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March Madness: Why Progressives Always Lose
Hurling Hail Mary's -- When is a victory more like a defeat?
At the risk of being churlish, passing this health care bill was the palest of victories.
Yes, it's better than nothing, but as the President himself has pointed out, it's largely made up of proposals the Republicans advocated a little more than a decade ago.
So, while this is certainly a political victory, it is far from a triumph of progressive ideals. Indeed, this Legislation is a sign of how far the political center has drifted to the right in the last three decades.
How did we let this happen?
Well, imagine playing a basketball game in which your team had to stay in the opponent's end of the court on both offense and defense. Your opponent would be shooting layups and slam dunks, while the best you could hope for in terms of scoring would be one of those Hail Mary hurls from half court.
Think you'd win? Of course not.
Yet that's precisely what Democrats and progressives have been doing for going on 30 years now. We've allowed conservatives to set the terms of the debate and shape the national dialogue.
For three decades, pundits and progressives have been struggling to explain why popular and much needed programs like health care, financial reform, and climate and clean energy bills keep getting scuttled, or compromised into inanity.
Let's start with the health care legislation. As late as June of 2009, more than 70% of Americans still favored including a public option, and 66% favored Medicare for all. Yet after progressive compromises and an extensive "debate" over the summer, we were reduced to pursuing anemic health insurance reform. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we got beat at "messaging", and it was this defeat that led to us celebrating passage of an essentially Republican proposal.
But we didn't simply get beat; we refused to show up.
Or take financial reform. Here again, progressive are losing the debate on what is a popular idea - fix the system that brought on the Great Recession and that continues to take our collective money and shuffle it up to the top 1% of the economy. What's not to like? Yet even a watered down version of financial reform - one that doesn't fix "too-big-to-fail" or restore Glass-Steagall protections -- is floundering in the Senate, and the House passed a tepid version that can only be called reform lite.
Pundits point to the corrosive effects of money in politics, the failure of the Obama administration to advocate clear and specific objectives, and the difficulty of selling the idea when you've set up Goldman Sachs South in Washington with Summers and Geithner at the helm. While there is some truth in each of these explanations, the one area everyone seems to agree on is that we're failing miserably at messaging. Again.
Clean energy and climate change? Same deal. Start with a broadly shared sense that a changing climate represents a clear and present danger, and that the solution - clean energy policy supported by a market friendly cap and trade system - will improve the economy, create jobs, and bolster national security and after years of debate, end up on the defensive. We're losing ground on the science; on the economics; and on the kind of fix we need. The Obama administration and the House have been relatively decisive and clear on the dangers and opportunities inherent in an overheated world, but as usual, the one culprit everyone agrees on is that we're getting our butts kicked in the messaging department and that we need to reframe the debate.
The Three Great Myths - Why progressive end up spitting into the wind
The thing that each of these issues shares is that they are symptoms of a much larger problem, and until we address that problem head on, we will be playing basketball on the wrong end of the court and tossing up Hail Marys while the Republicans and blue dogs shoot layups and slam dunks.
Since Reagan, Republicans have run their campaigns on three myths. The Myth of the Magic Markets: the Myth of the Bumbling Bureaucrats; and the Myth of the all-purpose Bogeyman.
Progressives, behaving like deer in the headlights, never confronted these myths and cringed in the face of accusations about being "tax-and-spend liberals," or "soft on defense." In fact, DLC Dems essentially endorsed the myths. The press, for its part, stopped analyzing the truth behind each party's assertions and started acting like stenographers. As a result, the myths have never been challenged and they have dominated political discourse in this country for 30 years.
They can be summarized succinctly: Myth 1) the free market, left to it's own devices, will solve all our problems and make us all rich; Myth 2) Gubmint' can't do nothin' but take your money and waste it while destroying the entrepreneurial spirit of everyday ‘Mericans; and Myth 3) there's really scary stuff out there (Commies and socialists, terrorists, black people, immigrants, gays, flag-burners, gay flag-burners, black gay flag-burners - whatever it takes to keep us from examining the other myths).
Even George Lakoff (Try Not to Think of an Elephant) of Rockridge institute, who has been giving Democrats good advice on messaging for years, most of which has gone unheeded, doesn't address the need to shatter these myths. His premise is that we need to better frame the issues we talk about and make use of contextual metaphors
But allowing these Myths to stand makes any attempt to improve our argument or "reframe" our issues around specific issues futile. The Myths are the cultural milieu in which all other ideas are assessed. They are the soil and seed of our national intellectual ecosystem, the core of our national zeitgeist.
