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TechnoratiAmerica’s Two-Party System
One is Barack Obama, probably the most skilled and era-appropriate politician in a generation or more. And that, after he's already through all of one whole month in office.
The other problem threatening the very life of the Republican Party today is the Republican Party.
It's been some time since America had much of a real two-party system. Ralph Nader was right about that in 2000. By 2001, he was beginning to be wrong. Today, it may be the case that he is growing wronger all the time.
It's a little hard to say, because the two great, tectonic, political questions of the moment remain unanswered, only slowly coming into focus, perhaps in part because they are moving targets, actually evolving over time toward some new equilibrium. Those questions are, Who will the Democrats (and especially Obama) be?; and, Who will the Republicans be?
My sense is that Obama is fundamentally every bit the centrist he apparently whispered that he was as a sweet nothing into Benjamin Netanyahu's ear, on his visit to Israel last year, but that events may pull him to the left. My sense is that the Republican Party has been wholly and completely captured by the lunatic fringe, but that events are jerking its sleeve toward the center.
I don't think we yet know the disposition of either of these ideological battles, and it is likely the case that those outcomes are just as unknown to the very leaders of each party. Indeed, they may be less leaders than presiders, as other forces prove more salient in dictating the directions that their parties take in the months and years ahead.
I think Democrats can reasonably comfortably become either the party of the center or the center-left, and can, looking ahead, forge a popular consensus-based governing regime that lasts at least a generation, and more likely two.
I doubt Republicans can survive what is happening to their party as anything other than some sort of rump, stump, latter-day Whig Party, with a solid electoral grip on the whole of the Old Confederacy, as they continue to insist on maintaining in the twenty-first century every ounce of the poverty, ignorance, prejudice and class apartheid that marked the eighteenth. The only change that would represent from the last several decades is that such sick regressiveness will no longer be quite so nationalized, courtesy of the likes of Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, Trent Lott or Mitch McConnell, but rather will remain confined to their Bible Belt, just as Jesus intended.
Key ideological mysteries remain, but what is starkly clear, and all the more so after Tuesday night, is the stature gap between these two parties. It's not that the Democrats stand tall. They don't - though Obama sometimes does, so far - and the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi seem at least astute enough to get out of the way of their party's champion as he rises precipitously in public esteem. No, it's not that Democrats stand tall, but that, more than anything, how pathetically small now stands - or crawls - the Republican Party, the same one Karl Rove promised just a few years ago to turn into a permanent majority in America.
You could see this in the jaw-dropping sight of the Republican members of Congress stuck in their seats as the rest of the room cheered for the concept of guaranteed healthcare for children. What a notion, eh? "Hey", you could just hear them thinking, "how can we use tax giveaways to turn mere multi-millionaires into full-on billionaires if we're spending that money instead on keeping a nation's youth healthy? Screw that!"
You could see it, during the same speech, as they sheepishly looked around the room, trying to decide whether to rise in applause or not, as the rest of the room cheered the concept of limiting pay to utterly failed CEOs now being rescued by taxpayers whose government they've spent a lifetime deriding. "Hey", you could hear them thinking, "those are our homies you're talking about!"
But where you could really see it is in the side-by-side comparison of Barack Obama and the champion of the opposition party, Bobby Jindal, who gave the Republican response afterwards. For every bit that Obama soared in his speech - and he did, rhetorically and even, sometimes, substantively for progressives - Jindal was a moral, philosophical and political homunculus of microscopic proportions. His speech of only a few short minutes managed to pack more unctuousness, more faux bonhomie, more "be sure to do a half-chuckle here" inauthenticity, more rank and bogus populism, and more policy solutions that were last fresh in the paleolithic era, than perhaps any single thing I've have seen in the entirety of my lifetime. Even David Brooks - or should I say, especially David Brooks, who sees the remaining shards of his credibility swirling down the toilet as the party to which this one-time socialist hitched his wagon these last decades - even he was apoplectic at the sight of the Jindal self-immolation. When David Brooks is describing the Republican response speech and literally using words like "insane" and "nihilistic", you know how horrid an affair it really was.
And, oh god, was it abysmal. Imagine you were standing on the deck of a ship floating in a sea of 300 million drowning shipmates and you refused to throw them a rope, insisting instead that they simply swim harder and faster. "It's for your own good! We must avoid moral hazard! (Except where ship owners are concerned, of course.)" Now imagine ten minutes later they all climb back on board and decide to conduct a ‘referendum' on your future. That was the Jindal approach to a nation in crisis.
Imagine a political party in 2009 staking its claim to popularity with the voters on a demand to return to the gold standard, re-instituting Prohibition, or rejecting the Jay Treaty, and you'd be just about as up-to-date and relevant as the Republicans. Jindal sounded like little more than a sickening GOP jukebox trotting out old Reagan chestnuts that were already horrid forty years ago when they were first uttered by the B-movie actor himself, repeatedly referring, for instance, to the looming danger of government "bureaucrats" running our lives.
