How about this for a "big new idea"?:

Peace and Prosperity

It's got a nice ring to it....

There are no "new big ideas," not in politics. And even if there was such a thing, it would instantly be ridiculed, and the people who advocated it marginalized as utopian dreamers. In the short run, big electoral movements happen, without exception in reaction to events, not in response to some fantastic, Great Idea. It was something like 60 years after Marx published Manifesto before a relevant political movement formed around the ideas in it, and that movement wouldn't have gained success without the stimulus of WWI. And Bai thinks the Democrats are going to come up with something earth shattering practically overnight? And this, in an essentially conservative country enjoying a fair amount of economic prosperity? Politically, we live in an incrementalist world, a world of "small ball," and people who try to pretend otherwise, like that other great Karl, Rove, do so at their electoral peril.

Martin: I basically agree that big political shifts are driven by big events and can't be forced. Industrialization gave us progressivism, the Depression gave us the New Deal, and the aftermath of WWII gave us the civil rights era and the 60s. (Though I admit that last is kind of flimsy.....)

The question, of course, is whether there's some big shift going on right now that we ought to recognize and react to with something big. My guess: if there is, we'll figure it out pretty soon. Right now, though, I don't see it.

Personally I am tired of big ideas. Beyond "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" I haven't heard one that wasn't full of holes. "Do unto others" might be full of holes too, but we haven't tried it yet even though the idea has been floating around for a couple of thousand years. Personally I am willing to give it a try. That's why I am a progressive.

We have had several big events lately. The biggest is the developing interdependence of the United States, Europe, Japan and China. We are on the precipice of a world civilization. It is there for everybody to see. Our "very serious people" continue to pretend that resource empires are still possible.

Martin Gale There are no "new big ideas," not in politics.

Agreed. What are politics about...

allocation of resources and policies to these ends.

Defence policies, Class policies (how meritocratic? Universal education?...), Economic policies all work to this.

Don't see as how the information age changes this 'big fact' much. It changes the dynamics of how we approach this and gives advantage to those on the meritocratic/egalitarian side. But for a message to have resonance it should focus what's essential and not on surface dynamics.

Always liked the following:

A fair deal. A fair opportunity.

The question, of course, is whether there's some big shift going on right now that we ought to recognize and react to with something big.

The big shift going on right now is the end of cheap energy, approaching catastrophic climate change, and, eventually, massive die-off.

We ought to recognize this, but we won't.

The question, of course, is whether there's some big shift going on right now that we ought to recognize and react to with something big. My guess: if there is, we'll figure it out pretty soon. Right now, though, I don't see it.

Posted by: Kevin Drum on August 22, 2007 at 8:56 PM | PERMALINK

Given that we all have an ant's eye view of the world, maybe there is something out there we can't see. But the Depression, people knew about. The Industrial Revolution is a little bit harder, but certainly people understood that their old world had been shattered by industry, that the rules had been changed, and they needed to find a new way to cope. So we had the sprouting of the union movement and so on.

This reminds me of Orwell's essay titled "In Front Of Your Nose" (which should be required reading for every winger who knows how to read). What could be happening now that we don't know about, can't really see even though it's right in front of our nose? The internet is too small, and it's only a tool, anyway, an extension of media that have been developing for decades. I would consider it an incremental change, albeit a big increment. What else is there? What else could there be? I honestly don't know, and don't think it exists. The forces at work now, increased access to information, primarily, have been at play for decades.

The Civil Rights movement was never all that big a vote getter, by the way, so I don't think you have to worry about it. It energized people, but the only elections it decided went the wrong way, and still do....

I don't see any problems with the old goals of the Democratic Party, that sought a fair and just society for all. The problem is they need new ideas to achieve the old goals. Then pols like Obama come along and say the old battles of the boomer era are over. Sorry, the conservatives have beaten progressives back since those victories, now we have to retake the same old ground won in battles years ago. We need new ideas on how to achieve our goals, we don't need new goals.

Disputo,

I think your first two worries are probable and explain the Bush administration's efforts to create a resource empire, but I don't think the massive die-off is inevitable. Nor do I think the Bush administration's response has been particularly helpful. We are running out of cheap oil, not energy. We are not even close to running out of energy. The climate change is controllable if we work at it.

Right now we are in a race between a world civilization and a new dark age.

Maybe it is time for our leaders to start leveling with us.

"It's about the angst and dejection of Democratic politicians and activists who woke up after the 2004 election and discovered that their party still didn't have what it needed to win elections."

Your party had everything it needed to win in 2004. Walter Mondale would have won handily in 2004, Gephardt too, hell, even Edwards or Dukakis or Dean would have had a good shot. You could not win with Maj. Frank Burns from MASH as your candidate.