Small wonder we fumbled an attempt at real health care reform, even though private insurers are adding an overhead of nearly 30% for the privilege of cutting coverage, raising prices, withholding care, and distributing huge bonuses to CEOs. Getting for-profit insurers out of the system should have been the easiest sell in history, but rather than worrying about corporate tyranny and corporate hegemony, and vicious cartels and monopolies, the debate was shaped by hysterical fears about socialism, dead grannies and government takeovers.
Why? Progressives were and are afraid to champion government and refute the Myth of the Bumbling Bureaucrats. We're also forced to pay homage to the Magic Market, fashioning all manner of market mechanisms, while refusing to acknowledge that as long as we rely on the private sector for health care, corporate interests will override the public interest every time - indeed, it is a conflict of interest to put for-profit- private organizations in charge of public health. Their job is wealth creation, and the less they invest in health, the more wealth they can create.
Progressives have reality on their side. We have the examples of successful government-run Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran's Health care which have a 2-4% overhead, better outcomes and higher satisfaction rates than private insurance with it's 30% overhead, and yet we lost the debate on Single Payer and the Public Option. Indeed, the sign that sticks out from this summer's "debate" is KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDCARE. Astounding.
The Myths hamper the debate about financial reform, too. Even after the financial sector revealed itself to be both criminally greedy and slow-witted as a sloth, one hears Republicans issuing vague warnings about putting the bumbling bureaucrats in charge of the markets, and no one rebuts them. And Summers and Geithner, among the architects of the system that caused the collapse, are our go-to guys on financial reform. When Paul Volker is your in-house rabble-rouser, you know progressive values have been abandoned in the face of the Myth of the Magic Markets.
We hear the same thing with regard to climate change and clean energy. We are warned about government controls, and de facto taxes, and all manner of un-American restrictions. As if the fossil fuel industry hasn't been gouging us for decades, along with OPEC. Good god, we're losing an argument in which big oil is being portrayed as the friend of the little man, and government the problem. Peabody coal and friends strip another mountaintop, let lose another million tons of toxic tailings waste, and cook our atmosphere another few degrees and government is the problem. It's enough to make a sane person's head explode.
Or take national security. We now spend 30% more on Defense than we did at the height of the Viet Nam War. Does anyone really believe that a few thousand extremists dressed in rags with no army, navy or air force; equipped with aging Kalashnikovs and scavenged ammunition requires us to spend more than we did to confront the Soviet Union? More, in fact, than the next 45 nations combined? No. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that we remain in Iraq, and have increased our presence in Afghanistan not because anyone really believes there is any likelihood of an existential threat or a good outcome there, but because it has become politically impossible to confront the Myth of the Scary Stuff and the American uber-alles response it creates.
Beyond the Lizard Brain - Confronting the fear machine
It is this reliance on fear that has made the Conservative talking points so effective. They have created an all-purpose bogeyman - big Gub'mint - and wielded it with great skill.
Fear, it turns out, trumps reason every time. Fear messages are handled differently by the human mind - they are processed in the primitive lizard portion of our brain and they form more powerful memories in a much shorter time than messages based on reason do.
Frank Luntz has been issuing his Words that Work memos to Conservatives for years, and a central part of his message has always been to push the Myth of the Bumbling Bureaucrat, Washington's incompetence , and the efficiency of the Market - often wrapped in the holy shroud of small business owners. Note the cleverness: large corporations that are buying elections, controlling the regulatory environment and screwing the vast majority of Americans become "small business owners."
Luntz is literally the purveyor of fear, doubt and unreason disguised as hope, and Republicans follow his advice religiously. They will continue to have success in doing so until and unless we change the fundamental premises that underlie all the issues we are debating. No amount of "reframing" individual issues will work until the Myths are confronted and vanquished.
How? We must counter their fear with reason and continuously rebut Reagan's Deadly Myths with our own truths 1) Corporate Tyranny is the most serious threat we face; 2) Government is the solution, not the problem - it allows us to reap the best of capitalism without its excesses, it is the way we as a people have accomplished most of what has made America great, and when the public interest is at stake, public programs outperform private ones; and 3) Fear is not an answer -- when a Party spends most of it's time trying to scare you, hold onto your wallet, your freedoms and your reason.
The first part should be easy. We can make people more afraid of corporate tyranny than they are of government tyranny because in the real world, it is much scarier - people have some control over government but none over the Exxons and Goldman Sachs of the world, and the consequence of that has been devastating to the middle class. A critical element of this effort is to get the money out of politics. Period.