You could also see the difference between the parties in the very facts of Obama and Jindal. For all its faults of cowardice in the last decades and out-group Balkanization in the time before that, the Democratic Party has still done some of the hard work of inclusiveness-building in America. And, what is more, they did so at a massive cost to their popularity, as the Republican vultures swept in to pick up the racist vote, after Lyndon Johnson had shown the moral courage to do the right thing. Then they watched as the GOP grabbed the sexist vote, while Democrats tried to enact the Equal Rights Amendment. They were scorned for coddling communists and criminals, while the Kaiser's Party won votes by opportunistically trashing the ACLU. Most recently, the Democrats have lost the homophobic vote to the GOP, while the closeted queers dressed up as the bible-thumping moral arbiters of our culture rail against the very sins they commit when the sheep in their congregations aren't looking.
The Democratic Party - especially of the last decade - is a shameful thing, in so many respects, but nevertheless looks a lot better comparatively and longitudinally. Racism, sexism and homophobia have been entrenched in the warp and woof of American culture. Yet, even though they are all still present in healthy doses, a comparison between 2009 and 1964 is highly instructive, and Democrats has been admirable in many cases in making a difference. Morever, whatever else their (many) faults, Democrats (nowadays) mostly get inclusiveness genuinely and intuitively. Really, the biggest story of 2008 was the essential non-story of Hillary and Barack. It was striking the degree to which their obvious differences, compared to every one of the 43 previous occupants of the White House, were mostly incidental to the campaign. Yes, Barack Obama was running for president while being black, but he wasn't the black candidate. Yes, Clinton was a woman running for president, but nobody was asking anymore whether a woman could do the job. Not so long ago, that would not have been the case.
I have a helluva hard time saying nice things about the Democratic Party, but let's give credit where it is due: This party has achieved inclusiveness, and it's real and it's actualized to the point of having nearly transcended into a state of casual indifference. Nobody thinks anymore about the implications of giving non-land-owners the vote. It happened almost two centuries ago, and it's just a part of the fabric of society now. Nobody wrings their hands about women having the franchise. It happened a century ago, and even the most freakish right-wingers (and please pardon the redundancy there) don't discuss the matter anymore. Similarly, in Democratic circles, a cosmopolitanism of race and sex and sexual orientation are fast becoming just simple facts of American life, no longer death-fights for inclusiveness, and now no longer even all that much discussed.
The Republicans couldn't possibly be more different. They know they're supposed to be inclusive, they know there some votes to be gotten there, and they're good enough at marketing to go out and find some nice, clean-cut black kids with good teeth, dress them up in slacks and sweater vests, and stick ‘em up on the stage at their conventions, along with other camera-friendly props. But the truth is they haven't remotely got a clue. You could see it with Sarah Palin. It was like, "Hey, she's Republican, she's a governor, she's got a vagina! Let's run her for vice president!" And then, of course, there were the good ol' boys, in their cigar lounges, also drooling over the "va-va-va-voom!" factor. Yeah, baby. Like George W. Bush, when he was once asked what he and his father talk about when they get together, and replied: "Pussy". This guy was president of the United States and leader of the GOP one month ago. No that's not a typo. Not one century ago. Not one millennium ago. One month ago.
And how about that Bobby Jindal, eh? "He's freakin' brown!! Get him up on the stage!!" If we had a shred of honesty injected into Republican politics, there'd be no question as to why they shoved him into the spotlight, and why people talk about him as a presidential candidate. What a sick joke. They couldn't even find a real black guy for their token. I guess Clarence Thomas is too busy checking out porno mags underneath his black robes, and you never know what Alan Keyes is going to say next. Bring on Jindal. I mean, he's skinny and brown! Maybe that's Barack's secret, eh?!?!
But the party is even more pathetic when it wanly tries to mimic inclusiveness than when it just admits to its multifarious toxic ‘isms'. The plain fact is that Barack Obama - the leader of the Democratic Party - is a president who happens to be black, while Bobby Jindal - the spokesperson this week for the Republican Party - got the gig because of his color. One party not only gets it, but has already largely transcended these juvenile tribal divides in our society. The other party is only inches away from its history of the Southern Strategy, Willie Horton, Reagan talking states' rights at Philadelphia, Mississippi, gay marriage ballot initiatives, and the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of black voters by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. And even those one or two inches are measured in tokenism, not real changes in attitude or policy.
What's most striking of all, however, is the difference in maturity between the two parties. Or at least between Obama and the GOP. Or at least between Obama's rhetoric and the GOP. This is true in two respects. First, Obama is the most mature American politician we've seen in decades, at least since Jimmy Carter. That not only puts him light years beyond other politicians, it puts him galaxies ahead of any Republican anywhere in sight. He's truly not perfect in this regard, and he's worrisome in his vagueness and willingness to let all comers project onto him whatever they each want to see. But, even still, in his race speech in Philadelphia and in his address to the nation this week, you could see on display something so long absent from American political discourse: adulthood. This is the first major politician in my lifetime who talks to us in living color, in three dimensions, and without a subtle but sickening constant pandering of built-in contempt. I doubt we can underestimate the effect this alone will have in raising permanently the quality of our discourse. There will be no going back after this, and for a party like the GOP - which depends for its very existence on appealing to stupid, selfish and frightened voters with bumper-sticker slogans, phony wars abroad and, at home, chump change middle class tax cuts based on payments due later - nothing could be more existentially threatening.
