OurFuture.org Blogs: Digby

(Card) Check Please

Digby — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:18:28 -0500

I have long been amused (and somewhat confused) by certain bizarre conservative rallying cries. At political rallies you'll hear people chanting "USA" and cheering for low taxes, as would be expected. But then they wildly explode when the politician says the words ... tort reform? It's like some magical incantation that is only understood by those who are members of the tribe. The literal term can't possibly be meaningful to most people unless they think this has something to do with baked goods. Yet they scream and shout in a near frenzy at the mere mention of the phrase. It's clearly Pavlovian talk radio conditioning.

This past election I noticed a new catch phrase. The minute a conservative breathes the word "card check," his or her supporters completely lose their minds. When he ratchets it up saying "lose your right to a secret ballot" they come completely unhinged with even more energy than they unleash when someone says "we're going to beat the terrorists." It's just weird.

Obviously the right, through the Chamber of Commerce and other business entities are working hard to prime the public to be hostile to unions being able to organize by simply having people sign up instead of requiring on-site elections in front of the boss, which is the purpose of the Employee Free Choice Act or "card check." Here's a set of talking points, easily obtained through Mr Google from the Associated Builders and Contractors. It features all the usual nonsense (the most hilariously hypocritical being the notion that they believe one should have the same freedom on the job that one has in civic life. Hah!) But even though it makes no sense, it gives people a way to talk about something that's rather difficult to explain.

But where does the passion come from? How do you get people to really feel that it's important to stop unions from getting people to do a simple opt-in? "Pollster" Frank Luntz speaking to the Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas last week, makes it clear:

"I'm afraid for employees if it passes," Luntz said. "The level of intimidation and coercion would be unprecedented. Workers are about to lose their most important right (a secret vote). I'm very angry with the business community for not saying more about it."

It's the victimization, stupid,as this post from the National Right To Work web site vividly illustrates:

I had a friend in California who grew up in Michigan. His father was a UAW local official. He remembered vividly being in a coffee shop with his family one day. The guy in the next booth made some remark to a companion that was uncomplimentary to the union--and my friend's father instinctively swung his coffee mug around and shattered it on this guy's jaw.

There's a long and ugly, bloody, deadly history of corporations and labor unions fighting it out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There's plenty of evil that was done by both sides. But this is not the situation today--not even close. Labor violence today is almost entirely by labor unions. I can easily believe that the reason that the AFL-CIO wants to "streamline" the process is that they are intimidating workers into signing authorization cards--and don't dare risk a secret ballot.

(He doesn't cite any specific examples of recent union violence, but then he may think "The Sopranos" was an HBO documentary series. ) This is obviously another example of the right's post modernist inversion --- these on site elections are often exercises in intimidation by management to keep the union from organizing.

Thomas Frank has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning that lays out the real framework of this debate:

During the campaign, you will recall, the debate over card check was supposed to be about principle, about democracy, about the sacredness of the secret ballot. However, as I pointed out a few months ago, union-certification elections often don't meet the most basic democratic requirements. Supervisors routinely hold captive-audience meetings with workers in preparation for elections; management commonly threatens to close up shop if the union wins; antiunion employees are frequently rewarded and pro-union employees are sometimes fired.

So it may not surprise you to learn that democracy isn't really the main concern of card-check's opponents. It's unions themselves. Changing the rules will make it easier to organize them.

[...]

Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don't, and business doesn't want that to change. Consider the remarks made by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott at an analyst meeting on Oct. 28, when he was asked about the possible coming of card check: "We like driving the car and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

That last, as Perlstein points out here, puts the lie to the absurdity that these businesses are fighting for their employees' constitutional right to a secret ballot.

And it's true that there is a lot of violent rhetoric around this subject --- but it isn't coming from the unions. Frank continues:

"This is the demise of a civilization," moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. "This is how a civilization disappears. I'm sitting here as an elder statesman, and I'm watching this happen, and I don't believe it."

Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the "low hanging fruit" and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation's CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. "This is as important as anything that's ever happened to these companies. And they're not reacting, and they're not fighting. The old time fighters are gone."

But in the class war, as in the real deal, there are always ways of motivating the yellow. "If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys," Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers "should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."

Mr. Marcus may snarl, but he doesn't bark. His is the voice of a business class rediscovering its ancestral zeal for combat. Liberals should take heed. If they thought the "Harry and Louise" campaign that sank Hillary Clinton's health-care reform was dirty, they should know they ain't seen nothing yet.

It looks that way. The economic crisis, particularly the Big 3 meltdown, is offering the right what they see as a new opportunity to break unions and destroy any advances workers might have expected under a progressive government. They may be temporarily in disarray politically, but the right never forgets their primary mission --- protecting the wealthy. And they are very good at advancing that agenda whether in the majority or the minority. Under the Shock Doctrine, they have a perfect opportunity to end the union movement in America and they'll certainly do their best to take advantage of the moment.

Stickin' It To The Unions

Digby — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:32:56 -0500

There's a lot of discussion about what to do about the auto companies and none of the options are very palatable. In today's New York Times there is an article analyzing the bailout vs bankruptcy talk that's starting to emerge. I don't have an opinion on that except to the extent this is used as an excuse to destroy the unions. And that is certainly the theme that's emerging from the right.

Here's economic expert Michelle Malkin:

Didn’t have time to post an alert beforehand, but I did a brief segment on Fox & Friends this morning on the mega-auto bailout. Reader Alan e-mailed about his experience in the industry:

Dear Michelle,

Thank you for taking the time to read my comments. I worked in the Automotive Industry for most of my career as a supplier to GM, Ford, Chrysler, Honda of America, Toyota, Nissan, and BMW.

You were exactly right with your comments on Fox & Friends this morning. The UAW has handcuffed GM, Ford, and Chrysler with unreasonable and unrealistic burdens. Their balance sheets will never improve until they shed this weight.

I suspect this is going to become a drumbeat. I'm reminded of this rant by alleged liberal Wall Street screamer Jim Cramer during the short-lived GM strike a couple of years ago:

MATTHEWS: How can you say that, Jim, if you‘re taking the jobs out of America?

JIM CRAMER, HOST, “MAD MONEY”: Well, I got to tell you something.

First of all, you have got this issue all framed wrong, Chris.

This is about breaking the union. You break the union, you save the company. Do you know that, in 1992, Caterpillar broke the union, same union? Caterpillar‘s stock was at $5. Now it‘s at $76.

You know, the same month that they broke the union, GM‘s stock an was at $34. Where is today? Thirty-four. If GM wants to be a competitive company in the world marketplace, like Caterpillar is, the number-one maker of earth-moving equipment in the world, it‘s got to break the union.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know, Charles Wilson, head of GM once said, what‘s good for GM is good for America.

You can see the YouTube here.

As I said, I don't have any insight in to the economics of this. It sounds as if there's no easy answer. But the politics of this are equally complicated and it could be the kind of thing that brings the bipartisan slumber party to an end before its even started.

Congressional progressives obviously have an obligation to try to keep the recession from getting worse but they must support the unions—bankruptcy will potentially void all the union contracts. On the other hand, bailing out these companies is unpopular and conservatives are starting to see some wedges forming. The progressives are going to have to be very agile and clever to get something done that won't give the other side a powerful weapon.

It would be nice if conservatives really did put Country First, but they don't. And they have none other than Tom Friedman helping them make the case that this mess is all the fault of the unions and the politicians who support them:

The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote.

He is feeding into a meme that unions are to equally culpable for trying to get their workers decent wages and health care (the latter of which wouldn't be necessary if we lived in a real first world country). The politicians might pay a price for all this by being voted out of office and the executives might suffer by not being able to keep their vacation homes. Union members pay by losing their communities, their livelihoods, their health and their kids' futures when those jobs go away.

