Don't forget that former presidents Clinton, big George, and Reagan helped. Along with their respective Congresses. And currently, though time passing may (I can only hope) tell a different story, with the appointments and the soft pedaling, timid Congress, I can't see much shift toward the left, maybe some shifts toward the center in a few areas, but essentially business as usual with a different mask on. There some people to watch, though, for hope, such as Rep. Grayson and a few others. But remember, when the first Splurge was asked for the majority of the people in the country said no. At first there was hope that Congress would actually listen to us, because one house voted it down. But then they betrayed us again!!! And what did the people do, only a couple weeks later? They RETURNED most of them back to Congress! Such a short memory, more than anything else will be the downfall of the US.

This political dynamic will work if the left exerts as much pressure as the right. It will be an uphill struggle.

The primary difficulty is the corporate media has been cheerleading the tilt rightward from day one of the Reagan Administration.

A liberal, or at least an honest moderate, in the White House is a vital. Our government is still a right wing power. Obama is right when he says he can't do it alone.

This means We the People must make a lot of noise. We need to demand that our representatives, what is that again? Oh yeah, represent us.

The right will always fight dirty for power and profit. That means the left must fight even harder for freedom and justice.

The cause has never been more clear and compelling. WE are the revolution we've been waiting for.

http://davedubya.com

re: progressives, organization, and corporate media

Dave Dubya January 30th, 2009 3:03 pm
"And the weakness of those ground-level organizations is...exacerbated by media non-coverage of their issues."

Agreed. And yet imo it is still up to progressives to fight back through joining the groups and interests we champion: within the framework of organizations, progressive point of view may follow, in part because opposition to power is 'lived,' in part because such organizations will use meetings and media to state their views - 'local' views that will, as suggested above, trump the corporate media.

From this point of view, btw, 'internet activism/community' is inadequate, because it typically joins already likeminded progressives, not the greater groups of disorganized workers and vulnerable citizens who must be active to have a hope of change.

Behind my response is the idea that a part of the problem faced by progressives is tied up with the decline of organized labor. Here's what the normally right wing David Broder wrote about it:

washingtonpost.com
The Price Of Labor's Decline, 2004
By David S. Broder
"...there is a larger story about workers and organized labor that has gone largely unnoticed this year. I was reminded of it by a conversation on the train coming back from New York. My seatmate, a fellow reporter, was asking questions about the changes I had seen in Congress since I started covering Capitol Hill almost 50 years ago. And when we got around to discussing lobbyists, he seemed genuinely surprised when I said that back then - and for decades afterward - the most influential lobbyists did not represent business...but labor unions....
It made me realize how rarely observers like me make the link between the decline of progressive politics and with it the near-demise of liberal legislation, and the steady weakening of organized labor.
The economic effects of that trend are well documented....
The loss of labor's political leverage is, if anything, even more striking. As I told my seatmate, when labor lobbied powerfully on Capitol Hill, it did not confine itself to bread-and-butter issues for its own members. It was at the forefront of battles for aid to education, civil rights, housing programs and a host of other social causes important to the whole community. And because it was muscular, it was heard and heeded.
Today, the shrunken Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate are probably closer to labor - financially and politically - than they were in the 1970s. But an enfeebled union movement is unable to sway more than a handful of Republicans..."

Sioux Rose

SIROTA's closing line, "Help the president avert a financial disaster" makes me think I am occupying some Orwellian parallel universe. Or in the infamous words of Clinton, depends what IS means. I mean "IS" we in a depression, i.e. a financial disastrous zone, or "is" we not?

And as for the loss of muscle in labor along with losing the voice in media, both have been orchestrated with plans that go way back. NAFTA was probably an end run in part designed to disable Unions. When the jobs go south and there are fewer and fewer well-paying niches, people are afraid to stand together and demand more from their bosses. And when the media ends up in the hands of a handful of broadcast companies, big money gets a lot of persuasive (and/or hypnotic) bang for their buck(s). Makes it far easier to manufacture consent!

America needs a leveled playing field... things are so uneven, so disingenuous, so unjust, so unequal, so off-kilter that this lack of balance can only lead to one place: some form of collapse OR implosion. I believe such impacts have begun, and we have not yet seen the tip of the iceberg. Nature will be lending Her hand as too many children are dying, starving, or wasting away spiritually, intellectually, and physically. And when the Great Mother feels the tears of so many compromised children, She acts.

Fortunately for me, I happen to agree with Obama's policies. Including some of the ones that are not popular here on CD like supporting Israel or not backing single-payer. But I often hear this refrain that the "political dynamic will work if the left exerts as much pressure as the right." In other words, the left will "push" Obama to change his policies, and if they "pressure" him enough he will. I'd just like to point out how unbelievably stupid this is.

We should all know by now the underhanded ways lobbyists and special interests controlled the Bush administration - they could offer money and votes.

Need I point out the obvious?