The second part will require courage, and it will force us to risk losses while the message is repeated. We have two things going for us. First, cognitive studies show that repetition of arguments based on reason can trump fear arguments eventually (that's the basis for cognitive therapy, which has stood the test of innumerable clinical trials). Second, it's been done before. Roosevelt named the corporate beast for what it was and then went about the business of convincing people that government was on their side and could be effective. We had 40 yeas of steadily increasing prosperity with a rapidly expanding middle class as a result. And unmatched political success.
Eisenhower raised the role of fear in his famous speech on the military industrial complex and suggested ways of avoiding the trap it posed for a civil society. The attendant splinter issues used to stir fear and divisiveness - abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, birther nonsense, dead grannies etc -- flourishes because it occurs in a political vacuum , a phenomena that exists because we're playing on their side of the court.
The consequences of cowardice
Since Reagan, the Defense budget has been sacrosanct, wealth has trickled up, the economy has been volatile and uncertain, and the nation and the states have become bankrupt because taxes have become a dirty word, even if applied to the rich (who have received the most cuts and the most benefits under tax cuts). The full destructiveness of Reaganism becomes more obvious by the day, and yet none dare mention that naked truth. Instead, we go about naming more and more stuff after him, even as the public debt explodes, public services erode and military misadventures rob us of both our wealth and our standing as a moral leader.
This must change. The Myths must be confronted and vanquished.
We have no choice, really. If we don't confront Reagan's Myths, we will continue to lose debates even when we hold the winning hands; the country will continue to wrack up crippling debt; corporate control of our lives will accelerate; and we will continue to exist in a country in which fear and divisiveness dominate our political landscape. We will win elections only when Republican overreach is so obscene that the stench of scandal, hypocrisy and incompetence is sufficiently strong to force voters to turn to us. And even then, if the Myths stand, we will be forced to govern from the right - tossing Hail Mary's up from their side of the court, passing woefully inadequate health care, financial reform and climate bills and calling it victory.
It takes only three attributes to lead us across the center court line: eloquence, courage, and conviction. We know President Obama is eloquent, but the jury remains out on the other two.
We are at a turning point. A game played on the opponent's end of the court will ultimately be lost. We made a timid approach toward the center court line with health care. But if the promise of America embedded in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is to be salvaged, we must have the courage and the convictions to cross the center line and play our game. And that means confronting the Myths.
The time is now, the game is nearly over, the tournament is at risk. As Churchill said, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"
106 Comments so far
Show AllWe have been hemmed in our own end for at least 60 years. His name was Joseph McCarthy and we are, at best, still under the throws of the mentality that allowed people's lives to be destroyed by the question, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party."
People are either free or they are not free and when freedom to think is taken away people are not free.
"It takes only three attributes to lead us across the center court line: eloquence, courage, and conviction. We know President Obama is eloquent, but the jury remains out on the other two."
______________________________
I'm pretty weak on sports terminology.
Is there such a thing as TRIPLE-dribbling?
How about "Hat-Trick"?
YOS,
When describing Obama in basketball parlance, the scouting report might read:
"Only fakes left, always drives to the right."
"Likes to showboat, rarely finishes scoring opportunities"
"Tends to shy from physical challenges by opponents"
"Definitely not team captain material. More like team mascot"
Oooooh -- NICE.
Lets start with a backbone, there are a few leaders in the progressive movement that have one but the ones who took the oath to protect the constitution do not. Until we elect leaders who have principles, a backbone and who are not worried about their buddy's legacy (and of coarse campaign contributions and a not so free ride on Air Force One) I would advise calling the undertaker, cause this movement is just about dead.
P.S. I may be a little premature. We have Finanical Reform waiting in the wings.
If ANYTHING labelled financial reform comes out of DC it will have been written by the banksters to further enhance the fortunes of the banksters at our expense, just as the corporate welfare program disguised as health care reform (Obamacare) was written by the insurance and drug industries to further enhance their fortunes at our expense.
With all due respect Mr. Atcheson, who is this "we" that failed. I am tired of this arguement that somehow it is the progressive movement that has failed to frame the issue and enact the reform.
Please answer me this Mr. Atcheson, did you vote for Obama? Did you caution us about the lesser of two evils, champion hope and change? Or maybe you really believed he was the candidate of hope and change. I cannot remember any other of your writings, so I ask this honestly and not in jest.
Because that is here we have failed: in the voters box by electing corporate shills like Obama and most every Democrat; by accepting that Democrats are on our side; and by failing to elect progressive leadership.
Some may say we don't even have a say in candidates and elections - that is a different topic of discussion.
But once the election is over, please stop chastising us by saying we are not doing enough. We are simply ignored by the Democratic leadership, starting with the millions who protested against the illegal Iraq invasion and occupation. Yet we continue to vote for Democrats, because we sure 'nuff don't want those nasty Republicans to run things - they will simply ignore us (wait a second...)