Friedman goes on to endorse the idea that a bailout should include the right to "tear up" union contracts. (He also thinks Steve Jobs should be hired cuz he's a magic he-man super-duper fixer of everything which is just what the doctor ordered.)

Bailing out the auto companies is unpopular and Friedman and Cramer and their ilk are already busily turning it into a blood match between unions and Real America. Democrats are going to be caught between a rock and a hard place on this one and it's going to take some very deft maneuvering if they plan to keep the political base that got them where they are:

* Union voters supported President-elect Barack Obama 67 percent to 30 percent over Sen. John McCain. In the top-tier battleground states the difference was even more stark, with union members going for Obama 69 to 28—a 41-point margin.

* While McCain won among voters ages 65 and up, active and retired union members older than 65 went for Obama by a 46-point margin.

* While McCain won among veterans, union veterans went for Obama by a 25-point margin.

* Working America members, concentrated in key states, supported Obama by 67 percent to 30 percent.

* 60 percent of union members and 56 percent of Working America members said the economy was a top issue.

* Union members got a lot of contact from their unions about the election, with more than 80 percent receiving union mail, more than 80 percent receiving union publications, 59 percent getting live phone calls and 32 percent getting worksite fliers.

In union-heavy Midwestern states, where Bush had come close and McCain campaigned hard, the efforts of union volunteers helped put them solidly in Obama’s column. Obama won by 13 points in Wisconsin, 16 points in Michigan, 10 points in Minnesota and 11 points in Pennsylvania

Unions have put themselves out there time and again for Democrats. When th economy goes south they don't expect to be told to "suck on this."

Forked Tongues

Digby — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:57:23 -0500

I have been struggling since the election to write the big piece about "what it all means" but others here and elsewhere have said it all so eloquently that I've been stymied. It goes without saying that Barack Obama's win is a great victory for racial progress, and there is no doubt that the country has finally awakened from its post 9-11 trance. But what does it all mean for progressivism? I honestly don't know yet. The contours of this victory are still amorphous to me. I'm watching it unfold with excited interest and hope.

It's much more obvious to me what has changed for the right considering their epic fall from grace--- absolutely nothing. This is because in their minds they didn't actually lose --- liberalism did. Back in 2005 I wrote:

Movement conservatives are getting ready to write the history of this era as liberalism once again failing the people. Typically, the conservatives were screwed, as they always are. They must regroup and fight for conservatism, real conservatism, once again. Viva la revolucion!

There is no such thing as a bad conservative. "Conservative" is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals.

Get used to the hearing about how the Republicans failed because they weren't true conservatives. Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed by weak-minded souls who refuse to properly follow its tenets.

They have certainly lived up to my expectations. Here's Rush:

The way to the light is plainly visible. But everybody wants to be considered the smartest people in the room, so they come up with all these new things like "the era of Reagan is over...[T]here's a blueprint for winning it, 1980, there's a blueprint. McCain is not the blueprint for how Republicans win landslides. Going after moderates, independents, and all these yokels is not the blueprint. The blueprint's there, 1994, taking back the House, the blueprint's there. Why are these people ignoring it?

And if anyone wonders how they plan to go forward, here's Michael Reagan:

It's official: America has its first truly Socialist president... and it's the Republican Party's fault...the so-called "leaders" of our party, who promised us that if we'd just vote for who they put up for election, we'd finally get what we wanted: smaller government, lower taxes, dramatically lower spending, pro-life laws, pro-marriage constitutional amendments, pro-American economics... well, YOU AND I put them in power, and they gave us nothing but BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG DEFICITS, and LIBERAL COMPROMISES.

[We must] EXPOSE LIBERAL CORRUPTION-- With the Democrats back in power in both Congress and the White House, you KNOW that they'll be falling right back into their habits of taking lobbyists' money under the table, trading votes for campaign contributions, spying on and sabotaging Republican legislative plans, covering up their leaders' sexual "flings," and spending taxpayer money on personal expenses like never before. But this time, YOU AND I will be there every step of the way, making sure that no stone is left unturned, every dark corner is filled with light, and every illegal act is paid for with censure, impeachment, recalls, investigations, and jail time for every criminal we expose in Washington, D.C.

Lest anyone believes this thinking is confined to the fever swamps, here's a member of the Senate talking about how he plans to approach this new era:

Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, warned president-elect Barack Obama that he would filibuster U.S. Supreme Court appointments if those nominees were too liberal.

Kyl, Arizona's junior senator, expects Obama to appoint judges in the mold of U.S Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer. Those justices take a liberal view on cases related to social, law and order and business issues, Kyl said.

"He believes in justices that have empathy," said Kyl, speaking at a Federalist Society meeting in Phoenix. The attorneys group promotes conservative legal principles.

Kyl said if Obama goes with empathetic judges who do not base their decisions on the rule of law and legal precedents but instead the factors in each case, he would try to block those picks via filibuster.

Naturally, Kyl was one of those threatening to invoke the so-called nuclear option to end the filibuster when such things were suggested by the Democrats.

I hear a lot of people saying they think the backlash politics of Nixonland may finally be in retreat with the election of an African American president. Let's hope that's true. But it pays to remember that ruthless attack politics have been practiced by somebody in America since the very beginning. And we have an entire generation of conservatives trained in its dark arts. I suspect they'll find a way to use them.

But in the early going, it's clear to many of us that the bigger threat to the progressive agenda lies with the political establishment's frenzied attempt to narrow the mandate to a cramped, incremental centrism. They insist that the country is center-right even in the face of a broad progressive victory and demand that the the new administration must bend over backwards to accomodate conservatives or risk being seen as liberal, which is assumed to be the political kiss of death. They say this in spite of the fact that the Republican Party is less popular than e coli.

Like David Sirota here and others elsewhere, I have been tracking this "center-right" meme that has been building since the election. (In fact, I've been tracking this theme as it's built since the 2006 election.) Here's a fairly mundane, but thoroughly common, case in point. Steve McMahon, Democratic strategist, said on Chris Matthews yesterday that "the middle decided this election and the swing voters are waiting for Obama to address their economic concerns."

That's simply not true. The turnout was only slightly higher overall than last time because Republicans stayed home. But there was hugely increased turnout among Democrats and first time voters who registered as Democrats. Unless McMahon is saying that African Americans, young people and liberals are swing voters, he's just full of it. This was not a swing election. This was an enthusiastic endorsement of the Democratic Party by a majority of voters.

I can see why politicians say they represent the middle; it's a perfectly understandable bit of political rhetoric. But it's kind of a shame that every time I see an allegedly progressive spokesperson on television these days he or she is spinning like a whirling dervish derisively insisting that the left had nothing to do with this election. It's just sad. I guess we've got a way to go before Democrats will proudly own their victories or even give rhetorical lip service to the idea that Americans are progressives and believe in liberal ideas.

Matthews, of all people, actually batted this stuff back pretty vociferously, (which is also sad. If Chris Matthews is now the voice of the liberalism on television, we've got some big public relations problems.) The Republican strategist on Matthews' show, Todd Harris, agreed with him that Obama needed to deliver on his big promises, but offered this warning:

But big doesn't need to be conflated with liberal. He can be big and govern from the center. I think it's important that people not lose sight of what this election was and what it wasn't. What it was, was a historic victory for Barack Obama, what it wasn't was a wholesale realignment of American politics to the left.

Matthews interrupted:

You speak with a forked tongue, Todd. Let me tell you something, when Ronald Reagan won with 51%, when your guy George Bush won with less votes than Al Gore --- you talk about mandates --- he came in there and did exactly what he wanted to do. He came in there and gave tax cuts to the rich across the board. He took us to war in Iraq, the way he wanted to do it. The idea that you should pussyfoot if you're a Democrat, but if you're a Republican you go in there whole hog --- you have a totally ---two standards here. Republicans should take advantage of every victory and call it a mandate, Democrats should go in there and be very cautious --- "gee whiz, I'm sorry for being here, I hope we don't offend the conservatives" ----

Steve McMahon, would you jump in here please?