Kevin --
I like Mat Bai, and his stuff I find usually solid, if occasionally blinkered by careerist DC banality. But all I've read of the new book is the section on the Lamont-Lieberman race and, I'm sorry, but that part of the book is ahistorical hogwash.

I'm curious to read this book, and I also don't hate Bai as much as a lot of others in the 'sphere do. As far as reviews go, I've only read Joan Walsh's take, and if what she says is accurate (and I see the estimable Mr Pierce seems to be thinking along the same lines), a good chunk of this book is about how poor Joe Lieberman got driven out of the party by wild-eyed DFHs for no good reason.

Doesn't exactly speak well for Bai's perspicacity.

The big idea we need is: Republicans Suck. It's true, people believe it, and it gives people a reason to vote for us.

Nowadays, people should forget about big ideas and focus on good ones.

We've got problems with health care, and with an increasing gap between the rich and everyone else, among other things.

We need solutions that work -- that's it. Old ideas that do a good job would beat the pants off new ideas that really don't.

We need policies here. It doesn't have to be exciting or inspiring, and in fact probably won't be.

Bottom line:

We had a consensus about what the Democratic Party/liberalism was about up through the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency; it eroded in the face of resurgent neo-conism and special interest splinting (don't get me wrong; I _like_ those special interests, but they but their own good over that of the party/country as a whole, and that just doesn't work in the long run, as the Republicans are showing us now).

It's not about a big idea, it's about deciding what it means to be a Democrat/liberal/progressive, and which values take priority over others. We're in the middle of a fight, but everyone's pretending that we're not. John Edwards is making a start at it, but he's not the best advocate. Obama is a great advocate, but he's not willing to stake out a position. Hillary Clinton is not willing to be truthful about her positions, because she wouldn't get elected, so she's not willing to fight.

My prediction--if Clinton gets elected, you'll see an overhaul of the Democratic Party that will make Reagan's taking power look like a tea party. You can see it starting already in the split among the blogosphere/Rahm Emmanuel wing/Soros wing.

I see minion is busy re-writing history. A president in wartime is an incredibly difficult figure to dislodge. One with the might of the right-wing-noise machine playing up Bush's war on Iraq as a good thing and denigrating Kerry's actual service as if he were somehow a traitor for fighting in the war Bush's cowardice required he avoid should have been a slam dunk.

Even with all of the institutional backing and the ability to use the military as a prop (as is the Republican habit) Bush was barely able to eke out a victory.

That's pathetic. But then that's Bush.

I think Bai is right the Democratic party needs a big new idea. Of course this is only because they have pretty much abandoned their defining principal cica New Deal on, which was to represent (and go to bat for) the average American. Now both parties are more interested in making sure that corporations get what they want.

minion: "Your party had everything it needed to win in 2004. Walter Mondale would have won handily in 2004, Gephardt too, hell, even Edwards or Dukakis or Dean would have had a good shot. You could not win with Maj. Frank Burns from MASH as your candidate."

Once again, you've shown us that although you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, that minor obstacle certainly doesn't stop you from rendering an ignorant opinion. Take your glib political banality someplace else, tool. You contribute nothing of substance to the discussion here.

I took a trip back in time to one of Kevin's first posts where the next progressive (thanks for
link, Kevin) would come from. I agree that we need new ideas for achieving these progressive goals:

1. Health care security
2. Energy independence
3. A rejection of war as a first resort
4. A return to constitutional government, and a
rejection of the security state.

Hillary is triangulating, Obama speaks in too many generalities, and Edwards had his hair cut and hedge funds. Yuck!

Well, maybe someone can bring back the little girl
and the daisy commercial from 1964.

How about corruption, treason, and giving the country away to Mexican illegal aliens just to capture a few more Hispanic votes? That's a good platform. Dems can even improve on it with a... Dream Act!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Liberal has become a bad word, but the Democrats have advanced beyond Progressive. Perhaps the new rallying cry should be 'Decadence.'

Luther

Decadence? I thought that the Republicans had a corner on decadence. I am sure Rudy and Fred are champions of decadence.

Yes they do. It is one of their shining ideas, right along with incompetence, envy, greed, dishonesty and sloth. Why yes, all those are the central ideas of the modern Republicanism.

What is that old time Republican saying "Steal from your neighbors before they steal from you."

corpus juris: "We have had several big events lately.... Our "very serious people" continue to pretend that resource empires are still possible.