There were no shortage of competent, intelligent voices "reframing" the issues, speaking out about these myths, speaking of the evil of insurance cartels, etc.
This one statement particularly incensed me:
"Yet after progressive compromises and an extensive "debate" over the summer, we were reduced to pursuing anemic health insurance reform."
No progressives I know compromised, and no progressives I know were invited to the debate. In fact the progressives who showed up to the debate were promptly arrested. If you are referring to the "progressive caucus" in congress, the progressive public opened up in support of their positions, and they left us hanging dry. They valued party over policy and people.
What would you have us do to garner a seat at the table and media attention to get our message across?
So once again, please don't chastise us by saying we are not doing enough, pressuring congress enough, etc. Instead, start writing about how we need to form a different party, or convene a constitutional convention to get the money out of Congress, or anything more useful than "we have to message better and work harder."
No, we need to abandon the Democratic party as they have abandoned us. Point the finger where it belongs - because the public supported Obamas progressive messaging during his campaign and consistently support progressive positions, and we are routinely discarded.
Never again should we vote for that corrput Democratic party.
Rastaman,
Bravo!
ChelseaC
To summarize, if you vote for an incumbant from either Party you are contributing to the problem and assuring that no solution will arise.
Rahm dusted off Rove's play book and chasing corporate bribes is now the Dems mission, just like the Repugs. Rahm has veal penned the whole party and is 86ing the ones who still have an independent thought in their minds.
RE: Myth 1) the free market, left to it's own devices, will solve all our problems and make us all rich; Myth 2) Gubmint' can't do nothin' but take your money and waste it while destroying the entrepreneurial spirit of everyday ‘Mericans; and Myth 3) there's really scary stuff out there (Commies and socialists, terrorists, black people, immigrants, gays, flag-burners, gay flag-burners, black gay flag-burners - whatever it takes to keep us from examining the other myths).
Only "Myth 2" is marginally new and wouldn't mean much without the other two.
But we need to dig deeper, these myths aren't the meta-myth:
The myth that "we live in a democracy" - NOT.
The meta-myth, or Big Lie, explains the smaller myths and why "progressives always lose." The ruling ideology of a society is simply the ideas of the ruling class. The institutions of our society from education to think tanks are all designed to reinforce the dominant ideology. What institutions exist for progressives? Where's the generous funding, endowments? They don't really exist, or their funding is a drop-in-the-bucket compared to the status quo institutions.
Certainly, if a lot more Americans understood the Big Lie, we could organize against it. But too many think that the Liberals actually have opposing views to the Right. They don't, but they try to appear like they do ("talk left, but walk right"). This article is a good example of what Michael Parenti calls the "liberal complaint" vs. the "radical analysis". We need the radical analysis if we want to really change things.
Nicely said.
Tom Larsen, I find this comment mythtifying, and all the more insightful and enlightening for being so. Thank you.
It ties into my belief that dominant paradigm of "pragmatism", and all of the related concepts like being realistic, practical, down-to-earth, reasonable, and everything else in the thesaurus is actually about buying into an entirely artificial, constructed, and fantastic surrealism-- the generally-unconscious acceptance and identification with a shared social fantasy.
"We've allowed conservatives to set the terms of the debate and shape the national dialogue."
The basketball game analogy isn't a bad one overall, but please don't blame conservatives for the corrupted rules of the game that have been accepted by the players. If anything, real conservatives are even more scarce than real progressives these days. In fact, there might be more commmon ground for a fair game if there were more of both around.
I think you give conservatives too much credit. Conservatives always support the existing power relationships that benefit themselves. The conservative Edmund Burke, supported the English oligarchy and was a bitter opponent of Thomas Paine who supported the French Revolution. If Paine can be considered a "Founding Father" of the US, he is one of the very few who was a real revolutionary. The other "Founding Fathers" wanted the revolution so that they could become even richer than they already were. Keep in mind that my criticism of Conservatism is not an endorsement of Liberalism.
Nor is mine the converse. Just suggesting that the self-interest of the real ones seemed somewhat more enlightened about fair game rules than the current "neo" varieties.
Roosevelt was smart enough to know that the elites either give a little or lose it all to a socialist revolution. And that "give-a-little" worked as long as ever-growing wealth made throwing crumbs to the poor and middle class inconsequential and didnt result in too much overhead.
The funny thing is, 43 years after Roosevelt first got elected, oil production in the US peaked. And ever since then, the corporate elite have been taking back more and more and more. So if, as you write, "Conservatives always support the existing power relationships that benefit themselves", almost all so-called liberals do also.