The full force of this contrast was on display in the Obama-Jindal matchup this week. True, who wants to follow the Beatles on stage? But, that said, it was a pathetic display, and everyone knows it. The Republicans, in disarray, and increasingly seen by the public as wrecking the economy and then obstructing solutions to the damage they themselves have caused, sent out their Great Brown Hope, in an act of transparent desperation. If Jindal could have looked smaller or more panderingly counterfeit to his viewers, I really don't know how. If his party's rescue plan - "Let's do nothing!" - could have smacked more of Herbert Hoover's massively popular 1932 platform, I really can't imagine it. Republicans, who were merely mortally wounded last week, are now in a full-on death spiral. Watch the knives come out big-time, as they accelerate the process with the sort of vicious acts of self-interest for which they are deservedly famous. It's over now, and it's over for all the right reasons. Americans have figured out that insanely destructive policy ideas are somewhat less than optimal, especially when you have other options. It took a while, and it took a war and an environment and an economy and a foreign policy and a natural disaster and a federal budget all going spectacularly south (pun fully intended), but, finally, dim-witted Americans have figured it out. "Oh, suicidal stupidity? No, but thank you very much. I don't want that."
And this is the other way in which Obama's mature politics is so astonishing. Are we really so infantile a people that it took ‘til 2009? Are we really so embarrassingly frightened and immature that everything in sight had to go completely up in flames before we were willing to finally drop the endless indulgent fantasies of our politics and at last engage in just a modicum of real-world political discourse? Did we really allow mice-among-men the likes of George W. Bush or John Kerry to be our standard-bearers, in a nation of 300 million people? Sadly, the answer is yes, yes and yes again. Sigh.
Clearly, Barack Obama is no progressive panacea. Last week I ripped many of his policies and staffing choices as Cheneyesque. I wasn't exaggerating, nor am I kidding about the disappointment and disillusionment many progressives are feeling when we look at the likes of Tim Geithner, or Obama's stance on civil liberties questions. I've already given up playing the game of just-wait-cause-he's-got-a-bigger-plan-in-mind-behind-all-these-apparent-cave-ins. But, having said that, he clearly stomped the Republicans this last month. I thought he should have stopped accommodating them after they burned him on the stimulus bill, but he didn't, and poll data are showing that he is riding high and they are seeking subterranean basement levels of public support with all the burrowing alacrity of a bunker buster bomb. It may also be that he knows his political maturity approach will set the stage incrementally, allowing him to produce bigger progressive changes later on.
But, of course, it is also possible that he will not be a progressive at all, or that he will only lean that way on a few random (and relatively safe) issues. That would be tremendously disappointing and arguably strategically stupid, for regressives will continue to pitch their nihilism at every opportunity, and we know from the ugliest first-hand experience that the public is capable of drinking that Kool-Aid when it suits their selfish and lazy fantasies to do so.
Part of me thinks that Obama gets this, and he's more clever than all of us, just carefully laying the necessary foundation for incrementally bringing change to hopelessly brainwashed Americans.
But then another part of me thinks that he'll be buried by the failures of his own half-measures and naive accommodations to the predatory party.
Part of me thinks he smart enough to prioritize, and realizes that restoring actual human rights to our human rights policies would leave his entire agenda open to savaging by the right, especially if some bomb goes off somewhere at any time during the next four years.
But then another part of me thinks that Benjamin Netanyahu was given more honest insight into the politics of Barack Obama than this entire country of 300 million people who watched him campaign for two years and entrusted him with their leadership.
Part of me thinks that we should be grateful enough just to not have Bobby Jindal in the White House.
But then another part of me thinks that simply accepting that as enough opens the very door to Bobby Jindal being in the White House sometime soon.
None of my vacillation and oscillation should be hugely surprising. We're one whole month into the presidency of a former candidate who succeeded in part by being highly opaque in his presentation of himself, and is only now having to reveal who he is by virtue of decisions he can no longer just discuss in the abstract, but has to actually make, one way or the other.
We're also talking about a manifestly bright and clever guy, who is clearly capable of playing four-dimensional chess, thus making each of his moves subject to multiple and multi-dimensional interpretation and speculation. In other words, he's still a puzzle, and possibly because it suits him to be. For decades, people thought Eisenhower had been asleep at the wheel during his quiet presidency. Turns out that all along Ike saw strategic benefit in allowing people to perceive him that way. They thought were playing two-dimensional checkers with the old man. He had another game entirely going on, and his adversaries never even knew they were playing it.
Is that Obama's ploy? We'll just have to wait to see what is revealed over time.
But we may also be able to be more than passive observers.
