stock up on food, water and firewood folks.
But Lizard, what if you married someone who was virtuous and then found out that the crazy behavior was because someone was druging her with drugs that made her psychotic, wouldn't you want to help her and not just kick her to the curb?
Reform? I thought Obama was disparaging of the 60's "fights"; the activism and amazingly pretty much exonerated Reagan who really undermined us big time, a counter to the "excesses" of the 60's according to Obama. I might have to end up supporting Obama, but he does not represent the kind of change I believe in, whereas John Edwards did.
We do not have to get so caught up in the mesmerizing glorified message of Obama to recognize the absence in it of real transformation and change.
I was young in the 60's and 70's; I recognized transformation then and I recognize it now, when its promise is there and when it falls short.
Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed in 1968. They represented transformation. This year it was John Edwards who best represented the kind of transformation we need in America.
I am only hopeful that John Edwards has started a movement that will grow and have influence for change as we need it.
Karita Hummer
Edwards Democrat
KaritaHummer@yahoo.com
The DNC were powerful in orchestrating ousting Kucinich from the race....
All human endeavours, including religion are corruptible.So it is with Communism and Capitalism. Only the mentality of the people can prevent this.
The crimes Stalin committed are a function, not of Communism, but of the mentality of the Russian people. The crimes the US has committed are not a function of Capitalism but of the mentality of the American people.
Simple truths are the most profound ... eduardov has it exactly right: big is bad, small truly can be beautiful. In the world as we know it, democracy cannot survive in political entities with more than 20 or so million people. Above that size the economic stakes of gaining and holding power are simply too great. If you think this is naive, just look at the Nordic countries, New Zealand, and the emerging Latin American democracies ... that is, those that have rejected the Washington Consensus. As long as money trumps citizenship (and our rules now dictate that this is so), radical decentralization is the only means by which people can regain control over their lives.
Which brings me to Obama. His call for CHANGE seems to have no substance, but I think his rhetoric is a necessary (though not sufficient) step in bringing the consciousness of America around to the point that we can have a serious discussion about changing those rules. While I find his policy positions (at least, since he decided to run for president) too centrist, he undoubtedly transcends the old politics - from his racial heritage to his professional background and life experience - he has the potential to be transformative.
I have lauded Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" on this site in earlier posts. The Canadian historian/philosopher John Ralston Saul, in his book "On Equilibrium," describes the transformative effect of Paine's rhetoric:
"Individual after individual made up his mind for or against American independence because of Paine's book. ... Yet what it brought to the debate was not understanding. Rather it was a statement of what people felt they knew already. Paine's genius was that of every great public intellectual. He provided language for their shared knowledge; language which did not exist within their old formulations."
Rhetoric matters, BIG time.
Finally, if Obama is denied the Democratic nomination, I hope he'll have the balls to walk out and forge an alliance with the Green Party, which is where I suspect he belongs, in his heart of hearts. IF American politics has any future, it will be on the Green platform, and Obama could create a seismic shift with his dedicated supporters, and the Independents just itchin' for a viable candidate with some true political courage.
How would you feel if you married someone who made you believe they were virtuous and then you find out they have been lying, stealing from you and in bed with someone else? That's how I feel about America!
Do I hate America? Yes, not only for what it has done, but mostly, for having taught me lies that made me love this truly criminal nation. I am super pissed off about that!
The land of the not so free and the home of the less than brave. Elections are stolen and primaries are rigged. This is freedom? The soldiers are not brave enough to fight so they switch to air bombing, some done by remote control by people comfortably killing from their homes in the US. This is bravery?
Let us sing:
America, America, God shed his blood on thee,
And crown thy good, with a black hood,
From sea to shining sea!
Paul Street is a neostalinist and Stephen Zunes has lenghtily criticized Hillary Clinton. If Obama doesn't get Paul Street's vote in Iowa City, the country will live on even though you don't think so Earthian.
"Hillary Clinton on Iraq" by Stephen Zunes
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4802
"[Obama] praises the architects of the Cold War for checking the Soviet Union's nefarious designs "to spread [in Obama's words] its totalitarian brand of communism."- Paul Street
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?%20SectionID=72&ItemID=12928
As for Steet's longrunning nonsensical opposition to the most electable antiwar candidate in this race, BARACK OBAMA, it's worth noting that his criticisms are based in part on an uncritical neo-stalinist interpretation of the Soviet Union that is willing to ignore the mass killings of Stalin in the distorted belief that honest criticisms, (such as Kruschev's Secret Speech in 1956 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Personality_Cult_and_its_Consequence...), are mere neo-liberal criticisms meant to undermine and argue against socialist ideas in general.
Of course, following Paul Street's logic, that would mean Leon Trotsky, writing in the 1930s, was a neo-liberal.
