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Jane Hamsher Leads Left Away from White House
While President Barack Obama has struggled to keep the center together, he's had one unquestioned political success: Keeping the left at bay. A battle-tested Democratic infrastructure fell into line behind the White House, with regular meetings and conference calls to coordinate strategy and preempt any breach of message discipline - easy on the Tim Geithner! - or what chief of staff Rahm Emanuel might regard as obstructionist behavior.
Jane Hamsher’s blog Firedoglake uses the nifty online phone banking tools that helped power Obama's campaign to put a scare into House Democrats That alliance, which endured in spite of sometimes emotional differences
on the shape of health care legislation, is now under increasing
strain. Obama's commitment of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan Tuesday night
has energized a left increasingly angry at what it perceives as Obama's
accommodations with the center and an energized right.
MoveOn is one of the handful of groups breaking from the White House's hold on big liberals to raise money, activate volunteers and threaten for the first time, Obama's left flank. And so is a pixie-ish 50 year old former Hollywood producer who named her blog after her dog, and is taking what she calls "the next step in our evolution."
The campaign launched by Jane Hamsher, whose blog Firedoglake first came to national attention for obsessive coverage of the Valerie Plame investigation, is called, "One Voice for Choice," and uses the nifty online phone banking tools that helped power Obama's campaign to put a scare into House Democrats who voted to attach the anti-abortion Stupak Amendment to health care legislation.
The calls will target, in particular, pro-choice Democrats in those typically conservative district, threatening to cut the base out from under Democrats who are straining to reach out to the other side.
"We're taking something that was like gold to them and that they were counting on having and saying they can't take it for granted," she said, describing House Democrats' tendency to take the progressive base for granted.
The initiative is Hamsher's latest assault on what she calls "the Veal Pen" - the tightly-managed coalition of Democratic groups centered financially around the Democracy Alliance and organizationally around the Center for American Progress, both in turn creations of the left in exile in the Bush years. She borrowed the phrase from Douglas Coupland's 1991 "Generation X," in which he used it to describe a generation trapped in cubicles.
Those groups have now traded a measure of independence for, as they see it, the effectiveness that comes with working with the White House, and those who step outside that model have learned quickly that the White House doesn't forgive slights.
"What makes Jane so unique is that she not only lacks a need for Beltway access, but she affirmatively disdains it. She doesn't need Rahm Emanuel to approve of what she's doing," said Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald, another independent on the left and frequent White House critic, in an email.
The year's great - and frustrating - causes on the left have been the Afghan war and the health care public option. Hamsher and Firedoglake first began to flex their muscles on the former, organizing a "whip count" of progressive members of Congress to pledge to vote against supplemental funding for the war.
In tandem with a revolt on the right against a provision connected to the International Monetary Fund, the anti-war revolt delayed the legislation and marked a turn toward clear opposition in parts of Congress.
One of Hamsher's obsessions is the anemic fundraising apparatus on the progressive left, and it's something she's sought to change. With a large and loyal readership, she and her allies have been able to raise tens of thousands of dollars, through the website ActBlue, for members of Congress who pledge support for her causes.
"Being able to have an effective political arm is a function of having an independent financial structure," she said.
The cash flow from ActBlue - organized by Firedoglake and allies including MoveOn - has come as a surprise to some of its beneficiaries, primarily members of Congress pledging to vote against health care legislation that lacks the public option.
"I got a funny call from [Texas Rep.] Lloyd Doggett's chief of staff" after bundling some $12,000 in small contributions through ActBlue, Hamsher recalls. "He asked, 'This a donation from you personally? I don't think we can accept this amount.' I was like, 'No, let me walk you through this.'"
By its willingness to accommodate the White House's effort get a health care bill even if it meant losing the public option, the mainstream liberal infrastructure created the opening for new groups, like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, to spring up, and has empowered Hamsher.
"She gets a ton of credit for keeping the public option alive," said MoveOn communications director Ilyse Hogue.