The difference between conservative and liberal is that conservatives are so reckless in slashing overhead to such an extreme that it would result in revolution, that they depend on the liberals to pull the system back from the brink and give just enough to keep people pacified enough to accept their slavery.
Now, with global peak oil/energy and resource depletion across the board, things are changing. Our standard of living is about to be slashed dramatically, and I am sure that there has been much planning by the elites to stop any revolution dead in its tracks.
the democratic-party is not a a party of "progressives", so please,don't blame progressives for losing once again. all the real progressives are in the GREEN-PARTY which truly represent our interests, but, unfortunately,have been marginalized.
The Green Party and the Socialist USA Party, which I am a huge supporter of.
I give money to both of these parties.
I still think the biggest problem we have is an unavoidable built-in disadvantage. It's very difficult for open-minded people to compete with closed-minded blowhards. Just as a lie gets half way round the world before the truth puts its pants on, the closed-minded blowhard poisons 50% of the populace before the open-minded person thinks through all the possibilites and formulates a logical response.
The Founding Fathers thought the best way to handle this was a representative democracy and the balance of powers. Unfortunately, I don't think they ever envisioned 24/7 cable news.
The only way around this is a thoughtful educated electorate. Good luck with that.
He missed Myth-0: the "liberal" media.
Yes, Mr. Acheson confuses "progressives" and "Democrats" at times in this article. Today's Democrats at the federal level generally believe every bit as much in corporate hegemony as Republicans, they just aren't as vicious in their defense of it. Other than that, it is a very good decoding of the myths which lie behind the stuck place we are at in American politics.
"money talks, and bullshit walks"....a mantra spoken many years ago by broken shot and beer drinkers in a chicago bar....they knew perfectly well where they stood in the pecking order....they ordered another... boilermaker......
Certainly Mr. Atcheson had covered the subject well - as have some of the responders, both those who found room to criticize some ommissions, and those who agreed wholeheartedly. But on the whole, I feel that the tenor of his piece is certainly a good place for those of us who see ourselves as "Progressives" to start. Indeed, the Beltway is filled with "shills" of the Power Elites who consistently bow and scrape to their demands. Maybe we "Progressives" need to band together more closely and promote an agenda of our own: one element at a time. For me, to follow Atcheson's line, that would be Health Care. Now that step one has been taken by the Congress, it's time for us to go whole hog and compel the adoption of a "Single Payer" proposition to supersede that first "baby-step" they've just finished, while at the same time (and along with each subsequent step) work to dispel the "myths" that have plagued this nation for the past 60 years - - Atchesosn was right on to give them names and call attention to them.
Yes, some kind of organizational "banding together" is an essential key. But that fact is also recognized by the opposing side and is therefore made much more difficult than mere opportities for "free speech" venting that help to sustain the illusion.
1. Progressives don't do sports, generally speaking, and so are not familiar with on-the-fly competition. Most progressives are desk-bound nerds who like to communicate rather than compete. The concepts of competitive sports are completely alien to them.
2. Progressives don't do "messaging", generally speaking. They're nerds who write position papers. They're not ad/sales/pr types. They've got no gift for gab/bs.
3. The media is run by the anti-progressives (big money), who control the stage and pay the players.
1. I'm a progressive/radical and I understand sports analogies. I don't work at a desk. I get dirty, and work out in the rain sometimes. A lot of traditional radicals are working class.
2. I'm educated but don't try to talk with big nerdy words. I try to talk to people with all different points of view.
3. Yes.
There are always exceptions.
I understand your analogy. Progressives embrace too many issues. CD does not help because too many articles on too many issues are published. Progressives haven't gotten the message that they need to be as egoistic, ruthless and single-minded as the opposition.
If every progressive put aside their personal agendas and concentrated on one common cause at a time, say, the Wall Street/investor-class/top 5% bailout, stormed D.C. and demanded criminal prosecution, that would be a start. Environment, war, etc, etc, simmer on the back-burner then brought to the front. One thing at a time; all problems are solved systematically. It's hard to win a war on multiple fronts.
I humbly submit that I sometimes feel as powerless as many people here.
Bullshit. You're just buying into the far-Right's 'Liberal-as-ninny' propaganda smear tactic _ as such, you're a huge part of the situation that empowers the Right _ meaning that people in a Conservative milieu often see logic in our positions, but won't admit it due to peer pressure and their fear of being called pansies. There's an element of truth to point 3, but the rest is a load of crap.
Your analogies are incorrect and simply propagandized myths, with the possible exception of #3. It seems obvious that you are not one of us.