McMahon: First and foremost, Barack Obama believes there is a 700 billion dollar bailout that Obama believes was too tilted to Wall Street and the financial interests. The first thing he needs to do is get control of that so that some of that money can be redirected to some of the things you talked about. But he also promised health care reform and he promised to insure every American. He made big promises and these are very difficult to do. But there's not going to be enough money to do everything that he wants to do right away. So he's going to have to pick some priorities and I think what's important for Barack Obama is that the priorities he picks are mainstream values and mainstream priorities for the swing voters who got him ten or twelve states that John Kerry wasn't able to win.

Those are the people who delivered this presidency to him, not the left, and he needs to address their economic concerns with big ideas and bold programs but with programs that the country can afford.

Todd Harris: I think Steve is right about that and he ought to be looking for ways to work in a bipartisan way and the first thing that he can do is the enactment of his middle class tax cut. I don't think there will be a single Republican who will be opposed to that. I also think working toward energy independence is something the parties can agree on and on the foreign policy front, working to win the war in Afghanistan, something he talked about and Republicans ought to be able to get behind.

Matthews: Let's go through that. That sounds like a Republican platform...

Funny that.

When Obama says he's going to govern as a post partisan, I'm not sure even he knows exactly what that means just yet. But Democrats and pundits reflexively reassuring everyone who'll listen that the crazy progressives are completely irrelevant is not only a public slap in the face of millions of Democratic voters (many of whom are new and must be wondering who these hated Democrats are) is destructive. All I hear is small bore, boiler plate junk about middle class tax cuts and "stimulus" --- which doesn't mean anything to people. If they succeed in defining it as a crabbed, circumscribed agenda that must appeal to some mythological swing voter while simultaneously placating the walking ids that call themselves conservatives, they are going to shrink this mandate before the new administration has unpacked its laptops in the West Wing. I realize that they want to "manage expectations" but this excessive pearl clutching about bipartisanship is about as inspiring as dirt and could very well lead to a premature loss of confidence among the faithful and a loss of flexibility in the congress.

I obviously don't know what the new administration is going to do out of the gate. They're just figuring that out themselves. But I do know that the villagers are working overtime to make sure that whatever it is will be comfortably restricted to what they think is "center-right." And we know that the conservatives are going to continue their obstructionist tactics and character assassination because they still think that's a winning strategy. If real change is going to come, Obama (and we) are going to have to educate some of them, outwit all of them and ignore most of them, all at the same time.

Making Them Do It: The Next Challenge

Digby — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:23:38 -0400

Now that the festivities in Denver have drawn to a close and the bleary-eyed conventioneers (and media who cover them) have gathered up their swag and headed home, I wanted to take a moment to contemplate how this progressive moment looks in this short period of quiet after all the speeches and all the TV bloviating. One thing, at least, is clear to me after having spent four days among progressives from all over the country — they are convinced that this moment is real and that the stakes have never been higher.

In casual conversation and formal addresses, from health care to foreign policy to media reform and beyond, the progressive agenda dominated the discourse far more than I expected. I knew there would be solidarity in opposition to conservative rule, but it no longer stems from that alone. There is a sense of opportunity and engagement with issues that I haven't seen in progressive circles for some time.

There also seemed to be an understanding that a new administration is not the end of the fight. As much excitement as there is for the prospect of a new beginning, very few are naive about the tremendous obstacles of institutional torpor, establishment resistance and wealthy special interest pleading facing a progressive administration. If the last few years of conservative rule have taught us anything it's that those forces can get away with murder and it's very difficult to even get anyone to notice.

So, as much as progressives are excited, that excitement is tempered by a new maturity and an acceptance that the words "hope" and "change" are not magical incantations but rather exhortations to the hard and frustrating work of turning this massive ship of state in a new direction. As David Sirota noted, that grainy footage of Teddy Kennedy pounding his fist on the podium decades ago arguing for universal health care is a sober reminder of how little progress has been made. That promise was a casualty of The Age of Reagan, that decades-long failed experiment in free market fundamentalism and movement conservatism.

But I would also argue that at the time Kennedy was making those statements, the idea of an African American president was nearly impossible for a great many Americans to imagine. Even in an era of conservative political dominance, cultural progress happened anyway. And in the long run, it may even be seen that the modern conservative movement was simply a short lived reactionary blip on a much longer liberal trajectory, although that's not something anyone should ever count on in an age of global warming and nuclear proliferation. (And as as smart guy famously observed, in the long run we'll all be dead. )

But however you slice it, Sirota is right that political progress has been stalled and even reversed over the past few years. And for a time progressivism itself stalled and sputtered, unsure of how to respond to the sustained assault by the conservative movement. The Bush years shook it out of its doldrums and as Sirota notes, it is now ideologically ascendant in the Democratic party.

That does not, of course, mean that the Democratic party establishment is progressive. Everything indicates that there will be substantial resistance to a true progressive agenda, perhaps even at times from its standard bearer. The forces for the status quo are always very strong and the challenges are huge. But it seems to me that the energy and the direction is set and whether it happens quickly, with an administration honeymoon and a hundred days of furious activity, or more slowly over time, it's clear that the momentum of conservatism has been stopped and the process of turning in the other direction has begun.

So, the question for the movement seems to me to be less whether progressives recognize this moment, or agree on the agenda, which I think we do. We have also become pragmatic in our expectations of a new administration and take seriously FDR's admonition that a sympathetic president must nevertheless be "made to" do it. The next question then, in discussing this progressive political moment, is how.

By what processes can a progressive movement "make them do it?" I don't have the answers for that, but I think we'd better start focusing on it. You can bet that the status quo, including the corporate media, will use every bit of their money, personal influence and proximity to pressure a new president to slow any progressive momentum before it even starts. Indeed, the conservatives have an entire industry built for just that purpose.

In their piece on the Obama Moment in The Nation, Bob Borosage and Katrina vanden Heuval suggest that it will come with monitoring the opposition and creating large scale issue campaigns from outside the system:

Progressives will enjoy their greatest strength mobilizing independently to support Obama's promises. We can organize constituent pressure on politicians who are blocking the way, something even a President with Obama's activist network would be loath to do. We can expose the lobbies and interests and backstage maneuvers designed to limit reforms. Now that newspapers increasingly lack the resources for investigation, progressive media, online and off, and the independent progressive media infrastructure--from The Nation to Media Matters to Brave New Films to The Huffington Post--must assume a greater role in monitoring the opposition, even as we mobilize activists in targeted districts across the country.

In doing this, we can help give backbone to the Obama agenda, even as we supply muscle and energy to help pass it. The best way to achieve this is to generate large-scale independent-issue campaigns. A clear example is the Healthcare for Americans Now Coalition, which is ready to take on the insurance companies and support the White House's commitment to universal care. The new Half in Ten Campaign, spearheaded by ACORN and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, will help ensure that poverty does not disappear from the agenda. Progressives generally should join the AFL-CIO and Change to Win in their drive to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. The Apollo Alliance and a range of environmental efforts will support the initiative on jobs and energy.

Acting in support of Obama will require challenging legislators in both parties who stand in the way, a task progressives should undertake aggressively. The Service Employees International Union has already taken the lead in announcing a $10 million "accountability program," designed to force politicians to heed the will of their voters, with a new plan--Justice for All--as the core vehicle. This should be complemented by other independent efforts, despite likely objections from the Democratic Congressional leadership and possibly the White House. Democrats should be on notice from their own constituents that they will be expected to help move reform, not stand in its way.

Isaiah Poole wrote about this approach, discussed by Paul Krugman and others, which suggests that focusing on one historic achievement, like health care, could be what establishes progressive success in the public mind and opens the door to a more robust progressive government:

Paul Krugman, the columnist for The New York Times, told me in an interview here in Denver that getting a universal health care plan enacted will be one of he most important keys to creating a progressive moment on a whole host of issues.