Hamsher has survived three bouts of breast cancer, and her connection to the health care issue is intensely personal.
"I don't know how you live through that" without money, said Hamsher, who says she spent some $60,000 out-of-pocket despite being fully insured.
Hamsher, in a previous life, worked with some success in Hollywood, and paid from her savings. Her highest profile project was a producing credit on Natural Born Killers, followed by a memoir, "Killer Instinct." But Hamsher has always blended the personal and the political, writing at length about her health. When Kobe, the dog in Firedoglake, died earlier this fall, she published a wrenching 5,000 word tribute.
Greenwald chalks up her willingness to defy the White House in part to the fact that she - like he - doesn't hail from a particular Beltway culture.
"I think Jane's success in a prior career has made her immune to the rewards of access -- and fear of punishment -- which keep most younger inside-the-Beltway progressives obediently in line," he said. "She's not 26 years old and desperate to work for a DC think tank, a Democratic politician or a progressive institution. She doesn't care in the slightest which powerful people dislike her, but rather sees that reaction as vindication for what she's doing."
But Hamsher is a funny kind of outsider: One distinctly comfortable with Washington's circles of power. She's a frenetic operator of the mainstream media, the blogs, and the email lists that power semi-official Washington. She learned where the wires are in part from one of the ultimate insiders, SEIU President Andy Stern, whom she dated for two years.
"Jane, and all FDL, has become a serious player very fast," said Tom Matzzie, a former MoveOn official who is now a political consultant. "She knows media and she knows how to throw a punch."
Hamsher's left hook isn't her only move, though, and the White House and its "Veal Pen" allies haven't been the only victims. Some eyebrows went up on the progressive left when she scolded MoveOn for allegedly failing to support members of Congress who promised to sink a bill lacking a public option - just two weeks after the group had lent its support to a wildly successful fundraiser on the issue. (MoveOn's Hogue declined to comment.)
And she parted bitterly from former allies in organizing Blue America PAC, with which she is no longer associated.
"I gave it the name, and now some people who were once associated with it have stolen our graphics and our brand without permission are using them to promote a splinter effort," Hamsher said, noting that the name "Blue America" was coined as a Firedoglake column.
"I don't know what that means - it doesn't make any sense and it doesn't have any basis in fact," responded Howie Klein, a former music executive, Los Angeles-based DJ, and lesser-known political blogger who declined to detail his falling-out with Hamsher, citing legal advice.
But Hamsher's sharp elbows haven't prevented her from being a central, and effective, player on the left, with a distinct agenda: To reclaim the "narrative of discontent" from Tea Party activists and other conservatives who have seized it from a neutered progressive movement.
A particularly grave error, in her view, was steering the groups away from populist assaults on the AIG bonuses early in Obama's term.
"The natural people who would have been organizing at that point in time were the liberal groups. The bankers came to the White House and said, 'We want you to ratchet down the rhetoric and that's what happened. The word went out at those meetings, 'Don't criticize the bankers, don't criticize Geithner and Summers,'" she said, referring to gatherings of major, White House-allied groups under the rubrics Unity '09 and Common Purpose.
"All that populist anger migrated over to the teabaggers and grew over there," she said. "That was a huge mistake and we're going to pay for it in 2010."
Hamsher says she's "not as cynical and disdainful of the Veal Pen as I sometimes seem." After all, she was asked, aren't they on the same side?
"Are we on the same side?" she asked. "They're on the side of the Democratic Party. We're an independent political force."
42 Comments so far
Show AllWhile I concur with the author that the eternal Ir-Af-Pak occupation and corporate welfare masquerading as health care reform are two HUGE issues, they are 800 pound gorillas in a room with the out of control financial industry, a 1200 pound gorilla.
Until Glass Steagall and other New Deal Era financial industry regulation is reinstated, all other issues facing Obama and Congress will not be resolved, they will go from bad to worse.