It might very well be the case that this presidency will be almost precisely as progressive as progressives demand that it be.
68 Comments so far
Show AllWe don't need 2 parties - we don't need a new party. We need, as a people, to create our own platform and only elect politicians who adopt our platform.
Join us in creating the Peoples Platform and we can eliminate the 2 party system in 1 election.
www.doi2.com
Let the republican party hot air big mouths like Rush and his ilk have all the air time they want.
Sixty percent of American public is fed up with the right wing propaganda machine, and the best part is, we hear the bull and lies.
The more they use the nasty dirty rhetoric and public tricks, the more we know about the dirty secrets and lies they have been using since Nixon.
Right wing religious cause stalking torture networks are being used across the country as warrant less surveillance vigilante control mechanisms.
We have a huge problem with these highly organized well funded nation wide torture networks.Private armies of right wing christian freaks who think they are doing Gods work.
Well, the complicit Democrats are in power now, its up to them, to take the unpatriotic dumb out of freedom.
Lets expose these networks as being Nazi like organizations, tie them to a right wing conspiracy, and keep them out of office for the next 100 years.
BornFreeMen
Right Wing Christian cause stalking Torture Victim, Bradenton Florida.2 years and running. They are trying to slander , discredit, and drive me crazy.
I will see them fail, and expose their networks, Gods will, not mine.
Even though I would like DMG to write more on this subject, I want to acknowledge and applaud him for bringing to foreground the issue - and concept - of emotional maturity (or lack thereof). To me this is one of the "elephants in the room" that many of us sense, but don't address head on.
Besides the valid points Green makes, there was something else that bothered me about Jindal's response, which I haven't been able to precisely identify. It has something to do with his tone of voice. It was as if he was speaking in some kind of infantile "wink, wink, nod, nod" code...similar to Sarah Palin's delivery. He seemed to be speaking directly to the unconscious mind of the "baby souls" among us.
Does anyone else resonate with my sense about this?
First, I just want to say that, from what I observe, a lot of us don't "Get" DMG's brilliance, not the least of which is found in his multi-layered, multi-valanced, and highly nuanced approach to the political landscape. The French philosopher, sociologist, and eminent systems theorist, Edgar Morin, yet again seems right on the money: much of the western world at least, is caught up in a paradigm of "either/or thinking"...has a great deal of trouble with "both/and" cognitive processing...and is unconscious of this fact. Morin has called for a "revolution in thinking," such that we examine much more carefully our underlying premises and paradigms, and learn at long last, to think in the language of complexity.
This is not to say that I wholeheartedly agree with everything Green writes, because I don't. But he certainly has the capacity for multidimensional thinking without sacrificing genuineness, frequent moments of highly articulate clarity, and most importantly, a sense of humor about the absurdity of it all.
I guess this kind of article is good to post as an example of confused Dem loyalist thinking. It's a mish-mash of grand praise for the Democrats, crowing over the pathetic Republican Party (which will rise again), and then retrenchment from his previous unmitigated boosterism for Obama and the Dem Party.
On the whole, the article is rather useless as political analysis.
A little rudimentary analysis would demonstrate overwhelming Obama support in his first few months of office for past Bush policies. And that's a very bad sign for those who love the Dem Party, like this author.
-TIA
America has a two party system, the Christmas Party and the Birthday Party.
I always cringe to see otherwise intelligent people try to meaningfully frame partisan generalizations as some type of academic analysis.
I'm tired of hearing all the BS partisan generalizations about the GOP, when they don't even consider Ron Paul Republicans. I went to our state GOP convention, and Ron Paul delegates (about a third of all delegates) used their brief speaking time to state their opposition to the war in Iraq.
In many ways, when it comes to matters such as war and social justice, Ron Paul Republicans were far more effective at protesting establishment rule and starting a meaningful movement. Democratic anti-war groups simply jumped on the Obama bandwagon and compromised their principles, hoping to "hold his feet to the fire." In contrast, after losing the nomination, Ron Paul gave McCain the finger. He appeared on national television with Ralph Nader, decried our rigged system, and appealed to all his supporters to vote 3rd Party.
That's principle. And it's certainly not coming from the Democratic Party. And until we have more people in this nation acting on principle, absolutely nothing is going to change.
Looking at this article about what the parties "might become" is a joke. All that we've become is a nation of two parties willing to compromise our principles.
That's Paul the candidate. Catch him talking to the true believer crowd and he paints a picture of future America as nasty and brutish as anything Bush could ever think up.
Euarto...........you hit it on the head. Both parties have betrayed this nations basic principles and have taken us down this path to economic chaos. They have both contributed to the educational and moral decline we are in, they sold us out for a few pieces of silver. Sounds familiar. The "principles" of yesterday have turned into just what feels good today.
The majority of people of this nation, whether GOP or Dem, do not want war, despise criminality and are foresquare for equality of opportunity and education. The criticism of either party, or more commonly, both parties, is generally directed at the leadership of those two organisations and not usually directed at the rank and file.
As to the efficacy of Ron Paul's politics, well that is for another thread....