I think the biggest problem for progressives is that they are fighting against a rigged system. The two party system has a stranglehold on all branches of government. Progressives have an almost impossible task of raising money, getting media time and just getting on the ballot with 10s of thousands of signatures.
Look at all the the media attention these so-called Tea Party assholes are getting, including access to the halls of congress to call Congressmen names and spit on them. They are getting all sorts of media attention. Yeah, the white capitalist racists are pissed off so lets give them all the air time. A progressive rally gets nothing; when millions of people took to the streets to peaceably protest the Iraqi war the media gave them almost no coverage in comparsion to this pathetic and dispicable Tea Party (bowel) movement.
The two party system is gridlocked for a reason, because the powers that be want an ineffectual and do nothing government. The healthcare reform bill that just passed is a joke. I was just talking to a woman today that can not get health insurance because she has a preexisting condition. She's 15 pounds overweight and takes 3 prescriptions. Her husband, after working over 30 years for the same company, now has to go onto Cobra and then Medicare. Some healthcare reform; she has to wait years before the banning of preexisting condition goes into effect. Thanks Obama for your great plan. You couldn't even just ban the pre-existing condition immediately for everyone.
The second paragraph is where I say that's where progressives and liberals need to improve on their confidence. True, media coverage can make a difference but if there was some way to get our side to each be confident in ourselves and each other, we wouldn't be where we are today.
FRANKHAMMER said it excellently!
that first statement sums it all up.
to ME however - it is a system that is rigged ONLY because the VAST MAJORITY is AMENABLE and COMPLICIT in that system that EXPRESSES what THAT majority's OWN conservatism really harbors..which is:
ITs OWN UNWILLINGNESS to GROW UP as a society that can only be done with a socialist turn.
But america DOES NOT WANT TO GROW UP-- it is trapped in its TOYS that it thinks is what it means to be "responsible" for GETTING THEM to its heart's content and then tries to "CONSERVE" it leading to a STUNTED existence.
that's why -- it is Conservative.
the problem is by and large all the people that lived thru the depression are now dead and gone.....
and our generational knowledge in this country is non-existent....
we've corporatized, homoginized and monopolized our economy into a big ole ponzi scheme and until it drops most people will simply walk right by - pretending it won't happen to them....
i'd suggest buying a pressure cooker and learning to can your own food!
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/
Overall, I think that since the 1960s and I would probably guess that it all started with JFK's assassination in 1963, progressives and liberals have lost their self-confidence and their team spirit and confidence. Looking at what happened on single payer, Kucinich was the last man standing while all the other cosponsors of HR 676 and its author, Conyers himself, backed out too soon thereby putting him in a feeling that it's just time to throw in the towel. What Kucinich did thereafter is his own unforgivable actions but none would have happened had the progressives stuck together and tried expanding support for the bill. We all can talk about money causing them to cave in and all this party affiliation as well. True, money and party affiliation had their part but even if we were to see 50 Green Party members in Congress next year, their presences will still be marginalized unless each of them builds self-confidence, teams up, builds team confidence, and goes on the offensive and that includes bringing over Democrats and Republicans to support their causes. Until that kind of a pattern develops within progressive and/or liberal members of Congress, all we can do is helplessly watch defeat after defeat. Another thing I would like to point out is the way we need to build support for progressive third parties. The way I hear a lot of people saying "just do it" is like Nancy Reagans "don't do drugs" frame. Win or lose, third parties can make a difference. Witness 1992 when the Reform Party ran their candidate Ross Perot and witness the Tea Party. Both of them had more people on their team each sounding confident about themselves and about being part of the team. I have yet to witness such a spectacular showing in progressive third parties.
On our side, the cowardice and fear being discussed in the article all comes from lower confidence. Now it has been said that even some progressive minded Democrats will boldly fight for the corporate and military interests and that might be true. However, the reasons they do it I believe are they think that just going to the wrong side fills their confidence void and gives them temporary satisfaction with no regards to their voters who they are hurting. The truth is that they don't really have the confidence to be what they claim to be. That leaves us the voters confused as to what they really wanted to be in the first place and that is where the words progressive and liberal begin to get a bad name even though they don't deserve to.
Some people have asked me who do I really trust. The truth is I don't really know. Should Dennis Kucinich get another chance to fight for single payer? Well he has damaged his progressive credentials but unless he builds progressive self-confidence and puts together a coalition or at least keeps an existing one that supports his cause together and goes on the offensive to expand support like never before, I don't think that he can be trusted to lead. No progressive or liberal who tries to run a one-person show can possibly win a cause when they are outnumbered and no efforts are being made to bring others to his or her side. To just rally around one man or woman and put the burden on that sole individual be it JFK, Carter, Nader, Kucinich, Sanders, Chavez, etc... instead of seeing to it that others who call themselves progressives and/or liberals also cooperate is self-defeating.