True. All the rest is smoke and mirrors.
This points towards the fundamental reason for the direction the USA is taking. It needs to be named and addressed and dealt with. At present it plays silly fools with Americans. It spreads its fungus almost invisibly throughout the USA. It is indistinguishable from the USA. It has become the USA.
Eradicating it is the only hope.
It?
The USA.
States of America need to find a new interrelationship. Democracy as in the election of POTUS cannot work in such a society.
Proof?
The state of the USA.
[the out of control financial industry, a 1200 pound gorilla.]
Well, maybe. But do you think the 'financial industry' and the Zionists are independent? My answer: not a freaking chance. How about the financial industry and the military-industrial-complex? My guess is that there is a controlling oligarchy, you know, a conspiracy, that is calling the shots, so you need to identify it and study it, then you'll at least have a correct idea of the problem.
Address it yes. But avoid side issues. It matters nought that there are Zionists involved. It matters nought that there is a conspiracy; that it is an oligarchy. These are all true to some degree. But there are others involved; a great range of others.
What matters is that it is, and it has an agenda. It is in control. It occupies the White House, staffs the Pentagon, controls the economy as no force other than the military funded by the people's money can even if it is at the behest of the financial industry. It is the USA and Americans have lost control of this USA.
Americans have become the USA's fools.
Veal pen? More like the Bush Hog-sty and -tied; operating out of the Casa Blanca buck stop. Well, BUCK IT, indeed, Jane!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Her site and her agenda are only very narrowly to the left of the DLC Big Money crowd. She supports re-electing dinosaur Chris Dodd when an authentic progressive should be funded to oppose and defeat him.
Smith sez: "...the mainstream liberal infrastructure created the opening for new groups, like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, to spring up ...
***
"mainstream liberal infrastructure"?!?
Wow. That's an impressive oxymoron.
It appears the word "liberal" has gone the way of most of the rest of the English language as it's applied to politics in the U.S. -- DOA. I believe it's interred in a plot alongside "centrist".
Jane Hamsher is too careful. It's not supposed to be about worrying whether Rahm or other dorks like you. Fine, that doesn't bother her. But what about going on the offensive? Why doesn't she ATTACK Rahm Emanual, et al? They are traitors. They are destroying what little there is left of civil society in this country. What part of that doesn't she get? Message discipline is what dictatorships do, Jane. Sending campaign contributions is working within a corrupt system where banks can loan 1o times the money on deposit. The bankers own the politicians that vote for war and against public decency. You haven't a prayer of competing on a dollar for dollar basis.
You should get together with the lady that runs Raw Story. She understands exactly what is going on. The money you, Jane Hamsher, get MUST be used for criminal investigations on Rahm et al. That's the ONLY way to wrest the dictatorship away from them.
And by the way, spare me that crap about democrats being on the same side as progressives. Even you don't believe that. Just ask your pal from Flint what loyalty to democrats is worth.
"Why doesn't she ATTACK Rahm Emmanuel, et al?" –(AGG)
–Exactly. At the end of the day they are all part of the same family. They all conspire to 'circle the wagons' and keep the Indians out in the cold, if they don't kill them off first.
Not that Jane Hamsher would ever undertake an outright scorched earth and sever herself from her party of choice– which she shills for quite successfully. She has a 'niche' role in providing a facade of acceptable and permitted dissent, within a 'canopy' of reaction.
She is constitutionally incapable of attacking the Democratic party from outside the proscribed parameters except with puff balls and fluff. If she ever got harder edged she would be marginalized so fast her head would spin. Hers is inevitably a 'soft focus.'
This blog has moved beyond what she has to offer. She should be dropped as she suffers from terminal obeisance.
Jane Hamsher and her ilk serve only to 'muddy' the waters and keep the flock close to home and under parental control.
–(Jill Bains)
"... spare me that crap about democrats being on the same side as progressives."
You should read more carefully. She said the opposite.