His reasoning is this: “If you can get universal health care or something close to it in, however imperfect, then the country will never be the same again. It will be something that is an untouchable, and it will make people just understand once again that government can do things to make the society fairer, safer.”

Other people think the real key is pressuring the congress with attacks on the conservative forces within the party itself and threatening their majority. Still others believe progressives should seize the opportunity to fully discredit and expose movement conservatism, with hearings and legal action, before they have a chance to regroup.

Perhaps the answer lies in doing all of it and seeing what sticks, as FDR did during his first year in office, or assigning roles to certain players. But no matter what, this discussion of specific strategy should be fully engaged by everyone during this period before a new administration takes office. If even an informal consensus could be formed about aims and tactics among those who have platforms and access to institutional support, we will have a better chance of success.

Last week week in Denver I was convinced that the motivation, commitment and pragmatism necessary for progressive success are all in place, and they go beyond any specific candidate or campaign. The goals are clear. In this rather extraordinary moment of transition, as we move from a purely oppositional force to a force for positive action with allies in positions of great power, we need begin to focus in earnest on tactics, strategy and our specific roles for "making them do it."

And I have to say that after the last 25 years of fighting off a conservative movement at the height of its power, it's a very nice challenge to have.

Values and Worldviews

Digby — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:45:25 -0400

One of the more interesting developments in this campaign year is the extent to which Democrats have sought out the so-called "values" vote --- the mostly evangelical and catholic voters who have tended to vote Republican in the past. With the guidance of a newly formed Democratic religion lobby, the presidential campaigns all formulated a sophisticated outreach effort to appeal to voters who were open to Democrats by broadening the Christian agenda to include other issues, like poverty and the environment.

This came about partially because of a very savvy campaign on the part of the lobby itself to leverage influence within the party and a matching campaign by certain big name evangelical leaders like Rick Warren and Jim Wallis. All in all, it was a successful merging of the leadership of the Democratic party and elements of the new leadership of what was once the religious right (and might now be considered the religious swing vote. Catholics have long been in that group.)

This was a bold strategy. The religious right has been the bedrock of the modern conservative movement and if the Democrats were to cause even some minor earthquakes among them, it could seriously destabilize the Republicans while potentially enticing some voters into the Democratic column. However, it has also had the unfortunate effect of reinforcing the idea that these voters represent "American values" among the chattering classes to the enormous frustration among those who know that liberal values are entirely mainstream and as vital a part of American culture and politics as those of conservatives.

It is within that shifting and sometimes contentious milieu that we watched Barack Obama take questions from evangelical pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange Country California last week-end. And in that conversation, along with the one with John McCain, the fault lines in this religious outreach were visible for all to see.

Obama is a serious Christian. He worships in a liberal denomination, but it has many of the same cultural signifiers and style of a fire and brimstone southern baptist church. McCain, on the other hand, has been famously ambivalent (and sometimes outwardly hostile) toward the religious right and his own beliefs have never been emphasized in his campaigns. Only recently did we learn that he has changed denominations from the staid mainline Episcopalian to the more populist Southern Baptist church. Based on that, one might have imagined that Obama would be the one with the connection to the evangelist congregation whereas McCain would have trouble.

As it happened, Obama, with his patented erudition and calm demeanor, answered the complicated moral questions posed to him as any thoughtful, liberal person of faith would do. He was openly religious and respectful. McCain answered them with boilerplate social conservatism and stirring appeals to patriotism. The audience was polite to Obama but nearly ecstatic to McCain. It turned out he was the one who spoke their language.

Rick Warren gave an interesting interview to Beliefnet about the event that helps explain why this happened. He uses a particular word to describe the beliefs of evangelicals, and it isn't religious dogma or theology or even Christianity. He uses the word "worldview" which by its very etymology suggests worldliness --- of the world. It includes faith, of course, but it is something more akin to tribalism than shared theology. He was surprisingly honest about whether or not you can expect evangelicals to vote for those who do not hold their worldview:

Before last night, McCain had been widely criticized by Christian activists for keeping mum about his faith and about values issues like abortion and marriage Last night seemed to change that. How much headway did McCain make among skeptical evangelicals?

I'm a pastor, I'm not a prophet, so I would not predict how evangelicals are going to vote. I will tell you they're not monolith. That's a big myth. They're going to make up their minds based on the hierarchy of their values. For many evangelicals, of course, if they believe that life begins at conception, that's a deal breaker for a lot of people. If they think that life begins at conception, then that means that there are 40 million Americans who are not here [because they were aborted] that could have voted. They would call that a holocaust and for them it would like if I'm Jewish and a Holocaust denier is running for office. I don't care how right he is on everything else, it's a deal breaker for me. I'm not going to vote for a Holocaust denier...

It all depends on the hierarchy of their worldview of what matters most to them. My gut reaction when it was over was that Obama will pick up probably some younger votes and McCain will probably pick up some older votes and it might come down to which group winds up showing up that the polls.

The Democrats recently added language to their party platform that they say is aimed at reducing demand for abortion. Do you think it represents a significant step toward a pro-life position?

It is a step, there's no doubt about that. I've been getting a lot of feedback on it. I was out of the country and people starting writing me about it. The general perception was 'Too little too late--window dressing". I'm not saying I would say this, because I haven't even read it, but what I was hearing form people was that [Democrats] were saying 'It's OK to be pro-life and be a Democrat now. In other words, 'You can join us. We're not changing our firm commitment to Roe v. Wade, but you can now join us.' Well, for a person who thinks that abortion is taking a life, I'm sure that's not going to be very satisfactory to most of those people. And to put it in right at the last minute at the end of a campaign, there was some question about that: Why are they doing this?

When you asked Obama about when life begins, he punted, saying 'it's above my pay grade.' Should someone running for the highest office in the land have a clear answer to that, or is that kind of ambivalence acceptable?

No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he's a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, 'Oh, sorry, I didn't take the time to figure out' because if I was wrong then it had severe implications to my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, 'No scientifically, I do not believe it's a human being until X' or whatever it is or to say, 'Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,' whether it's conception or anything else. But to just say 'I don't know' on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

That's why to say that evangelicals are a monolith is a myth, but the other thing is that you've been hearing a lot of the press talk about 'Well, evangelicals are changing, they're now interested in poverty and disease and illiteracy, and all the stuff I've been talking about for five years now. And I have been seeding that into the evangelical movement and it's getting picked up and a lot of people are talking about doing humanitarian efforts. But I really think it's wishful thinking on a lot of people who think they're going to drop the other issues. They're not leaving pro-life, I'm just trying to expand the agenda....

If an evangelical really believes that the Bible is literal--in other word in Psalm 139 God says 'I formed you in your mother's womb and before you were born I planned every day of your life,' if they believe that's literally true, then they can't just walk away from that. They can add other issues, but they can't walk away from the belief that at conception God planned that child and to abort it would be to short circuit the purpose.

Then it sounds like it would be unconscionable for an evangelical to vote for a pro-choice candidate like Obama.

Well, we're going to see what happens. All I can say is you'll see what happens. This is why there's a difference between simply talking the lingo... after the 2004 election the Democratic pundits were saying 'The Democrats lost in '04 because they didn't talk the language of faith.' And actually that's kind of, not paternalistic, but it's talking down. It's basically saying 'If you just get the right words, then they'll think you've got the lingo.' And just because a person can say 'God' and 'Jesus' and 'salvation' and whatever doesn't mean they have a worldview. And people want to know what do they believe, not just their personal faith. It's just like how many different beliefs do Jews and Christians have and still call themselves Christians or Jews? It's all over the spectrum.