Well-put - also by the poster previous to Stanley.
it is indeed quite pointless to blame Progressives for lacking confidence....rather than KEEP ON BLAMING CONSERVATIVES who are the true source of the ills.
why?
the article, all many other discussions, here and there, AND the realities and history has shown :
it is the "conservatives" (from free market, to the disgusting canard they call "self-responsibility" covering up their social crimes such as those by Wall STreet, the divisiveness, the "not in my neighborhood" mentalities, the "this is my country and you're NOT patriotic enough like ME"...etc)
ALL - ALL of them come from the "conservative" circles.
the ONLY thing that needs to be clarified again and again and again is how they have DRAGGED everyone else down..including progressives...by creating an atmosphere of such intimidation and yes, even USING the institutions of the nation to PROMOTE and PRACTICE that intimidation -- to have their way.
put it this way:
if a freedom fighter - so-called - in china FAILED because he is surrounded by a culture that is more given to "authoritarianism" ..do you BLAME HIM for failure?
same thing in the USA.
progressives - for whatever the worth - however truthful to their causes or hopeful - basically , LIKE the leftists and socialists -
been existing - and HAVING TO EXIST WITHIN a CULTURE that IS CONSERVATIVE.
if anyone wants to BLAME ANYTHING.....
blame it ON AMERICA's OWN CONSERVATIVE CULTURE.
PERIOD>
until americans themselves EVOLVE and GROW UP beyond that conservatism . .
there is no solution to its ills which will create MORE harm and cruelties.
this is EASILY tested on a daily basis:
TRY "being" a progressive in your ideas and observations and even suggested solutions ...or worse, try OPENLY doing so as a ":leftist" or socialist.
there are only TWO reactions to this from your WIDER Surrounding of people:
Complete Utter DUMB or Callous Silence...
or if you push it enough -- a visit by the Police, or threats to your job and therefore your FOOD...etc...
THAT ALONE -- both the Stolid silence of most (and the silence ITSELF is proof of "conservatives" trying to "preserve" what stupid little "security" they think they have...which eventually DRAGS progressives along for fear for themselves) - or the rabid attention given to you - such as with those insane conservatives now ranting around , or the more "quiet" ones of threats to your existence or job to "behave and not rock the boat" or cause "disturbance"..
you ADD ALL OF THAT UP -- it paints a picture, dot by dot, of america ..
AMERICA the CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY -- where it DOES NOT PERMIT room for "progressives" or leftists .
ultimately it is the MAJORITY of americans...who ARE CONSERVATIVES --- NOT the progressives or leftists - who are in the MINORITY --
that is at fault because no matter how they want to "guide" towards better things 0r at least question the status quo -
IT IS AMERICA - the MAJORITY that will NOT permit it. either through institutionalized VIOLENCE of all means against progressives or leftists
OR SILENT VIOLENCE by acquiescence to BEING conservative by the rest of the MAJORITY america.
and in a sense -- THIS is far , far , incomparably more devastating an indictment of where the ROOT CAUSE OF the ills come from........
it's NOT from the progressives who are ineffective or cowardly as one might say...
it's the AMERICAN MAJORITY that is cowardly and PREFERS to be conservative in THAT cowardice.
how does a progressive or leftist EVER hope to "guide" america towards better things and more humane and just things when the VAST MAJORITY REFUSES TO be guided and open its eyes?
if anything THAT - behind the FACADE of surrounding CARS, TOYS, HOUSES, BUILDINGS, conveniences of all kinds.....
THAT proves that the AMERICAN MAJORITY IS FAR , FAR from being "progressive" or leftist...or even merely liberal.
it is, in fact -- DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE. SO conservative in fact that it fails characteristically to even recognize ITS OWN UGLINESS while brooking NO challenge to its BLINDNESS.
i've "tested" this on "friends" or colleagues....it ALWAYS boils down to THAT conclusion and observation.
they will either RUN to the Comfort of "patriotism" , or "country" , or "citizenship", or "loyalty" , or Religion, or "responsibility", etc.....
ALL OF THEM reflecting their INNATE CONSERVATISM. THAT is the reason for them why they "are american".