Yes, the progressive left is being taken for granted. Clinton centrism deja vu. Instead of more war in Afghanistan let's wage war on unemployment, foreclosures, poverty and greed.
There is nothing remotely "left" about Jane Hamsher or her website.
If she is 'left,' one can only wonder what the 'right' looks like.
These contradictions in terms, misplaced appellations and disconnects– continue to haunt the moribund remnants of a hopelessly compromised progressivism.
Jane Hamsher and Fire Dog Lake– much like Digby and Hullabaloo– are firmly ensconced in the mainstream Democratic Party nexus, despite any pretensions of 'leftism.'
That these two are 'the poster girls' for Progressivism shows how hollowed out and meaningless the term has become. No wonder the movement is riddled with incoherence.
–(Jill Bains)
To me, terms such as "liberal", "conservative", "leftist", "progressive", and other such labels have been rendered (by mainstream cultural ideologues) as referents to an absolute meaning - when in fact they are of course necessarily relative, located somewhere, hazily at best, on a continuum. Part of the success of those in power with cynical intentions is the idea that these labels point to something fixed, while the entire time (I'd say the last 30 years or so) the "center" has clearly tacked to the right (or, if you prefer to avoid the limited directional labels, to whatever we want to call massive anti-democratic concentrations of power.) We're left constantly having to redefine what it means to be progressive because the continuum itself is constantly warping due to the "illusion" of the fixed meaning of ideological labels.
I have no doubts that you understand this already; it's just one way of saying something that clarifies these problems for myself and hopefully for others as well!
I haven't paid much attention to Hamsher besides reading her blog a few times and seeing her several times on Rachel Maddow, also a fairly liberal/progressive media star but hardly a leftist. I think one reason Hamsher is so admired is for her sheer energy. She apparently never stops, 24/7, and not many have that kind of determination. The point is, there ARE no real leftists anywhere in acceptable media. None at all I can think of. You commented on another thread about Feingold as less than a progressive (can't recall exact specifics), agreeing with I think Erroll on the issue. But Feingold is as good as it gets in the Senate. He's one of my state's senators and though I know he isn't a leftist he's a very decent, honest guy who meets with the people of Wisconsin more than most any House member and way more than the other phony senator. He does listen to people, and if he came out as an outspoken leftist he'd be buried alive by torrents of hate and relentless invective the way they've stifled Kucinich. He'd probably meet with considerably worse than that. (Read: Wellstone.)
My point is, the Senate and even most progressive media won't countenance any real leftists, ever. Ok, occasionally DemocracyNow! might have Chomsky on (I'm not sure) and they do have some good lefty journalists like Nir Rosen to blow apart mainstream drivel about our endless wars, etc. But overall there is literally no leftist presence in American media, unless you include Counterpunch, Greenwald at Salon and several columnists who appear on Common Dreams. But now we're talking very marginalized alternative media. So when someone like Hamsher appears, many of us are grateful that at least a somewhat progressive-sounding voice is finally getting a brief hearing.
I'm fed up with Olbermann and Maddow being sooooo reluctant to really go after the Dems and Obama, only daring to politely suggest now and then what total sellouts they are. But they spend so much time and energy bashing the right that there's nothing left for the phony Dems. It's an INSTITUTIONAL thing, as I'm sure you know, Jill. Our media empires are as tightly controlled as our political parties to forbid any access to voices from the authentic left. Greenwald, Maddow, Olbermann and Hamsher are the best we can expect until there's concerted revolutionary action by large enough numbers of the (now mainly brainwashed) people.
That Hamsher is not 'left' is OK; she is what she is. But I do not think that seeing terms like left or right in relative terms serves any value whatsoever. She is 'left' in relation to what? It is OK with me that she is a known quantity, but it is gruesomely oxymoronic to see her reactionary, establishment work as anything but the right wing neo-liberal pabulum it is. People should stop calling her 'left' as it demeans the meaning of the term and corrupts both language and naming, as well as the discourse itself. For a more detailed look at Hamsher and one I can vouch for, see the posting by 'Neliz' up thread. That is what she is all about.