How you define the problem determines its solution. Meanwhile, peak oil, global climate change, resource scarcity and over-population are resulting in massive international population migrations, environmental degradation and cultural fragmentation. It is right there in front of us, but we don't want to see what is happening. The Big Idea is that we are f****d, and if we don't adapt, we are all doomed.

Meanwhile, a sustainable US population at our current standard of living is estimated to be around 200,000,000 people (which we passed ~1970). Having passed that sustainable population, we have started sucking up resources (and people) from the rest of the world to support our standard of living, and we are seeing our standards of living decrease as well.

Another interesting factoid is the recent findings by Robert Putnam that social capital declines in heterogeneous cultures. That is, the more diverse the population, the more people "tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less" and to spend more time sitting in front of the television" This suggests that current immigration policies will work against progressive dreams of stronger communities.

I would suggest that these two factoids are Big Ideas. With these in mind, the Democrats could start focusing on policies to achieve a sustainable standard of living and to forge multicultural diversity into a "new homogeneous American" identity. This almost certainly would require a 1920-1960 style moratorium on immigration, investment in alternate sources of energy, and economic policies that strive for equality.

In short, no way modern Democrats would accept big ideas like these even if our lives depended on it.

The Democratic "big idea" is now, and always has been, socialism. Where the political fun and games comes into it was the need to keep the voters from explicitly understanding this, and still somehow managing to sell it under the table.

The Democratic party needs to become the party of security in every sense: economic, military, etc. Perhaps that should be the paradigm.

I can scarcely imagine the scorn heaped upon any Democratic contender who actually proposed a "big idea". Between the Republican noise machine and our oh-so-jaded MSM, there would be no escaping the corrosive and defeatist commentary.

I think Americans are ready to rally behind someone on global warming and single-payer, but they have to be focused, compelling and able to stand up to the naysayers. In fact, people are taking collective action without any leadership at all:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6514188?nclick_check=1

8/1/07 "California drivers are bucking a national trend by burning less fuel. The state Board of Equalization reported Tuesday that gas use fell by nearly 1 percent in April, the most recent month for which there are statistics. That's down by 10.5 million gallons from a year ago and follows four straight quarters where Californians have used less gas than they did during the same period the year before."

People are willing to make sacrifices and do the right thing, but our politicians are to cowardly to ask for anything other than contributions.

"Big Ideas?" I'd settle for some basic fucking competence on the little stuff.

I think Martin Gale at 9:13 is minimizing the influence of ideas- things aren't as two-dimensional as all that, Martin Gale.

Charles Pierce nails it with his handle-as-joke at 9:28, although he probably doesn't really agree with me.

Sometimes it's the unsung heroes, and what goes on in places no one know that has the biggest influence on a time. The eforts to find what everyone out there can do to get the goodguys to win may just be a result of frustration, nothing more consequential than that. You all may have much littler influence over your own fates and the fate of the nation than you realize.

People who talk about the influence of events to the exception of the influence of ideas just do so because they feel powerless and this give them and opportunity to take a swipe at the whole paradigm of individuals exercising and manifesting actual power. The influence of ideas is the subjective, individual-oriented aspect and the influence of events the reverse.

But this is just talking about the influence of events to the exception of the influence of ideas. It's pretty basic that historical events have a large influence on mankind, and you're lost if you don;t understand that.

Ideas have influence to the extent they are meritorious, and in a more temporal way, to the extent they are promoted. This is Kevin's basic point, and I think it's a great one: for most of our political purposes, our real problem is that everything is getting distorted because the Republicans' nonmeritorious ideas are getting promoted to the exception to lost of our little, meritorious, yet not-necessarily-momentous on such grand, Matt Bai scale, ideas. Even without the liberals taking things to the next level Bai is talking about, there's a lot we should be able to overcome and do by resolving this simple problem.

and opportunity to take a swipe at the whole paradigm of individuals exercising and manifesting actual power.

Should be:

an opportunity

to lost of our little, meritorious, yet not-necessarily-momentous on such grand, Matt Bai scale, ideas.

Should be:

to lots

Monkybone: "The Democratic "big idea" is now, and always has been, socialism. Where the political fun and games comes into it was the need to keep the voters from explicitly understanding this, and still somehow managing to sell it under the table."

America's "socialism": Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, family leave...and many more programs created principally by the Democratic Party that come to the aid of citizens in difficut times. It is Democratic Socialism, and it also remains a pillar of the growing, prosperous European Union.

I would argue that our last successful candidate, Bill Clinton, *had* a Big Idea that animated his presidency: since globalization is inevitable, government needs to make sure that it works to the benefit of everyone, even the weakest in society.