EVEN IF they are wallowing in their own petard and drag OTHERS into it.
i have always said:
CONSERVATISM is a ZOMBIE PHILOSOPHY pretending to be alive.
but POISONS everything around it with its own ROTTING flesh.
teddy, great response but just to let you know, I am not blaming the progressives for their lack of confidence alone and I certainly put the blame on the conservatives for their bullying nature. Given that we live in a conservative oriented culture, two things must happen. Whoever we elect as our progressives must be prepared to conquer the conservative ideology and have, maintain, and build on confidence to sustain their efforts on bringing progressive and liberal values to the forefront. I know it is tough but not impossible if done right.
Congratulations Teddy: You have nailed it. One of the best Posts I have read on this here forum.
Thank you , Peterpeacenik . Very kind of you.
I lost respect for Kucinich when he said he would consider sharing a 2008 ticket with Ron Paul. WTF was he smoking? All he did was give Ron Paul cache with some confused college students who never bothered to research his racist wingnut background.
I don't remember Kucinich doing that but that is interesting that he would entertain such thoughts. Regardless, some here have come to like Ron Paul over Obama and I can see some issues where that might make sense. Overall, I think Paul is terrible with free marketing solutions to everything but his positions on civil liberties except for abortion and guns I like. I didn't know that Paul had a racist background but I do recall somewhere that he said he was against affirmative action for minorities, typical conservative position. Paul talks a lot but like Conyers and Kucinich, he allows legislation such as auditing the fed and legalizing industrial hemp to languish.
this whole debate seems to be carried on in the pitiful belief that we are living in a democracy, and decide things by engaging in political debates among "democratically elected" reps, labeled democrats and republicans.
this is not the way the system works. how it works is, the corporatocracy decides what is good for it, and sees to it that these decisions are carried out.
They do this while putting on this sideshow of democratic/political process, which in truth is a charade nobody should any longer believe in.
talking about obomber summoning up the courage or the will to do something not approved by his corporate handlers is just silly. he can't do anything to change this system.
i personally think it is also pointless to blame people you call "progressives" for what happens, or for what doesn't.
I agree with you completely, abuelo!! Our country is now COMPLETELY in the hands of the corporatocracy and until Lobbying is labeled for what it truly is - BRIBERY - and prosecuted as the CRIME it is, NOTHING AT ALL WILL CHANGE!!!!
Let's face it - we are living in a vicious "circle of greed" composed only of the CORPORATOCRACY and our POLITICIANS. They rely on each other to enrich themselves, they pursue that goal tirelessly, and it's NEVER GOING TO CHANGE!!!
The average citizen is left COMPLETELY OUT OF THE LOOP with no realistic change in sight. The country we all grew up in is dying a slow death at the hands of the super-greedy who are hell-bent on self-enrichment AT ALL COSTS. CITIZENS BE DAMNED!
With no politician working on removing the Patriot Act, forcing people to purchase private health care insurance lest they get fined, and giving those for-profit lobbyists too much leeway while persecuting non-profit interest groups, it's hard to argue against the truth that the USA has slid into corporate fascism destroying our self-esteem while it.
The USA will never get any progressive legislation passed until Campaign Funding Reform is passed.
How can you expect to pass anything that detracts from the power of the Corporate Oligarchy, when the Coporate Oligarchy is allowed to BUY your elected officials and Supreme Court Justices wholesale?
Agreed, it all has to begin with FORCING corporations to provide political time FREE, for the American community---then representatives wouldn't have to sell out the people on every problem and issue to begin with. AND, Term Limits---Term Limits---Term Limits. Excellent article also. I teach "Effective Speaking" at a business school and find it true that repetition of well-sourced facts will trump fear with any kind of rational audience....We need NEW CANDIDATES who aren't ashamed of Roosevelt, that generation built this world of ours, defended it too. Although finally, for me, the root problem is "profit." "Value" you did not put into the transaction. Capitalism is fundamentally a cheat covered over with a lie, every time. Early Modern patriarchy made two mistakes, capitalism and then communism---Kick me, but I dream a world without money. NOT without work. Without money.
This article is a stinking pile of crap.
1. The problem is not "messaging".
2. George Lakoff is another fraudulent marketer.
3. Basketball analogies are for game-players.
4. The corporate ownership of government is indeed the root of the problem and 99.99% of the people in our so-called government are under that ownership. So who is going to change anything in Washington?
5. Obama is a criminal and has more in common with George W. Bush that this stupid author will allow himself to see.
I don't find this article completely bad. The 5 points you mention are indeed true but this article talks about attitude patterns within progressives and liberals that lead up to this. As I told teddy, progressives must both build confidence in themselves and go on the offensive against the conservative ideology.
"The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we got beat at "messaging"
I'd say a better analogy would be the 1919 world series which featured the chicago black sox taking bribes to throw the world series...