–(Jill Bains)
Well, I certainly don't agree with you that "seeing terms like left or right in relative terms serves any value whatsoever." We're stuck with postmodernist discourse from others whether we like it or not - meanings are too fluid today to use the terms nakedly to refer to something specific. That's just reality. In Marx's and Bakunin's day this wasn't such an issue as it is today, methinks.
The answer, I think, is to not play their game and instead focus on more exacting language (and avoiding too much bovine obscurantism as well) if we're to reach some kind of communicative understanding.
So, you are right on track, I think, when you ask about Hamsher, "She is 'left' in relation to what?" That's it - what is to the right of her (most of mainstream media and the true owners of power) and what is to the left of her (arguably the working class population, truly alternative media such as Common Dreams, ZNet, etc.) Then there is something to hang on to.
Otherwise we're engaged in petty arguments about what "left" means. I don't like it either, but we must force ourselves to be more specific.
The reason Neilz's posting is clear is because the poster (sorry don't know gender) takes some time to define the position of Hamsher in relation to health care politics - her support for profit-driven healthcare "reform" (another terribly corrupted word) is clearly in opposition to real progressive efforts to pursue single-payer.
Once that is done, we've opened up a clearer framework for the debate. It's really hard to call Hamsher a leftist when you know there is something diametrically opposed that certainly isn't even in the same ballpark.
Ok I'm confused.. call me stupid or naive but I was never as tuned in to Hamsher's complexity as you guys have stated (revealed).
So you're saying she is not really some lefty liberal but a centrist democrat?
And don't make the mistake of confusing her with a progressive?
I visit FDL once in while and have even signed a couple of petitions but I did not realize Hamsher was this nefarious democrat but then sometimes I have trouble with the labels and who they stick to.. kidding..
Really I just assumed that even when I didn't agree with her I got the impression she was trying to 'fight the good fight'. For much of the same reasons I like Olbermann & Maddow but still get annoyed when in their effort to be courteous, they don't confront double talk from the Washington elite head on. It still bugs me when they refer the Iraq/Aghan 'wars' instead of 'illegal occupations'.
Oh well, that's why I'm here, to read and to learn..
You are correct, Jim. Jane is not a centrist Democrat. Not even close. She can be abrasive and impatient with foolish arguments, but she is always fighting the good fight and organizing for action.
"Ok, occasionally DemocracyNow! might have Chomsky on (I'm not sure) and they do have some good lefty journalists like Nir Rosen..." -- Ephraim
Amy has interviewed Noam Chomsky any number of times, and she also, from time to time, spends the entire hour broadcasting his speeches.
This morning, Amy interviewed Jane Hamsher:
www.democracynow.org
This statement, like your previous one, demonstrates your unfamiliarity with Jane Hamsher and the posters and commenters at FDL. "...ensconced in the mainstream Democratic Party nexus" is fiction. You can't be taken seriously by anyone who does know FDL.
Here's a profile of what a Clinton-fake-democrat looks like. It's a good gauge to judge all people who would attempt to call themselves "a democrat".
Rahm Emanuel: A ballet dancer with something to prove:
"The profiles of Rahm Emanuel in the early days of the Clinton White House depict an almost comically vain spoiled brat. The Washington Post called him a “wiry-thin, foul-mouthed ballet dancer” [Rahm studied ballet dancing] whose “brash, punish-your-enemies style apparently reflected a White House in which certitude sometimes outpaced judgment.”
Mother Jones called him “arrogant, rash and power hungry” and described how he once “sent a rotting fish to a former coworker with whom he had parted ways.” Later in that article an unnamed colleague said, “Nobody says he’s dumb, but everyone says he’s an asshole.” He let the Mother Jones writer see his impatience, snapping rubber bands, tapping pencils, and shifting in his seat. He said he saw no point in joining a feeble journalistic expedition to find profound meaning in his life. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but if I want introspection, I’m gonna pay a hundred dollars an hour.”