"The so-called friends of the Soviet Union (left democrats, pacifists, Brandlerites, and the like) repeat the argument of the Comintern functionaries that the struggle against the Stalinist bureaucracy, i.e., first of all criticism of its false policies, "helps the counter-revolution." This is the standpoint of the political lackeys of the bureaucracy, but never that of revolutionists. The Soviet Union both internally and externally can be defended only by means of a correct policy. All other considerations are either secondary or simply lying phrases.
The present CPSU is not a party but an apparatus of domination in the hands of an uncontrolled bureaucracy. Within the framework of the CPSU and outside of it takes place the grouping of the scattered elements of the two basic parties: the proletarian and the Thermidorean-Bonapartist. Rising above both of them, the centrist bureaucracy wages a war of annihilation against the Bolshevik-Leninists. While coming into sharp clashes from time to time with their Thermidorean half-allies, the Stalinists, nevertheless, clear the road for the latter by crushing, strangling, and corrupting the Bolshevik Party."
"Only the creation of the Marxist International, completely independent of the Stalinist bureaucracy and counterposed politically to it, can save the USSR from collapse by binding its destiny with the destiny of the world proletarian revolution."- Leon Trotsky
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330715.htm
"Is it not monstrous?" – we wrote in March 1932. "The country can not get out of a famine of goods. There is a stoppage of supplies at every step. Children lack milk. But the official oracles announce: 'The country has entered into the period of socialism!' Would it be possible more viciously to compromise the name of socialism?" Karl Radek, now a prominent publicist [1] of the ruling Soviet circles, parried these remarks in the German liberal paper, Berliner Tageblatt, in a special issue devoted to the Soviet Union (May 1932), in the following words which deserve to be immortal:
"Milk is a product of cows and not of socialism, and you would have actually to confuse socialism with the image of a country where rivers flow milk, in order not to understand that a country can rise for a time to a higher level of development without any considerable rise in the material situation of the popular masses."
These lines were written when a horrible famine was raging in the country.
Socialism is a structure planned to the end of the best satisfaction of human needs; otherwise it does not deserve the name of socialism. If cows are socialized, but there are too few of them, or they have too meagre udders, then conflicts arise out of the inadequate supply of milk – conflicts between city and country, between collectives and individual peasants, between different state of the proletariat, between the whole toiling mass and bureaucracy. It was in fact the socialization of the cows which led to their mass extermination by the peasants. Social conflicts created by want can in their turn lead to a resurrection of "all the old crap." Such was, in essence, our answer.
The 7th Congress of the Communist International, in a resolution of August 29, 1935, solemnly affirmed that in the sum total of the successes of the nationalized industries, the achievement of collectivization, the crowding out of capitalist elements and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, "the final and irrevocable triumph of socialism and the all-sided reinforcement of the state of the proletarian dictatorship, is achieved in the Soviet Union." With all its categorical tone, this testimony of the Communist International is wholly self-contradictory. If socialism has "finally and irrevocably" triumphed, not as a principle but as a living social regime, then a renewed "reinforcement" of the dictatorship is obvious nonsense. And on the contrary, if the reinforcement of the dictatorship is evoked by the real demands of the regime, that means that the triumph of socialism is still remote. Not only a Marxist, but any realistic political thinker, ought to understand that the very necessity of "reinforcing" the dictatorship – that is, governmental repression – testifies not to the triumph of a classless harmony, but to the growth of new social antagonisms. What lies at the bottom of all this? Lack of the means of subsistence from the low productivity of labor."- Leon Trotsky, 'The Revolution Betrayed', Chapter 3, Section 5
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch03.htm
Media have made their choice, and it's for McCain. Everything they do to the dem candidates follows from this logic. You have fallen for media-hype like a bunch of perfectly manipulated and herded sheep. O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma. I'm about to lose my lunch.
jp
If there was any chance that Obama would bring change to improve the lives of ordinary American working families, and subject the US to international law, then he'd be in just the same hole as Kucinich. The real powers that be would not allow it.
That's the spirit, Tom!! And while the kids are at it in denver, remind them that the US is, without contest, the richest and technologically most developed country in the world. This is too much of a temptation for any human being. Power corrupts and huge and barely limited power corrupts in the same ways; witness Bush and whoever is its potential successor. Imperialistic policies follow, first abroad such as in Indonesia, Guatemala, Chile, Irak and elswhere. Then, as some people realize the craziness and inconsistencies of these policies, the empire begins to crack down on its citizens at home, witness illegal surveillance and abuse of presidential power. Thus, extreme unchallenged size is the most serious enemy of a democracy. This won't change regardless of who is elected president. The only salvation for the US democracy is breaking up the country, into several rich, smaller, hopefully decent countries. Whoever does not consider this a possible, though long term, solution is adicted to the idea of a strong and dominant republic and is, by definition, a republican. This makes most Americans republicans at heart, regardless of their stated political affiliation!!!