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
I've never thought much of Green's political views and this article has not changed my mind.
"It's been some time since America had much of a real two-party system. Ralph Nader was right about that in 2000."
Ralph Nader is still right. The two elite political parties in the USA and their supporters/accomplices share blame for one million Iraqi deaths, four million Iraqi refugees, probably another four million Iraqi wounded, and 25 million shell-shocked.
By universal standards, Ralph Nader is always right, and any challenge is always wrong for the simple reason that Nader has no fear of the truth and embraces the truth with enthusiasm. Those who disagree with Nader disagree with the truth. This is a simple fact on the basis of universal ethical standards. You have the same freedom as Nader to embrace the truth. The question is: will you?
"Who will the Democrats (and especially Obama) be?; and, Who will the Republicans be?"
Even predicting the future becomes relatively easy when you embrace the truth. Nader's track record testifies to that. The answers to the two questions are: The elites clearly demonstrate a preference to continue with formulas that seem to work for them so given their spectacular success over the past thirty years dumbing down the people and enslaving them to the empire, expect the elites to continue to be their criminal selves perpetrating more war, more oil, more lies, more theft, more plunder. That is until the people decide to call a stop to it.
"This party has achieved inclusiveness"
Oh yeah! The Demok party achieved inclusiveness by lurching into the extreme right gutter with their lover-mates the Repuks! But inclusive to the true left? Inclusive to the rest of the world? Inclusive to peace, environmental health and the people's economic/political self-determination? Give it up, DMG.
The reference for the previous post is:
http://wapedia.mobi/en/German_Empire?t=4.1.
(The CD website wouldn't accept the hyperlink.)
David Michael Green refers to the Republican Party as "the Kaiser's Party".
In 1889 German coal miners went on strike in Upper Silesia. Kaiser Wilhelm rejected proposals to use military force against the strikers, and instead caused the government to reach a negotiated settlement with a delegation sent from the miners [reference].
Mr. Green, I dare you to explain how this resembles the Republican Party of America.
The war ended quite some time ago. Didn't you get the memo?
Let's quit the drive-by denigration, shall we?
Bring America Back !!!!*****The Nation truly does need that Great Third Party, The Progressive Party. Viable candidates, extensive funding, and worldwide recognition as a force capable of running the USA eminently better than the two standard parties which are mired in the quicksand of the culture of corruption !
**Kucinich, Feingold, Leahy, McKinney, Rowley, Carter...are just some of the names I would move into the Great "P" Party. !!!
The lesser of two evils concept just does not make it work !! Not anymore.
My sense is that the Republican Party has been wholly and completely captured by the lunatic fringe, but that events are jerking its sleeve toward the center.
That will never never happen. The regime of George Wanker Bush was one of unmitigated lawlessness, homicide and piracy. In that, Bush was far more successful than Reagan or Nixon. Bush was the apotheosis of Republicanism. Every day that he was in power, the Republicans woke up in the morning and thought they were in Heaven. Their craziness now, the rabid running around, gnashing their teeth, foaming at the mouth, tearing their clothes off, is their form of mourning that all that is gone for at least four years. They want Bushism back. They want to catch the fire again and kick ass and scheme scheme scheme and steal steal steal. Move to the center? Who are you joshing? The center is Kamp Kumbaya, populated by faggots, atheists, pinkos, secular humanists, bleeding hearts, abortionists and anyone with an ounce of decency in their soul. The Republicans answer to the "center" is: Go screw yourself! Eat dung and die!
No. They need the center. Always do and always will, even if it is only lip service.
Lip service in some stall of a mens washroom, while taking a wide stance.
You will soon be seeing (even as was transparently evidenced by Rupert Murdoch's surprising support of Obama) a rush of neocons like David Brooks to the Obama Party. This is due to the fact that they have no loyalty to our country or any party, but a strong allegiance to another and whichever party is in power is the one they'll work with.
Let's not forget that the neocons began as Trotskyists and leftists.
"Let's not forget that the neocons began as Trotskyists and leftists."
Interesting conjecture...any proof?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Too true. And the process continues. Many who identify themselves as progressives now denigrate not only the current two party system, but the very ideal of popular government. They cleave to people like Ron Paul, whose answer to every issue is to race back to 1789, restore the gold standard and abolish the Fed.
Like prairie populists, they advance the same objections to the 'fiat currency' of the dollar, and insist banking is illegal, taxation is unconstitutional and that US sovereignty is threatened by one world government.
I've been trying to understand this phenomena since college, but it appears to me that, far from being the heirs of the true progressives of the early 20th century, modern progressives have become the "anti" party, braying against whatever party is in power, condemning the political process and soulfully pining for some imaginary politics where they can have absolutely everything they want immediately with no need for compromise.
Of such are Trotskyites, Leninists and anarchists borne.
opeluboy February 27th, 2009 6:13 pm
"the neocons began as Trotskyists and leftists."
Following the 1930s and the 1960s, a number of progressives became right wing, making their life mission attacks on ostensible threats from the left; but the bulk of neocons came out of traditional right wing social, political, and ideological backgrounds.