The story went on to describe Emanuel indulging for a moment in some recreation—on the bike path in Washington’s Rock Creek Park, shirtless and in tight shorts, shouting “left!” as he zipped past “hapless yuppies and their children. . . . His furious pace doesn’t slow for tight corners or low overhangs. Most people find bike rides relaxing, but Emanuel rides as if he’s being chased by the Headless Horseman.”
...Following this analysis, Emanuel had to transform his public image, at least during the campaign. He could no longer play the role of the arrogant power broker who didn’t give a damn about the people he insulted.
He had to show he cared, not just in a grand public-policy sense but in a personal way. He had to demonstrate that he understood something about the people whose hands he was shaking. He could no longer divide the world into winners and losers—losers get to vote too. In short, he couldn’t strip to his bare chest and barrel down the bike path of life, screaming at pedestrians to get the hell out of his way. No, he had to be more like his old boss, Clinton, oozing charm and not disdain. He had to apply the lessons he’d learned from the master."
http://www1.chicagoreader.com/obama_reader/rahm_emanuel/
Some people take pride in being called a Liberal. Some people run from it.
Rahm Emanuel was in charge of the Clinton campaign in Illinois in '92. I heard him interviewed on a local political radio show. I can't remember anything he said but I do remember, at the end of the interview, thinking "what a slime bag".
If I'd stayed in Chicago he would have been my Congressman after he left the White House. He replaced Blagoevitch who went on to be a nationally known Governor. And Blago had replaced the one term Republican who took down Danny Rostenkowski after he was indicted. Illinois' 5th District can be counted on to produce the Great Ones.
Does anyone here consider Politico a trusted source?
-30-
Jane Hamsher is not a Progressive.
Jane Hamsher is a Neoliberal.
The neoliberal approach to healthcare reform, as defined by George Lakoff, Eric Haas, Glenn W. Smith and Scott Parkinson in "The Logic of the Healthcare Debate" published through the now defunct Rockridge Institute in 2007, and reiterated in "The PolicySpeak Disaster for Health Care" published here in August of this year, abandons the Progressive moral basis of the goal of true comprehensive reform in favor of sustaining the same free-market, (fundamentally conservative), domination of national healthcare which caused the crisis in healthcare we witness today.
"As a result, the American people will not be given any real choice between the progressive and conservative moral positions. We will never know if those polls were right, if Americans indeed prefer a progressive alternative. The surrender in advance by the neoliberals means that any “compromise” will start with a capitulation to fundamental conservative values, and will be tilted even more strongly in a conservative direction as negotiations proceed."
The Logic of the Healthcare Debate
Since the beginning, Hamsher and her neoliberal contemporaries in the media worked in conjunction with the Administration and the faux Progressives in Congress to manufacture consent for neoliberal health insurance legislation by actively suppressing Single Payer healthcare reform. Any attempt by visitors to her website to raise the issue of Progressive morality — the morality of empathy and responsibility, for oneself and others, has been met with the same type of browbeating, denigration and derisive responses typical of FOX News.
It's Jane's Way or the Highway, with the real crisis of hundreds of people dying every day because of free-market, profit driven healthcare made irrelevant by her need to be part of a meaningless victory over the same neoconservatives from whom she borrows her tactics.
Jane Hamsher isn't leading the Left anywhere but down the same road we've been traveling for decades. She and other faux Progressives are scampering in light of public response to the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which they ignored in July and helped get passed through the House last month. She's a hypocrite. Manufacturing consent for continuing free-market, profit driven healthcare legislation while bolstering her celebrity, increasing her own market value. The fact she's a cancer survivor and likes doggies cannot negate that fact.