Ironically, one of best expositions of this Big Idea was by the Clinton character played by John Travolta in the film version of Primary Colors

Universal health care is a huge idea. Bai isn't looking for big, he wants something new and unique and fun to write about. Truman, Johnson and Clinton all supported universal health care but only Johnson was able to enact major health care legislation.
If universal health care wasn't a big idea, we would have it already.

The Big Idea should be fairness. On almost all domestic policy issues, Dems should be challenging, "Is it fair?" Health care. Gay marriage. Taxes. Immigration. Etc.

Pierce's description of the banality of the DC pundrity is apt. And I think it stems directly from the corporate ownership of too much of the media.

Bai's ready acceptance of the agreed insider group think (which most definitely favors republicans over democrats) reminds me of my days at a large corporation. It was the suck-up toadies, who would gladly say that up is down if Mr. Big wanted it, that were promoted. Things that should matter in selecting upper management (like knowledge of the company and its products, line experience, a proven track record, etc) matter very little in the rarified world of corporate executive offices.

So it is little wonder that Bai, who against all evidence is willing to spout the latest nonsense like lefty bloggers are hatefilled, has a benefits rich corporate gig, while innovative thinkers like Josh Marshall toil away on the web.

So yes, netroots has at its core one really huge idea: corporations have a strangle hold on our lives, in politics, in the media, in the military, in congress, in health care, everything from the food we eat, to the crappy high-priced internet access we have to put up with, to the lack of vacation time. Just about everything is our lives is tainted by corporate greed, including suck-ups like Bai.

Social class.

The new idea the Democrats need is to face the fact that this country, more than any other advanced democracy, is divided by social class. The Republicans wage class warfare, but the Washington punditocracy and Friedman-reading upper-middle-class semi-liberals are in denial.

I suppose I should be exasperated with white America, but I just don't have the energy to argue that the Democratic Party may be going the way of the Republican Party--bald-headed white guys attempting to maintain the "control" and to "manage" the message to the politically faithful willing to take the leap off the tall buildings.

In any event, it would be nice to have a Chicano from the Sonoran Desert 'review' Matt Bai's latest book. If so, the following would have come to the forefront relative to "big" and "new" ideas.

Take, for example, a Universal Health Care program rolled into the VA's Medical Systemic? Or how about an "Academic-Military Draft"? Or the more probable solution relative to Immigration in the form of the "Three Lines Construct"?

In any event, America's "racial and ethnic" communities are what keeps the Democratic Party afloat with respect to "talking the talk, and walking the walk" or with more precision, "street cred". So, I would anticipate that in the long term, the Democrats will have to commence advocating for the above-mentioned "big" ideas, otherwise, the talk versus the walk, will become a well-known disconnect.

Therefore, send us your books for our review, and we will give you an appropriate assessment and premised on our perspective, and to wit, the Sonoran Desert Adage, "The only thing that changes in America is its history".

Jaango

Movement conservatism, despite its frequent and tiresome pretensions, has never really produced any big ideas. What it's produced is an intellectual superstructure designed to provide fresh justification for all its old ideas.

Best summary ever. So true.

My prediction--if Clinton gets elected, you'll see an overhaul of the Democratic Party that will make Reagan's taking power look like a tea party.

The last major Democratic "New" idea was the DLC-inspired "third way" of Bill Clinton that gave us NAFTA and the Defense of Marriage Act. I strongly suspect a Rodham-Clinton Administration would not be that different which is why Hillary is near the bottom of my list of preferred Democratic Presidential candidates. Though Bill Clinton was and is a master politician, his political victories seldom benefitted the rest of the party. Though Clinton won the Presidential election in 1992, the Democrats lost 9 seats in the House. The Democrats gained two seats in the Senate (Diane Feinstein in California and Russ Feingold in Wisconsin), however these gains were wiped out in the 1994 election and two Senators elected in 1992 as Democrats--Richard Shelby in Alabama and Ben Nighthorse Campbell in Colorado--switched parties.

IMO, the DLC was never anything other than "Republican Lite" which is why Joe Lieberman--one of the original DLC members--has found it so easy to be one of the worst Bush suckups in Washington.

This is hardly a new idea, but it's certainly big:

We believe in small-d democracy.

That is, when a solid and enduring majority of the people want something from government that conforms to the Constitution, is well within the realm of the feasible, and are willing to pay for it if it has significant costs, then our duty as Democrats is to try to make it so.

And it's our duty to expose those who would defeat the will of the people for what they are - antidemocratic oligarchs and elitists.

We should further be dedicated to modifying our political system for the long term so that the voice of money doesn't have the strength it does now to drown out the voice of the people.