Very true. Whether from the right or from the left, when they're not killing each other, conservatives stick together.
Oh, please. A few years ago, the Republicans were the mighty juggernaut which would keep permanent control of the White House, and ride roughshod over the wimpy Democrats forever. Now, Obama is the Great Khan. But after the Democrats slog along in stupid wars and flagging economies, the Rethugs will crawl back again. They are both just opposing wings on the same bird of prey.
HOW MR. GREEN'S THOUGHT HAS MATURED!
HE'S GIVEN UP A STARRY-EYED 'JUST WAIT AND SEE WHAT OBAMA'S PLANNING' APOLOGETICS...
"I've already given up playing the game of just-wait-cause-he's-got-a-bigger-plan-in-mind-behind-all-these-apparent-cave-ins...
...FOR A STARRY EYED 'JUST WAIT AND SEE WHAT OBAMA'S PLANNING' APOLOGETICS WITH A 'MAYBE' QUALIFIER THROWN IN:
Obama "knows" his "approach will set the stage incrementally, allowing him to produce bigger progressive changes later on....Part of me thinks that Obama [is] more clever than all of us, just carefull laying the necessary foundation for incrementally bringing change..."
Don't forget: part of the answer is that Obama has such little experience in so many areas. Naturally, he has to defer to established opinion and those with more expertise. As he learns and grows, I think he will feel more confident to chart his own course when he perceives that will serve the country's interests.
Also, I think this piece, while well done and a very welcome read, placed just a bit too much emphasis on Obama's intellect and strategic skills. Part of his political success and his appeal to the public, I believe, lies in his good nature -- his good heart and his good intentions. He is also a person of faith.
davidwdeitch
"It may very well be the case that this presidency will be almost precisely as progressive as progressives demand that it be."
On the other hand, it may very well not be the case.
i just don't get these d.m. green articles. he's clearly an intelligent person.
i don't give a crap what else obama does, a couple of things are key:
1) bailing out the banks
2) escalating in afghanistan.
3) continuing the extra-legal stuff of the bushies in the "gwot".
incremental changes & all that....total crock. if obama qualifies as a "progressive", get me a leninist any day.
Yeah. This is pretty much where I am too. We need to go back to the 30's and dredge up some *real* lefties. All these capitalist sympathizers are getting *so monotone*... Could Venezuela let us borrow Chavez for a little while?
Do you not understand they would be minimized, belittled and ignored every bit as much as are the voices of reason today?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Green::Blue, Left::Right, Dem::Repub, Lib::Con, GoodCop::BadCop
We're being played.
http://theformofmoney.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/1/3/1588710.html
Let me preface this with the following:
1 - I AM NOT a Republican nor have I EVER supported them.
2 - I AM NOT a Democrat and I have hardly EVER supported them. I DID NOT support Obama.
Yell at me all you'd like. Dis me as much as you want. Call me whatever names make you feel better. BUT..........like it or not, the Republicans will start to make ground again in 2010 possibly, in 2012 for certain. They will more than likely pick up House seats in 2010, certainly in 2012. They may or may not take the pResidency in 2012 but the will most likely take it in 2016. Mark my words, as much as you may not like them - heck, I DON'T LIKE THEM. But, that doesn't make them any less true.
"The more you know, the less you like it" - Frank Zappa
The Republicans exist to make the Democrats appear to be resonable!
Both parties exist because the media corporations have esablished and maintain the fear of any alternatives.
The basic mindset of the majority of Americans is that politics is a field sport between two teams.
A third team on the field would ruin the "game"!
I feel like a streaker on the field at half time being a Green Party member!
LOL!
I cannot see how the modern media could be accused of creating the two party system when it evolved around Hamilton and Jefferson's opposition to each other in 1799.
And it seems to me that complaints about the failure of third parties is like the whining of those who like feeling victimized.
The fact is, third parties fail because they don't garner the support necessary to succeed.
Sioux Rose
MARCI D: That's exactly how I see it with a touch of atavistic
Roman arena thrown in for nostalgia (to souls) and "flavor."
You are reminding me why I clicked on this article in the first place: for a discussion of "America's Two Party System." Whatever Obama does, I think a push for electoral reform and greater opportunities for the participation of a viable third party can only be healthy for our democratic Republic.
I've never heard it said more beautifully and, at the same time, correctly.
I'll gladly streak on the field and ruin the game with you. ;3
Love it but darent show my body.Tony
Oregoncharles
Absolutely true! It's the old good cop-bad cop strategy and it works beautifully. It's why we are where we are today. The One-party system colludes to manage what we used to call sheeple until the Obama followers made complaining a negative thing.
"You can fool most of the people, most of the time" ...
Health care:
American people: Single Payer Healthcare, such as the Canadian system.
Republicans: No healthcare at all.
Democrats: Corporate controlled healthcare.
Wars:
Republican: kill all the evil people in the world.
Democrats: Kill our enemies.
etc., etc.