First sentence error: "The struggle to keep the center..." Lost center -- of the electorate and not center democrates -- is not coming back, much like the jobs that Robert Reich writes of today. Why gone? Wall St bailout and misrepresentations like 'jobs saved.' For as smart as these guys present themselves to be, the inaction, or percieved indifference over the economy and job losses is crushing Obama. Fox is killing them by stating that the economic destruction is willful, a hijacking, a Marxist redistributionist and punitive policy. Perhaps it is too pat of an answer/accusation by the opposition, but an ignoring of the root causes of the discontent and a dismissive hate-mongers label is going over like a turd in the punchbowl. The recent governers' races should be seen as the claxon they are and not what the media would like them to be.
"a Marxist redistributionist" -- Clarence Beeks
If only this was true!
Anyone profiting from sickness is just immoral and plain wrong.
Corporation have found a way to profit from death through the military industrial complex.
If the corporations could find a way to profit from the rape of small children, they would find a way to franchise it.
Jane is just great! Keep up the good work, woman! We all need you.
I like her, too! And, she is tough!
Actually, I didn't know much about Jane until she took on the issue of the public option, which was our only option due to the fact that Obama took single-payer off the table prior to the outset of the committe meetings and talks in the House and Senate.
Jane appeared, this morning, on Democracy Now! --
www.democracynow.org
The interview is well worth the time.
"Jane appeared, this morning, on Democracy Now! " –(Kay Johnson)
–Indeed she did. This is a sure indication that even Democracy Now! is careening into irrelevance and soon will no longer be worth watching. One does not listen to Democracy Now! to listen to Democratic Party toadies like Jane Hamsher. Or at least until now. This can only be indicative of the onset of a period of perhaps permanent decline.
–(Jill Bains)
Jane and FireDogLake are quite the opposite of toadies of the Democratic Party. Anyone who says that is quite unfamiliar with Jane and FDL.
- The year's great - and frustrating - causes on the left have been the Afghan war and... -
Well, no wonder it's been frustrating, since there is no 'Afghan war'. Progressives and leftists and liberals have wasted valuable time trying to stop a war that doesn't exist.
There is only the DAFT war against our announced enemies al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
End the DAFT war, which was started by Public Law 107-40, the insane and DAFT law that continues to be ignored.
Until this law is brought into the light, the US military will forever continue to seek the goal that our moronic Congress set into law - preventing future terrorism by force of arms, by 'pre-emptive wars'.
AfPak is a symptom and the DAFT war is the disease.
The point of such "organizations" (FireDogLake is just a Web site, after all) is to co-opt the left. The corporate-funded Democratic Party isn't challenged by FireDogLake or MoveOn, which are not progressive organizations. Rather, those "groups" are used to steer public opinion and even funnel campaign contributions directly to the Dems.
Such groups are useful to the Democratic Party, which continually needs to channel its base into accepting corporate decision-making. The base must be made to love those compromises and still vote Democratic every two and four years. That's the effect of such astroturf organizations like FireDogLake and MoveOn, which stop short of making progressive demands. They take the pressure off Washington.
-TIA
I hope you are wrong, but I fear you are right. I try to take part in MoveOn, but they are ultimately to damn conservative for me. Just today they've asked us to sign a petition that asks congress to get out of Afghanistan when it is convenient. I want all our troops out now, period.
I am completely over this Obama presidency. He is the war president -- same as Bush. Obama's rhetoric is more nuanced, he's not prone to using knee-jerk, simple-minded, key words. His speeches make it appear that some thought has gone into them. But, the net result is: We're not out of Iraq -- nor even very close to that; we're not out of Gitmo, and can't seem to figure out how to do that; and we're escalating a war in Afghanistan which has no military solution that can turn out well. So, as far as I can tell, we have had no actual change in practice from W. We've just got better lipstick.