Rick Warren has pretty much laid out the agenda there. Some evangelicals agree with the Democratic party on issues of poverty and the environment (although the screams of delight when McCain talked about offshore drilling made me wonder just how much.) But on the whole, they are adamant that the government must ban abortion. (Warren even describes support for abortion in terms of a "holocaust" a particularly noxious right wing trope.)

But that trope is exceedingly important to the "evangelical worldview" which, as defined by David Gibson at Beliefnet's Progressive Revival blog this way:

How is it that Barack Obama--baptized, confirmed and communicated--is not a Christian and John McCain is? At The Immanent Frame, evangelical Christian and Calvin College philosophy prof James K.A. Smith supplies part of the answer when he argues that evangelicals are defined theologically by their sociology--that is, evangelicalism would be better understood as "a sort of ethos, a sensibility, a contingent set of practices and institutions within which one lives and moves and has her being. 'Evangelical' is an identity forged at a level more visceral than doctrinal." In his reading (which is worth spending time on to fully digest), "it takes one to know one" when it comes to evangelicalism--not baptism or other sacraments.

From that point of view, McCain carried the day, with folks as diverse as Michael Gerson and William Kristol. And beyond. As Mark Silk of SpiritualPolitics put it, "McCain said enough in the way of magic words to enable pro-lifers to profess themselves satisfied that he's one of them."

Well, yes. That worldview --- that "sort of ethos, the sensibility, the contingent set of practices and institutions within which one lives and moves" even has a name here in America. It's called --- conservatism. And Obama and his followers have a similar "sort of ethos, the sensibility, the contingent set of practices and institutions within which one lives and moves" and in America it's called liberalism. Both of these are political ideologies which are sometimes informed by religious or spiritual beliefs. But they are, at their cores, competing worldviews.

Obama and the Democrats are making a stab at bridging some of the differences. Lord knows that they have made many concessions, both rhetorical and substantive, to social conservatism over the past few years with very limited political results. But something that Warren says rather perfunctorily in passing suggests that it may not always be so:

My gut reaction when it was over was that Obama will pick up probably some younger votes and McCain will probably pick up some older votes and it might come down to which group winds up showing up that the polls.

The true promise of this Obama Moment may be, ironically, the future. Young people of all faiths who sign on to the liberal worldview today are likely to stay with it. Obama may have gone before that audience on a quixotic bid for evangelical votes in this election, but by setting forth reasoned and moral arguments for social justice, civil liberties and civil rights based upon our liberal worldview in that setting, he issued an invitation to the young, idealistic religious believers who already see the world in broader terms than their parents.

There's little reason to believe that there will be a sea change among conservative Christians --- Rick Warren's comments above make it quite clear that the fundamental liberal commitment to women's personal autonomy is a deal breaker for a great many of his followers. (Those who think they can whittle away at abortion rights from within the party will find that the Democrats' enduring habit of ruthlessly fighting among themselves has prepared them well for that epic battle and they will be in for the fight of their lives if they try it.) But if young people in that church and elsewhere heard the distant dogwhistle of Obama's liberal worldview, then today's Obama Moment could be an important step in the building of a Progressive Movement of tomorrow. God willing.

Rand To The Rescue

Digby — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:06:20 -0400

Paul Krugman points to an article that should send chills down the backs of good progressives everywhere:

Ayn Rand's novels of headstrong entrepreneurs' battles against convention enjoy a devoted following in business circles. While academia has failed to embrace Rand, calling her philosophy simplistic, schools have agreed to teach her works in exchange for a donation.

The charitable arm of BB&T Corp., a banking company, pledged $1 million to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in 2005 and obtained an agreement that Rand's novel ``Atlas Shrugged'' would become required reading for students. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, say they also took grants and agreed to teach Rand.

I have written about the pernicious effect of Rand before, and noted that the Ayn Rand Institute provides nearly half a million free copies to American high schools to indoctrinate teen-agers into romantic selfishness (thus validating their natural adolescent tendencies as being acceptable adult behavior.) But this is truly beyond the pale.

Corporations, which have very good reasons to train young people into an ethos that extols the alleged virtues of heroic captains of industry and their lonely fight to retain freedom in the face of left wing collectivism, should not be buying academic curriculum of any kind. The very idea of academic freedom is that the academics decide what to teach, not the government or the community or especially some company who wants to promulgate a puerile political philosophy designed to make people believe that selfishness is a virtue. That it's in the form of a very bad romance novel makes it even worse. (To those romance novel aficionados out there, please note that I said "bad" romance novel. It's not a slam at the whole genre.)

The Ayn Rand Institute, ever creative, has come up with a new marketing scheme to promote the book. Sensing a change in the zeitgeist, and seeking to take advantage of what they perceive as this opening in academe, they are pushing the anti-religious side of objectivism.

Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization in Irvine, California, that promotes objectivism, said some professors are re-evaluating Rand.

``We're definitely seeing more of an interest in the academic world,'' Brook said. He said he senses a softening of opposition from academics and sees more conferences and articles about Rand.

``Ayn Rand has a kind of absolutist ethics,'' Brook said. ``She believes in right or wrong, good and evil, but based on secular principles, not religious principles, and I think there's an appeal for that now.''

Very, very clever. As for its moral dimension, objectivism simply holds that it's moral to be completely selfish and rapacious. Indeed, it is immoral not to be. That would seem to be something of a difficult sell in an age of greedy sub-prime mortgage brokers and billionaire hedge fund operators, but you have to give them credit for perseverance in the face of abject philosophical failure. It's hard to believe that any academic worth his or her salt would take this line of argument seriously, but apparently the lure of big money is enough to make them consider it:

Allison's BB&T, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in March pledged $2 million to establish the first U.S. chair in the study of objectivism, at the University of Texas at Austin.

That school and 27 others have accepted an aggregate $30 million from the bank's foundation in the last decade.

``These gifts are really about the study of capitalism from a moral perspective and all we want is to make Rand part of the dialogue,'' said Bob Denham, a spokesman for BB&T, the parent of Branch Banking & Trust Co.

The BB&T Charitable Foundation made a five-year, $1 million commitment to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in January 2005 after a dinner meeting between Allison and Claude Lilly, then dean of UNC Charlotte's business school.

The grant agreement described ``Atlas Shrugged'' as ``required reading'' in a course about the fundamentals of capitalism.

This is the real agenda. It's not about literature or about philosophy. The point of this is to indoctrinate young business majors into the Rand philosophy, which is a perverted and radical form of capitalism that bears no relationship to the way the world really works. (In fact, it's real agenda may be to indoctrinate young people into believing that overpaid executives actually deserve to make hundreds of times the average worker's pay while driving the company into the ground.)

This book has gotten a powerful hold on enough young minds that I think it has made a difference in our politics over the last generation or so. The question is what to do about it? I suspect that we will get nowhere with protests. But no self-respecting university wants to be accused of propagandizing its students purely because some big corporation with an agenda gave them some money, right? What if there were a concerted effort to pressure these universities to offer a competing view?

If so, what book should progressives push to counteract the Randian propaganda?

Making The World Safe For Jack Bauer

Digby — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:37:31 -0500

I urge everyone to listen to the president's radio address this week-end if you get the chance. (Not that any of you would normally miss it, I'm sure. What could be more riveting?) But it does promise to be a good one this time. He's going to tell us all why he needs to veto the ban on torture.

Here's Dana Perino at the White House press briefing, letting it slip earlier this week:

Q Does the President realize he's going to further tarnish our image for humanity if he vetoes a ban on torture?

MS. PERINO: That's not what he's suggesting, Helen. You're talking about the Senate -- the intelligence authorization bill?

Q Isn't he supposed to veto the ban this week, or so?

MS. PERINO: Helen -- well, he is going to veto a bill, but it's not the bill in which you describe. The bill that he is going to veto is the intelligence authorization bill. We've had a statement of administration position that has been out for a long time. There are many different reasons he's going to veto it. One of the main ones is that it would apply the Army Field Manual, which is very good guidance for young soldiers who are out on the field who might capture somebody out on the battlefield, but it is not something that should apply to a terrorist interrogation program that is run by the CIA.