PS: AdeleTheCzech, it seems to me that "emporer" was a stand-in for "empoorer" and was spelled thus intentionally.
Only on a CD thread would someone like luckylefty post his comment and misspell "Emperor," yet end with a perfect French phrase (including all the diacritical marks!). I know this is off the subject, but the grammarian in me got a much-needed smile out of it. Lord knows we need a few smiles these days.
"there is no mention of the fact that Obama and Clinton have virtually identical corporate, conservative, militarist policies; that those young people who support Obama who think he is "progressive" are being hypnotized by a charismatic speaker, not inspired by substantial policies."
It's not the preacher, it's the congregation. I've got no illusion about Obama's progressive credentials (or lack of). What Obama offers in contrast to Clinton is an infusion of newly energized voters who will vote "D" up and down the ballot in November. The African-American community alone will make a huge impact. They are one of the most solidly progressive voting blocks in the country.
I wouldn't be making this case if there were still a progressive left in the race, but there isn't. So, let's take what we can get. This ain't a bad deal.
What I don't understand about so many people who identify themselves as Democrats is why they can't get it through their heads that Hillary Clinton CANNOT win. McCain is a War Hero, the Dwight Eisenhower of our day, and Clinton is NOT Adlai Stevenson but Mayor Daley of Chicago, a corrupt machine politician with a burning piggy bank for a heart. The Republican Swiftboat will churn through the poltical waters of our inane so-called election process leaving a rooster tail that will drown her many times over. Why can't Democrats understand this? Obama was right when he said that Ronald Ray-Gun changed politics in this country; he caused the Democratic party to become a party of gentrified yuppies. FDR? Who was FDR? What many Democrats want to be now is George Wanker Bush with a higher IQ, a larger vocabulary and a desire to be the Paul Giamatti character in "Sideways".
luckylefty - but if you have a plan, then you want there to be hope don't you? A hopeless plan would be doomed to failure.
Of course, I basically agree with everything you say.
The only primary that matters the the Diebold Primary
Lucky, it is as though the slave is becoming the slave master.
Hope is the food of the hopeless. It has no nutritional value and is no substitute for a Plan.
There is no Plan here except POWER and the lust to be Emporer of America. If you say, "No, that's not what MY candidate wants" then I ask you this, "Which of these political animals has opposed the Unitary Presidency?" Short answer: None.
Which one opposes the GWOT as a false flag operation perpetrated on the American people? Short answer: None.
Which one opposes our Death Camps, our Military Kangeroo Courts, and the pantheon of Terror Statutes? Short answer: None.
The IMF/WTO/World Bank program of global slavery for the Global South isn't even a question - of course your candidates will continue to support that rape AND CONSTANT WAR - Nothing else steam shovels wealth into the hands of their Boss - the Top 1% - the richfilth they actually work for.
Our political class was bought and paid for 'lock stock and booty' by '73 and Hayden knows it. That's why he went "Mainstream" - he didn't want a bullet in an alley in the back of the head from a cop or an FBI thug.
And yes, 93% of Americans who vote will vote based on emotional criteria ONLY. So, make a good speech, smile for the cameras, wow'em baby and you'll be KING FOR LIFE. ALL HAIL! Gaius Octavian Caesar! He will give all Americans $600 from the Public Coffers (while making permanent tax cuts for the Richfilth).
Hope is the food of the hopeless. It has no nutritional value and is no substitute for a Plan.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"
PEECE.
Younger voters seem to recognize, perhaps without even knowing exactly why, that we need Obama to help Democrats again become what they once were as a party. As long as Obama's "roll" continues in the voting states and in the news, I believe more and more super delegates will bet on him too . Every political hack wants "access" to the president. Why would most of these want to support Hillary and have no "access" to President McCain---when they could have supported a more obvious winner who can actually get there?
The fact that the dems cooperated with the excising of Kucinich from this election is proof that the dems are totally corrupt and craven. Clinton and Obama are both liars and cheats.
For a significantly different take on the 1972 convention I recommend the Book Partners in Power by Rogger Morris. Its about the Clintons and is Old but still very very relevant. It provides a good picture of a party that was already becoming DLCish long long long before the formal birth of that beast in 1986.
Necessary reading on the origins of the Clintonian Democrats.
I think perhaps some of what is happening is the whole "lesser of two evils" falsehood (evil is evil, so lets not even try to differentiate) is now beginning to be a tool used against the old-time democratic establishment amongst the democrat voters. Ha, Ha.
If I was a democrat (I used to be, but not anymore), I'd vote for Obama too being that the choice has narrowed to just him or her.
People are desperate for something to be hopeful about and Hillary is nothing but the "same old, same old". Obama at least has the lure of uncertainty.