Take the $billions we're going to waste on military actions, training Afghanis to march in rows and imposing our top down military sense of "order" on their society, take a fraction of that money and use it to fund Afghan industry, farming (food), build infrastructure using Afghan labor and using Afghan professional expertise, build schools, bridges, roads, hospitals, buy their manufactured goods to give them a market and a flow of cash. I believe that if their society begins to function with this "oil" of local economic structure, there will be little left for the Taliban or Al Qaeda to exploit or from which to recruit. Give the Afghans a reason not to shoot and kill Americans or anyone else. Give them a reason to stay where they are, working, earning a livable income, educating their children and improving their own lives. It's all people anywhere in the world want. It's simple, and it's cheap.
I'm with you on the "over this Obama" part, especially when I think of the money I will probably spend on the coming mandatory insurance payments that will still exclude my diabetic wife. As for revitalizing Afghanistan, let's just get out and revitalize this country instead.
what a hottie! nice apple product placement, too...
politics is a sham...she's either insincere, or naive...
let's get those gardens growing!
A lot of sour grapes staining this thread. Jane and the firepups do some great work. Some of the sour commenters clearly haven't followed FDL's development over the years. Jane's a realist, and she's helping disaffected Democrats wise up.
Jane Hamsher needs to explain how it is she gets to make a statement like this to a man who disagrees with the Health Care Bill. I'd say she has some explaining to do or maybe this is just one of those Mel Gibson, Michael Richards moments of hatred, only this says much more about hatred:
"In response to TaosJohn @ 4 (show text)
That’s great. Another man who doesn’t give a shit about our uteruses. Maybe big strong man can “kill the bill” for us? Oh he doesn’t have a plan, you bitches can do that for him while he has a pizza on the sofa. After you rub his feet. Ladies, we’re on our own, even at FDL."
If someone had said that about any other group, I doubt they would be a new hero of the Progressive movement.
In case anyone doesn't think this was hate speech by Ms Hamsher, and the ultimate hypocrisy, here is the comment she was lashing out against all men for:
TaosJohn December 2nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
"I have a better idea: KILL THE BILLS. Both the health care bills are much, much worse than doing nothing. If nothing passes, Congress will have to revisit the issue, because the current situation is untenable. If they pass this pile of dung, everyone will say “we DID that” and that will be the end of it. Worse still, these bills feed the monster. Insurers will have even more money to corrupt the system. What a terrible tragedy and deception.
This is the greatest lunacy in public life in my 64 years on the planet. Passing either bill absolutely guarantees Republican victory in 2012. They could run a freaking hamster and win. Wait until the mass movement against the mandate kicks in. The progressive blogosphere will be utterly discredited as well. Ninety percent of the blogs are locked into a suicidal “win vs. lose” dynamic on this issue. That’s not the way it is. The way it is, is, we’re going to reap the whirlwind.
I am just astounded that more people don’t get it. If this dreck passes, watch out."
I dare say, do not disagree or you might even get harassed at your home, as I've heard has happened.
"MoveOn is one of the handful of groups breaking from the White House's hold on big liberals to raise money, activate volunteers and threaten for the first time, Obama's left flank."
What a load of CRAP.
Move-on has blown the bugles over the House passing the WEAK "public option" health INSURANCE bill.
If they were REALLY working the LEFT, they'd be pushing HARD for Universal Single-payer Health CARE, instead of supporting more DAMNED insurance. INSURANCE IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION.
I'm ready to work to replace Ron Wyden with a PROGRESSIVE next year. He used to work hard for the people, but he's sold out to the corporate greed, and it's time to replace him.
Jane Hamsher is 100% correct.
Too many on the "liberal-progresive" side don't know when they are getting rolled and thus, like being rolled over, but Hamsher does not appreciate such abuse by Obama and the phony "liberals" and DLC-Democrats.....
The Democratic Party laughs at the liberal-progressive base. Don't believe it? Then go to the DLC website and read through their pro-corporate, pro-war agenda.
Give em the truth Jane Hamsher!!!
Way to go Jane!!!!
Those who criticize Jane don't know Jack!!!!