Q Why? It's torture, isn't it?

MS. PERINO: It isn't -- no, we are not torturing, and that is not what the bill says.

Q Well, it would ban --

MS. PERINO: Torture is already illegal.

Q -- he is vetoing a ban on torture, isn't he?

MS. PERINO: Torture is already illegal in this country, and the President has already signed a bill reiterating that fact. The simple point of this bill is that the Army Field Manual -- the President does not believe, nor does the intelligence community -- I'd point you to General Hayden and others who say that it should not --

Q The military certainly believes in it.

MS. PERINO: It is appropriate for the military to have the Army Field Manual as its guidelines. But we do not believe that it should apply to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Q Why? Are they human beings? Are we humane people?

MS. PERINO: We are humane people. We have a terrorist interrogation
program that helps make sure that we keep this country safe. We do not torture.
But what I will tell you is that you will hear more about this this weekend. The
President's radio address will be on this issue.

That reporter was, of course, Helen Thomas, who has been dealing with White house pissants for longer than most of us have been alive.

Perino does a perfect Bush do-si-doh, but when you read what she says, it's this: the Army Field Manual is too restrictive for the CIA because it does not allow torture. But the CIA doesn't torture, so any questions about why the president is vetoing the bill requiring the CIA to follow the Army Field Manual's ban on torture are off base. I'll be looking forward to hearing the president explain this, because it's always entertaining to hear him speak in tongues.

The fact is that the Bush administration has pretty much legitimized torture already. History sadly shows that this country has often done some terrible things along this line, but it's only during the Bush years that the government has explicitly legalized it. They did so by way of justice department memos and executive orders, but under the unitary executive theory, the president don't need no stinkin' legislature anyway. It's somewhat interesting that he is going to veto this bill rather than sign it as he usually does and then offer a signing statement saying he has no intention of following the law he just signed. Apparently he wants to make a very public show of this, even using his radio address to defend it.

That might be surprising except that openly defending torture is becoming all the rage in right wing circles. Just this week Justice Scalia made comments similar to his earlier ones on the subject, in which he said:

Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited under the Constitution? Because smacking someone in the face would violate the 8th amendment in a prison context. You can’t go around smacking people about.

Is it obvious that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to this society? It’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.

The BBC interviewer, however, objected to Scalia’s use of the so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario to justify government torture. “It’s a bizarre scenario,” he said. “Because the fact is, it’s very unlikely you’re going to have the one person who can give you that information. So if you use that as an excuse to commit torture, perhaps that’s a dangerous thing.” Scalia responded:

Seems to me you have to say, as unlikely as that is, it would be absurd to say that you can’t stick something under the fingernails, smack them in the face. It would be absurd to say that.

That is the legal thinking among the brightest conservative minds in the country. Apparently, it's "absurd" to say you can't stick something under someone's fingernails. And if that's the case, why shouldn't you be able to cut off their fingers? Hook electrodes to their genitals. Hang them by their wrists from the ceiling until their shoulder pop out of the socket. Once you open the door to using depraved violence on people in your custody, it's all just a matter of degree.

But when you listen to Scalia say those words (you can hear the audio at the link) it's inescapable that he's entertained by it. And that may be because of the right wing's very unhealthy obsession with the television show 24 of which he is a very big fan.

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.

"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

"I don't care about holding people. I really don't," Judge Scalia said.

Even if a real terrorist who suffered mistreatment is released because of complaints of abuse, Judge Scalia said, the interruption to the terrorist's plot would have ensured "in Los Angeles everyone is safe." During a break from the panel, Judge Scalia specifically mentioned the segment in Season 2 when Jack Bauer finally figures out how to break the die-hard terrorist intent on nuking L.A. The real genius, the judge said, is that this is primarily done with mental leverage. "There's a great scene where he told a guy that he was going to have his family killed," Judge Scalia said. "They had it on closed circuit television - and it was all staged. ... They really didn't kill the family."

This is a man who judges death penalty cases.

The popularity of the show has been cited as proof that the American people approve of torture, since the show fetishizes it. The Heritage Foundation even held a 24seminar hosted by Rush Limbaugh and featuring the cast and government luminaries like the Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, who spoke glowingly of the show:

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: ...In reflecting a little bit about the popularity of the show "24 -- and it is popular, and there are a number of senior political and military officials around the country who are fans, and I won't identify them, because they may not want me to do that (laughter) I was trying to analyze why it's caught such public attention. Obviously, it's a very well-made and very well-acted show, and very exciting. And the premise of a 24-hour period is a novel and, I think, very intriguing premise. But I thought that there was one element of the shows that at least I found very thought-provoking, and I suspect, from talking to people, others do as well...

I think when people watch the show, it provokes a lot of thinking about what would you do if you were faced with this set of unpalatable alternatives, and what do you do when you make a choice and it turns out to be a mistake because there was something you didn't know. I think that, the lesson there, I think is an important one we need to take to heart. It's very easy in hindsight to go back after a decision and inspect it and examine why the decision should have been taken in the other direction. But when you are in the middle of the event, as the characters in "24" are, with very imperfect information and with very little time to make a decision, and with the consequences very high on a wrong decision, you have to be willing to make a decision recognizing that there is a risk of mistake.

It's all just like 24 you see, except without the craft service table and the make-up trailer. Chertoff is basically saying that sometimes we might get a little bit overzealous, if you know what I mean, but that's just because we don't have all the information we need. It's hard to make good decisions under stress and well, you know, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few legs. 24 teaches American kids about that and the government is grateful.

So, on Saturday, the President of the United States is going to veto a bill that would keep our hero Jack Bauer from waterboarding some mentally unstable nobody who sends the Americans on wild goose chases all over the world just to get them to stop torturing him. That's what protecting the nation is all about.

The Transformation Project

Digby — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:15:19 -0500

We are hearing a lot these days about political "transformation" in politics. Aside from a desire for a change in policy, the public also indicates that they desire a change in the way our politics are conducted. But as much as everyone likes the idea of an end to partisan squabbling, it's not entirely clear yet how this transformation will take place, or what the character of the transformation will actually be. So naturally, the political establishment, anxious to have it on terms they can control, will increasingly be taking the lead in defining it for us.

The Washington Post recently ran an editorial ostensibly about Senator Barack Obama, but which actually seemed less about him than about what they believe parameters of "transformation" should be:

When the Illinois Democrat talks about bringing together red and blue America, does he mean that he will persuade the red (Republican) part to come around to blue (Democratic) policies -- or does he mean that he will forge a new, centrist answer that will bridge the red-blue divide? Is he a liberal at heart who tacks occasionally to the center or more of a centrist capable of suppressing leftist instincts when political circumstances demand?

[...]

As New York Times columnist David Brooks has pointed out, Mr. Obama was not part of the bipartisan Gang of 14 that tried to avert a showdown on judicial filibusters; he was not among the 68 senators voting for a bipartisan agreement on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; he dissented from the part of the bipartisan immigration deal that displeased unions. His campaign platform is orthodox liberal Democratic fare. So is Mr. Obama a standard liberal clad in the soothing language of inclusiveness?

Apparently, being a "standard liberal" is automatically exclusionary, so any question as to whether the Democratic agenda might be transformative by persuasion is not on The Washington Post editorial board's menu. They obviously believe that bipartisanship is the only way to bridge the red-blue divide, and judging from the examples they cited, when they say bipartisanship, they mean capitulation to the conservatives.