Sioux Rose
OREGON: Well said.
I said this before and I will say it again, the GOP should be outlawed. It should be considered treason to affiliate with the GOP. If I had it my way, they would be sent to Guantanamo Bay and experience what they so advocate, like being tortured for example. The Republicans clearly cause more harm than good for the USA society based on empirical data.
I used to not feel this way about them. What upsets me about the United States of America is that the GOP frames the debates, control most of the MSM media (although most Republicans deny it and THIS alone should be cause for them not controlling the media because they are innately unable to distinguish reality from fantasy), creates the criteria on what the ideal American is supposed to be, believe in fairy tales that have no correspondence whatsoever to, well, anything for that matter. Besides, the Republicans do not stand for the well-being of the majority of USA citizens - NONE OF THEM! Yet, I acknowlwge that most USA citizens are not bright enough to understand this about the GOP.
The million-dollar question to me is that how come the Democrats are willing to be slaves to these idiots - even though the Democrats are FINALLY in the majority? I do not understand. President Obama is getting a little too cozy with the GOP and clearly they are not greatful for his gesture and favors. Perhaps the Republicans forgot the results of the last election or something. Remember Democrats, Republicans blamed liberals, feminists, gay people, and, interesting enough, the educated for 9/11. Why be subservient to these...criminals anyhow? Instead, the Republicans should be made an example of.
The extinction of the GOP inside the USA is desperately needed. Now that would be real change for the USA - for the better also.
I hear the US is building concentration camps to detain some of its own local dissidents. You should get a job at such a camp since you obviously have the necessary hatred of free speech and spirited debate that would make you a good prison guard.
Sioux Rose
JASON: If the politicians worked FOR the PEOPLE as opposed to the corporations then your question would remain rhetorical. It's pretty clear that the 2- party election and its expensive circus/media acts is all done to convince the populace that they are a free republic. It's clear from the constant thrust towards senseless war, and/or paying bankers who have effectively gutted this nation's monetary system whose interests the policies from the top serve.
Oregoncharles
"I don't understand"...
For the answer, take a look at Marci d's comment at 12:42, Feb. 27.
We have a one-party system in collusion. When Chomsky said that some years ago, I followed the logic and it seems to be true. The Republicans are in the toilet. No need to worry about them at all. this is pure manipulation.
D Rock___You are right, maybe it is still habit from the last eight years, but we have to listen to many more media comments from the Rabid Right than we hear from the Obama supporters. Just be glad we are not having to listen to McCain and Palin every day.
ezyflyer___I am amazed at all of the descriptions you came up with about the Repuke party people. They all fit , and it is no wonder our country is on the edge of collapse after eight years of all that crap. Our country could not have survived much more of that, and it is not going to be easy to get back on course.
Obama knew he was going to be facing a cesspool if elected. At least he didn't dive into it headfirst. Cleaning it up one teaspoon at a time will take a whole lot longer than it took to create it in the first place. But, it is a start and when he says we now have the responsibility to help means that we have to give our support one tablespoon at a time.
If you clearly support the leadership of this man then yes, you should support him all you can. I see far too many poor calls to pick up my own tablespoon.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
"...Clearly, Barack Obama is no progressive panacea. Last week I ripped many of his policies and staffing choices as Cheneyesque..."
- It's nice that DMG is at least partly aware of his own bipolar disorder. Last week was "Democrats are Hopeless!" week. Today it's back to "But Wait - Republicans are Even Worse!"
As seriousprofessor noted above, "Understanding and critiquing Republican barbarism is the easy part." The most devastating lampooning of Republicans imaginable still wouldn't change certain basic truths about Democrats. These disagreeable truths include:
1) The Democrats themselves do not want to (and will never try to) send the Republicans to the dustbin of history, Whig-fashion. On the contrary, the Democrats insist on permanent rule by the two-party system. In other words, even if the continued existence of the R's was in serious jeopardy, the D's themselves would ride to their rescue. The D's can exist only under conditions where the R's are the only alternative.
2) No matter how barbarous Republicans are -- Rove, Palin, Bush, Jindal ad infinitem -- there will ALWAYS be a prominent place for them in the framework of American capitalism, because they directly represent the interests of the plutocracy. It's true that they may sometimes go through periods of diminished popularity, & may lose elections. But they will NEVER be banished from their status as one of the two major parties. Even after the events of the last 8 years, it's altogether possible that Republicans could retake the reins of power, in 4 or 8 years. And the Democrats would meekly retreat to their usual position as capitalism's B Team, acting subservient to Republicans, as the latter continued their filthy tricks & traditional raping of the country.
3) Democrats are not "opponents" of Republicans. They are two pistons in the same engine. They are siblings joined at the hip. They need each other. They serve the same class interests, though one does it directly, while the other does it indirectly. Both are instruments of the plutocracy -- one proudly & unapologetically so; the other, sheepishly & meekly so.
Sioux
DAVE B: Hello from Big Sur (can't believe they have wireless here!)... as usual, your analysis nails the truth.