The American left is tiny and poor. We have neither votes nor money to offer (in 2008 Nader and McKinney got less than 1% of the vote combined). Not to mention it's four years till the next presidential election. So face the facts, the American left has no political leverage. Didn't we learn that from the Bush years?

Can any of you who hate Obama's policies and want to change them actually describe how you plan to do so?

Good discussion! Yes and No on various items:

I agree with the "extremist conservativism" discussion, and that it goes back before Bush.

Politics? Farm Politics as and Illustration! Paul Wellstone, a farm state Democrat, was not considered to be a conservative, extremist Republican! But when Iowa Senator Tom Harkin became Ag chair in 2002, they all switched over to what was essentially the Republican Freedom to Farm Act, (as amended by four emergency farm bills after it failed). Ok, they offered a greened Freedom to Farm (and Bush later gutted the Green part of the Commodity Title, CSP), but on the core, the Commodity Title, (by far the largest money issue) they switched. So they went along with the most extreme approach since Herbert Hoover, even as it failed (four emergency bills. Republicans were key leaders in this history of degrading and ending New Deal farm progams, but Democrats always maintained Repubican cuts, with few and very small exceptins. Eisenhower/Bensen started lowering price floors, but Kennedy and Johnson continued it. Nixon/Butz were big on subsidies to replace price floors, so the floors could be lowered more relative to inflation (costs skyrocketed after the Soviet grain deal under Nixon). Carter maybe was the one to rise price floors for inflation, but not in real terms. Nixon brought big reductins in price floors. He increased subsidies downward, lowering price floors more than subsidies were increased, leaving farmers with less income during the "farm crisis." Clinton first raised price floors slightly. But 1996 Freedom to Farm ended price floors and supply management with them, (and price ceilings and reserves). It was the Gingrich era, Contract for America spin with the patriotic name, "freedom to farm." Clinton vetoed it, then signed it.

Wellstone, Harkin, Gephardt, Daschle and others opposed it. Harkin has worked to restore New Deal programs, with Harkin-Gephardt farm bill. Then Harkin became Ag chair, and they all switched. Again, their bill was worse than Reagan/Block, worse than Nixon/Butz.

Progressives have recently really come into farm politics big time. Environmental Working Group had a huge FOIA victory in getting farm subsidy data, with names. Subsidies, though, don't affect market price. So they don't affect the progressive issues of below cost raw materials for high fructose corn syrup and starches, transfats, ethanol, animal factories, and export dumping causing massive world poverty. Progressives, though, went with an anti-subsidy platform. Actually this often ended up being a platform for subsidy caps (reductions), green subsidies, and WTO friendly subsidies (that don't "distort trade"). But subsidies don't distort trade, the lack of price floors does that, (due to the lack of "price responsiveness" on both supply and demand sides for farm commodities "It's Price Responsiveness" Daryll E. Ray, online). Subsidies don't affect price except a few percent + or - ("Paradox of Agricultural Subsidies," online, Timothy Wise, p. 21). So progressives farm bill reformers have been advocating for a farm bill worse than Nixon/Butz, worse than Reagan/Block. They haven't shown respect for those really renewing the New Deal, the National Family Farm Coalition, nffc.net. Most urban progressives advocated for none of the key New Deal policies: price floors with supply management on the bottom to stop dumping, and price ceilings with strategic commodity reserves on the top side to address price spikes and the food crisis (and both top and bottom policies to check speculation).

On the other hand, on the media question raised here: EWG listed 352 mostly mainstream editorials, (Common Dreams Progressive Newswire, 2/11/08) on these very issues, and later 477. So there has been huge mainstream media support for "progressive" positions. Progressives won the day, big time! Except they're really huge pro agribusiness positions, preserving the multibillion dollar subsidization of agribusiness in below cost price gains with no price floors and no supply management. (Timothy Wise & Elanor Starmer, "Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices, 1997-2005;" I estimate that Cargill gets multibillions in below cost gains yearly, and probably ADM.) Agribusiness giants escaped with no threat to their multibillions (each) from most farm bill progressives, while farmers losing a million (without price floors) and then getting a million in subsidies were a hot scandal.

Ok, now to the weakness in ground level progressive orgs. It's the leadership of progressive orgs that is weak. They failed to get on the correct side, the side of justice. Who, hunger groups, church groups, sustainable agriculture groups, environmental groups, food reform groups. For examples, just google my name, "Common Dreams," and either "price floor," "farm bill," or "food crisis."

But also, I don't see progressives understanding another huge matter: how to organize. They do symbolic demonstrations but little targeting of those who really make the decisions. My classic example is holding up a peace sign for cars. Here google my name and "organiz" for examples.

More detail and sources on all of this at my zspace blog.

Will Harkin switch back to Democratic, (nonsubsidy economic stimulus) New Deal farm policy? Harkin is THE key player: in Congress, with Ag Secretary Vilsack, and with Obama. Progressive leaders need to catch on to the realities of where we are, the enormous possibilities lying right here, with "Harkin-Gephardt" Harkin positioned to mentor Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack. (Please pass this on to a progressive farm bill reform leader.)