As I have written before, it's telling that establishment calls for bipartisanship during the reign of George W. Bush and the Republican majority were nil. It is only now, with the possibility of a liberal majority and Democratic president, that cooperation and inclusiveness are held forth as the only way to "get things done." I will have to be pardoned for being a little bit skeptical of the sincerity of that position. It's quite obvious that they are most concerned with keeping the status quo, which for many years now has been a conservative status quo. Recent history shows that when Republicans are in power, regardless of how close — or even legitimate — their victory, they are there because they have received "political capital" from the people to "spend" on the conservative agenda for which they received a "mandate." When Democrats are in power, it's important that they reach across the aisle and be "centrist" and "inclusive" or risk being seen as "orthodox" and "leftist."

But regardless of the establishment's predictable resistance to change, the progressive movement does need to define what "transformative" means beyond ending partisan squabbling. Clearly, if that is a goal unto itself the bipartisan concern trolls will hijack the agenda.

I was, therefore, delighted to read this piece in The Nation, by Democratic New York state senator Eric Schneiderman, discussing this very topic in terms I think we should all consider:

Check off the boxes, copy the paragraph from two years ago, mail it in. As an election year approaches, I again face the piles of questionnaires that progressive organizations use to evaluate public officials. Environmentalists, feminists, campaign finance reformers, housing advocates and labor unions have all come to rely on these lists of our positions--often on issues that never even come up for a vote. It should come as no surprise that, for the most part, all we get out of this cumbersome process is a long line of "checklist liberals" who answer correctly but do little to advance the progressive causes that underlie the questionnaires.

I respectfully suggest that if we want to move beyond short- term efforts to slow down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement and begin to build a meaningful movement of our own, we need to expand the job descriptions of our elected officials. To do this, we must consider the two distinct aspects of our work: transactional politics and transformational politics.

Transactional politics is pretty straightforward. What's the best deal I can get on a gun-control or immigration-reform bill during this year's legislative session? What do I have to do to elect a good progressive ally in November? Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It's all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.

Transformational politics is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get on gun control or immigration reform in a year—or five years, or 20 years—will be better than the deal we can get today. Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities. It requires us to root out the assumptions about politics or economics or human nature that prevent us from embracing policies that will make our lives better. Transformational politics has been a critical element of American political life since Lincoln was advocating his "oft expressed belief that a leader should endeavor to transform, yet heed, public opinion."

Schneiderman goes on to detail how the conservative movement successfully transformed the political playing field over a very long period, overturning assumptions and working the long view through a concerted, systematic effort to educate and persuade the public that the Republican Party stood for their values and their interests. They worked relentlessly not just to elect Republicans or enact certain policies, but to change the terms on which our national political debate was held.

He suggests that the progressive reliance on these transactional "checklists" of right votes or correct policy stands doesn't properly measure a politicians' commitment to the larger progressive project. I would add that these checklists may actually obscure the real effects of their rhetoric and voting record: You can't help but be reminded of Senator Joe Lieberman's stellar liberal scorecard on the issue of choice, which failed to take into account his eager willingness to confirm conservative judges who would overturn Roe vs. Wade and his blithe rhetorical dismissal of women's right to avoid pregnancy after being raped. There's no way to measure that sort of damage on a NARAL scorecard.

Schneiderman acknowledges that politicians have always been rewarded for this transactional style of politics, and so, as humans (and politicians) are wont to do, they pursued that style of politics. It's up to the public, and specifically activists, to demand transformational rhetoric and a commitment to long term progressive policy goals of our representatives:

[H]ere's a proposal to inspire a transformational focus by our candidates. On every issue, with every group of activists, politicians who claim to be doing transformational work should be required to prove it. All politicians who seek your support should produce articles, videos, transcripts--anything that demonstrates that they are challenging the conservative assumptions that frame virtually all discussions of public policy among America's elected officials. How do we talk about abortion? As a duel between "prochoice" and "prolife" extremists--or as an issue of basic human freedom for women denied the power to control their own bodies? What do we say about health insurance? That it requires a delicate balance between the free market and socialism--or that it is an essential investment in our most important national resource and a basic right, without which our commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is meaningless.

[...]

The point of the transformational/transactional paradigm is not for everyone to be singing the same ode to change all the time, but for every would-be progressive official to pursue transformational themes as a central part of our conversation with our constituents and colleagues. We will never overcome decades of brilliant conservative propaganda on the economy until our representatives begin to reflect the basic ideas of Bernstein, Baker, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich in our stump speeches to political clubs and our talks at senior centers.

Finally, this is not a proposal to abandon the day-to-day struggles of transactional politics, which are still a central part of our work. Nor is it a proposal for self-immolation. Progressive candidates in tough races or in swing districts may not always be able to lead in transformational politics (although many conservative warriors displayed such self-sacrifice in the course of their movement's march to conquest). But most Democratic officials are in very safe districts, and they should be pressured to pursue transformational as well as transactional work.

We are in the midst of an exciting presidential campaign. After experiencing a devastating eight years of disillusionment with Republican rule, the public is tuned in and listening with fresh ears to what progressive politicians have to say. But a successful election will just be the beginning. The 40-year campaign to persuade Americans that their best interests are served by serving the wealthy has been thoroughly internalized and will take a lot of work to unravel. Progressives still have a lot of work to do to insure that the terms of the debate will be firmly on the side of average Americans instead of the moneyed interests, that civil liberties are fundamental American values and that we take our moral and ethical responsibilities as a wealthy, first world nation seriously. The only way to do that is to truly transform the way people think about their government and their elected leadership.

Cramped transactional politics should not be used as a definition of progressivism. While they are a necessary part of the system, they cannot fuel a transformation of our politics. Our job as activists is to pressure and prod our elected representatives to advance the progressive project and reward them when they do it. Winning office should be the beginning, not the end. Transformation is not just a goal, it's a process.

Ressentimental Journey Part Deux

Digby — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:16:52 -0500

In my previous post, I discussed the fact that a "cold civil war" between two distinct American tribes has been going on since the founding of the Republic. It waxes and wanes and takes on different character, but it is always simmering, beneath the surface.

The ressentiment that fuels the conservative tribe is taking one of its forays into internecine purges, something that both tribes engage in from time to time, but which conservatives have turned into one of their purifying rituals. Stubborn insistence on conformity of thought and complete capitulation of the other side is one of its tenets, and always has been. Indeed, its one of their prime motivating impulses.

Nobody has ever captured this destructive mindset better than Abraham Lincoln, speaking to the Southern states in great frustration at the Cooper Union in 1860, when the cold war was on the verge of bursting into flame.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events...

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me — my money — was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another...Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them.

Sound familiar?

Just as it was when the resentment tribe called itself the confederacy, today's conservatives are not content with anything less than conversion. To that end they will happily obstruct any initiative that gives them less than total victory. They filibuster even when it doesn't make sense, just to keep their record untainted with compromise. They insist, as they recently did with immigration reform, for instance, that nothing less than total capitulation to their position will do. It is not enough that politicians or civic leaders agree to build their wall while providing a path to citizenship. They must agree that undocumented workers will be forced out of the country and join them in making it a national crusade. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as words.

Silence will not be tolerated — liberals must place themselves avowedly with them.

Ressentimental Journey

Digby — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:34:05 -0500

As I'm sure you all know, Rick Perlstein, esteemed fellow here at CAF, wrote a very interesting piece for the Washington Post the other day making the important observations that no matter how much people want to believe that the battles of the 1960s are over—they aren't:

The fact is, the '60s are still with us, and will remain so for the imaginable future. We are all like Zhou Enlai, who, asked what he thought about the French Revolution, answered, "It is too early to tell." When and how will the cultural and political battle lines the baby boomers bequeathed us dissolve? It is, well and truly, still too early to tell. We can't yet "overcome" the '60s because we still don't even know what the '60s were -- not even close.

Born myself in 1969 to pre-baby boomer parents, I'm a historian of America's divisions who spent the age of George W. Bush reading more newspapers written when Johnson and Richard Nixon were president than current ones. And I recently had a fascinating experience scouring archives for photos of the 1960s to illustrate the book I've just finished based on that research. It was frustrating -- and telling.