I would like to see the Democrats challenge the Republican stronghold of the old Confederacy and the Appalachian hills. And there has to be an issue Democrats can find in the West to flip some more of those states.
yup. why else is obama constantly riding to the repubs rescue?
Thank you Mr. Bronstein for so clearly articulating my own thoughts as I read that somewhat befuddled article. So our great nation should applaud because we have a "lesser of two evils" in power for now.
I simply do not understand what the author was trying to accomplish, nor, do I believe, did he. Every critique of the Democrats and the President was followed or preceeded by a slam at the GOP. Does he not understand that it is policy and direction we seek, it is solutions we need, it is not a situation calling for a "things are bad but look how much worse they might be" style. That will inevitably lead to things actually getting worse.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
The point of the article was to analyse the future prospects of the 2 parties. IMO, the article was pretty decent.
Yes, the slams at the GOP were over the top, but if they GOP continues going ever further to the right, further to the right than the voters are willing to go, they deserve the slams.
You forgot to note that the author's hopes for the Democratic Party was equally over the top. I fond little in the way of analysis, as my earlier comment noted, thus my opinion that the author and the article are more than a bit muddled.
You are certainly free to draw other conclusions.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Eh. Green hovers on the cusp of acknowledging that a duopoly is less than the sum of its parts, but remains unable to escape what is essentially a lesser-evil framework.
I certainly don't recall the specifics, but I do recall Green opining well before the last presidential campaign that third parties will never happen in modern Amerika; instead, he encouraged progressives to commit to hijacking the Democratic Party and re-making it in a progressive image.
But that grand objective still crumbles into the usual incremental-change, baby-steps philosophy that has long since been overwhelmed by, and incorporated into, the duopoly.
I'm reminded of a truly profound and engaging author and schoolteacher named James Herndon, who in one of his books touches upon the myth that bureaucracies oppose and resist change. On the contrary, he points out-- nothing keeps bureaucracies busier, happier, and more entrenched than Change! In fact, as he wittily observes, The School can't make changes fast enough. One year it's this approach, the next year another; there's constant revision, reworking, renaming, re-evaluating, etc.
So bureaucracies TEEM with "change", and bureaucrats working full-time to implement, manage, and administer the non-stop changes. The real paradox is that all of this superficial change serves to maintain a deeper ideological or philosophical permanence.
IMO, this "song remains the same" dynamic applies to the political duopoly. I don't share Green's abiding faith, or hope, that the Democratic Party may redeem itself over time-- or that Bonnie Prince Barack will rise to the occasion.
· Yr Obd't Servant
well said
At the CPAC conference yesterday, they still cheered when the lie was repeated that Obama is not really a citizen, and a roar of approval went up when it was suggested that Chicago be nuked.
The GOP today REALLY IS the foaming-at-the-mouth extremist, lunatic, neoNazi fringe. And I thought that Goldwater was nuts in '64. Barry had nothing on today's Rethuglic party.
I have to wonder whether the "Obama is not a citizen" charge is not ultimately meant to open the door to consideration of legal changes aimed at facilitating a presidential bid by Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he could run for president, wouldn't the GOP's problems and woes be over in a big hurry?
He's doing such a great job in California. Republicans won't let him raise taxes to dig the state out of its quagmire. Seems he's held hostage by the same jackasses who sabotaged Gray Davis - there may be a recall election in his future.
Yeah. If the Republicans continue their ever rightward drift, there is no way they pick Arnold.
Is there any hope for the Republican Party? A party made up of racists, misogynists, neocons, skinheads, militarists, corporatists, bankers, self-righteous, conservatives, cowards, frightened, reactionaries, Klansmen, militias, drunks, jingoists, fundamentalists, wife beaters, plutocrats, opportunists, liars, Uncle Toms, exploiters, torturers, murderers, child abusers, rapists, dysfunctional, greedheads, extortionists, businessmen, golfers, gun-nuts, thieves, ignoramuses, hicks, polluters, war-mongering, fear-mongering oligarchs and the criminally insane?
Wow, that was very brave of you. :-P
When will there ever be a viable third party? Oh yeah, never - not until the corporate controlled Washington insiders are run out of town and until there is a force to stand up to them and take it out of politics, we are going to be stuck with what we have – a Permanent Center.
www.oldelmtree.com
The republicans of the last 15 years or so have been centrists?
Also, once the force that takes out the existing insiders gets into power, they will become the new insiders. They will want to hold on to power. Doesn't matter if they are leftists, right wingers, progressives, libertarians, conservatives, marxists, fascists, centrists.
Understanding and critiquing Republican barbarism is the easy part.
What two party system? Oh... you mean the right of center democrats and the further right of center republicans, both of which wholly support the worldwide garrison without any discussion whatsoever?
d.k.shaw
It is fun watching the Republicans spiral out, but they still get inordinate amounts of air time on the MSM, so I feel it's only a matter of months until they come up with some new BS to swirl in the publics head and regain popularity. Hopefully it won't come to this.
Up Next: Getting rid of the Democratic Party.