The pictures people take and save, as opposed to the ones they never take or the ones they discard, say a lot about how they understand their own times. And in our archives as much as in our mind's eye, we still record the '60s in hazy cliches -- in the stereotype of the idealistic youngster who came through the counterculture and protest movements, then settled down to comfortable bourgeois domesticity.

What's missing? The other side in that civil war. The right-wing populist rage of 1968 third-party presidential candidate George Wallace, who, referring to an idealistic protester who had lain down in front of Johnson's limousine, promised that if he were elected, "the first time they lie down in front of my limousine, it'll be the last one they'll ever lay down in front of because their day is over!" That kind of quip helped him rise to as much as 20 percent in the polls.

It's easy to find hundreds of pictures of the national student strike that followed Nixon's announcement of the invasion of Cambodia in the spring of 1970. Plenty of pictures of the riots at Kent State that ended with four students shot dead by National Guardsmen. None I could find, however, of the counter-demonstrations by Kent, Ohio, townies -- and even Kent State parents. Flashing four fingers and chanting "The score is four/And next time more," they argued that the kids had it coming.

As you can see, Rick argues that this was civil war and I don't think he's overstating it. In fact, I would actually take it further. I've often argued that the culture war is a battle in our long "cold" civil war, meaning that while our politics has not often devolved into violence in recent years (with some rather notable exceptions like Oklahoma City) the war has continued, flaring up at certain times but always on at least a low simmer ... for centuries.

It's true that those who say that the 1960s presented a very specific, unique challenge to the aristocrats who reacted with new tools and coordination against what they saw as a serious political and cultural threat. But nonetheless I still see this as a continuation of the battle that has raged in our country since its inception, a battle between the two warring American tribes. Those two tribes originally broke down on geographical lines, North vs. South, but have since evolved into something much more complex, beyond just class or region or race, although it has elements of all three. Underlying all the "issues" of any given era is the notion of moral righteousness and inferiority, ressentiment, that stemmed from the original sin of slavery and created two American "tribes" which operate reflexively under certain recurring impulses.

We saw it played out in stark traditional regional terms during the last election.

I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment. Support for Bush is about resentment in the so-called 'red states' — a confusing term to Guardian readers, I agree — which here means, literally, middle America.
— Tom Wolfe

This certainly seemed to be true, at least in some very important respects. But, that resentment wasn't created by Michael Moore or Pat Robertson. This goes back to the beginning.

It's important to remember that one of the main rationales for the civil war was that the southerners believed the north was trying to impose their "values" upon them and they deeply resented it. From the earliest days of the republic this was a problem. A different culture grew up around slavery in the south as did the tension surrounding the issue. The mere act of rejecting it was cause for insult and the south withdrew into a cultural identity based largely upon its difference from the north. Indeed, this was one of the defining rationales for slavery — the exceptionalism of the southern culture.

The North did condescend. Many believed that slavery was a barbaric and primitive institution and that those who condoned it were, therefore, primitive and barbaric. They did not keep their opinions to themselves. From the start this tension created a huge amount of resentment among Southerners. And the resentment didn't come from political powerlessness or disenfranchisement. During the first 70 years of the country, the South dominated the national government. It didn't help.

From a speech given at the centennial of the civil war by historian Stephen Z. Starr :

...it is tragic to think that for two generations, the mental energies of the South were devoted to elaborating justifications of slavery - perhaps to appease its own feelings of guilt - to the exclusion of every other form of cultural activity.

[...]

The second basic issue between the sections lay in the area of politics; necessarily so, for it was in the political arena that the problems between the sections were fought out until the South decided that political solutions, reached by a process of give and take, were no longer adequate to protect its "honor and self-respect.”

Bear in mind that middle and upper class Southerners were politicians by birthright. Active participation in politics was, in the South, a way of life. One would expect, therefore, to find a much greater degree of political skill and acumen there than in the North. What one finds there instead is demagogy, bombast, irresponsibility, incompetence, a childish refusal to come to grips with realities, and a habitual substitution of slogans, symbols and bogeymen for facts. These are strong statements, but hardly strong enough to fit the situation.

The South had an almost unbroken control of the Federal Government from 1789 until secession. The presidents were either Southerners., or Northerners like Pierce and Buchanan, who were mere puppets in the hands of Southern senators and cabinet members. For seventy years, the Supreme Court had a majority of Southern justices. With the aid of its Northern allies and the three-fifths rule, the South controlled one or both houses of Congress. The fifteen Slave States, with a white population of not quite eight million, had 30 senators, 90 representatives, and 120 electoral votes, whereas the State of New York, with a population of four million had two senators, 33 representatives, and 35 electoral votes. Even the election of 1860 left the South in control of both houses of Congress, and until at least 1863, Lincoln and the Republicans would have been powerless to pass legislation hostile to the South, and through its control of the Senate, the South could have blocked the confirmation of every Lincoln appointee whom it considered unfriendly. In spite of this, and notwithstanding Lincoln's repeated assurances that he would not, directly or indirectly, interfere with slavery where it already existed, the South chose to secede.

Starr goes on to show that this irrational behavior was not due to the South failing to get most of the the legislation it wanted, because it did. But it became an emotional issue in which it was important to "crack the whip over the heads of the Northern men" and they began to make enemies of their allies in the territories. As Starr says, "this tale of political ineptitude, the habitual misreading of the minds of opponents, the misjudging of the practical possibilities of a given situation, the purposeless striving for effect, the substitution of arrogance and threats for rational discussion, could be expanded many fold."

Granting the existence of cultural differences between the North and South, can we assume that they would necessarily lead to a Civil War? Obviously not. Such differences lead to animosity and war only if one side develops a national inferiority complex, begins to blame all its shortcomings on the other side, enforces a rigid conformity on its own people, and tries to make up for its own sins of omission and commission by name-calling, by nursing an exaggerated pride and sensitiveness, and by cultivating a reckless aggressiveness as a substitute for reason. And this was the refuge of the South. For ten years before secession, Northerners were commonly referred to as “mongrels and hirelings." The North was described as "a conglomeration of greasy mechanics filthy operatives, small-fisted farmers, and moonstruck theorists ... hardly fit for association with a southern gentleman's body servant." And, most fatal delusion of all, Southerners began to credit themselves with fighting ability equal to that of nine, five, or more conservatively, three Northerners. Once a nation or a section begins to speak and think in such terms, reason has gone out the window and emotion has taken over. This is precisely what happened in the South, and this is why the Cotton States seceded before Lincoln was even inaugurated and before his administration had committed, or had a chance to commit, any act of aggression against them. Such behavior is fundamentally irrational, and cannot be explained in rational terms.

The South today has more than 40 percent who vote with the blue states in national elections. They are white progressive modern people who share the Southern cultural identity but have avoided the 200-year-old baggage that makes it impossible to identify with people not of their own tribe — and African Americans who were excluded except as scapegoats and second-class citizens. The 2004 electoral map was nearly a perfect replica of the map of 1860. The country had finally righted itself back to its original tribal boundaries.

But this phenomenon can't simply be explained today as North vs. South or the liberal elite vs "heartland values" or whatever it's called this week. This is a battle between two American tribes, defined by human themes of resentment, morality, wealth, class, power, race and family. It is not specific to any particular issue or even any region anymore (even if its political boundaries might fit more or less within the original lines) and history suggests that it's unlikely there will ever be a final reconciliation through politics. Even a bloody civil war couldn't settle our differences. It's hard to believe that something as pedestrian as electoral politics could do it.

The fight is always with us. But it's through these political slugfests that the country progresses, which it always does, in fits and starts, over time. In fact, the battle is one of America's defining characteristics. It's as much as part of who we are as anything.

Part one of a series. Read Part Two.