Big ideas my ass.franklyO and cajun are onto what the real deal is. First and foremost we need people that are going to attack the problems were faced with as opposed to blathering about the next revolutionary idea. Have you people so bought into being sold a bill of goods from the marketers that your starting to believe that nonsense. I can't even come up with words to describe the level of ignorance here.

Kevin wrote:

. . . the theme that motivates the book is Bai's belief that the Democratic Party needs a big, new, paradigm-busting makeover right now. I think this is fundamentally misguided . . .

Dear Kevin,

You are one of the few blogsters whom I have been reading for years who still earns my respect and admiration for your general level-headedness.

At the risk of sounding shrill or like Chicken Little, it is impossible for any thinking, aware person to condone the damage the Bush administration has already perpetrated on our Constitutional tradition.

Congress holds endless hearings on the various administration high crimes and misdemeanors, and every single one of these investigations is castrated by puerile ploys such as "I do not recall" by serial dissemblers the likes of Mr. Gonzales

Consequentially nothing whatsoever comes of any of these committees charged with oversight of the executive except further White House bluster and stonewalling.

The transgressive precedents that continue to be established by the despotically inclined president currently in office will, without doubt, maim and cripple the rule of law in this nation for perpetuity.

It is beyond naive to imagine that a Democrat in the executive mansion would be immune from the seductive blandishments of disregarding an "obstructionist" Congress or the courts if s/he imagined such autocracy might further her/his agenda.

No, this is not at all what the framers of the Constitution had in mind about a system of checks and balances, and the danger to the future of American democracy is both grave and immanent.

Few, if any, observers of the Cold War predicted how instantaneously the monolithic Soviet system could crumble, and the cause of its demise was far more internal corruption than Ronald Reagan.

Our collective circumstances are dire and the consequences of further nefarious dirty dealing are profoundly horrific (war with Iran, anyone?).

For you, Kevin, to so blandly dismiss the critical necessity of "a big, new, paradigm-busting makeover right now" as "fundamentally misguided" appears disturbingly similar to the ostrich-head-in-sand complacency that has brought us to the brink of failure of our system of government.

Furthermore, the core of that new paradigm is not some esoteric silver bullet the Democratic Party has yet to identify, but the plain power of fearlessly speaking the plain truth about such matters as how the psychotic US foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel precludes any possibility of stability, let alone peace, in the Middle East and a ludicrously incoherent energy policy that solely benefits a handful of oligarchs as it blithely screws the planet, as well as all of us who inhabit it.

Please, Kevin, think again. This is not the moment to remain aloofly sanguine.

Respectfully,
tek

The big shift going on right now is the end of cheap energy, approaching catastrophic climate change, and, eventually, massive die-off.

We ought to recognize this, but we won't.

Become the beer you wish to drink.

"Big new ideas"; translation --- "Catchy new slogans".

The big idea we need is: Republicans Suck. It's true, people believe it, and it gives people a reason to vote for us.

Yes. Which is pretty much exactly what the Dems are running on now. Which is why they're so "helpless" whenever Bush ups the ante towards Iran, or guts the Constitution a little more. It's pathetic. Frankly, it means that for all practical purposes, the Dems are NO BETTER than the GOP. (Please don't give me the usual horseshit about how "We don't have the votes.")

As far as anyone can tell, the decision to launch an aerial attack against Iran, and a subsequent world catastrophe, rests entirely in the hands of Bush and/or Cheney. By now we have YEARS of evidence that those two simply cannot be trusted with sort of decision. Yet with one or two fleeting exceptions, the Dems have done NOTHING, not ONE FUCKING THING, to stop the march toward disaster.

Populism.

It's already on the march.

For you, Kevin, to so blandly dismiss the critical necessity of "a big, new, paradigm-busting makeover right now" as "fundamentally misguided" appears disturbingly similar to the ostrich-head-in-sand complacency that has brought us to the brink of failure of our system of government.

Furthermore, the core of that new paradigm is not some esoteric silver bullet the Democratic Party has yet to identify, but the plain power of fearlessly speaking the plain truth about such matters as how the psychotic US foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel precludes any possibility of stability, let alone peace, in the Middle East and a ludicrously incoherent energy policy that solely benefits a handful of oligarchs as it blithely screws the planet, as well as all of us who inhabit it.

Well said.

But for me this whole liberal/leftie/progressive blogland thing is getting a little more tedious and distasteful every month, and the reason is that so many of its leading lights are sniffing a big Dem victory in '08 -- and nothing must jeopardize that. Because supposedly, when the Dems win, this time they're gonna have the power, this time they're gonna do things right.

Seems unlikely to me that cowards who can't say no to corporations or Israel today won't suddenly develop the skill in 2009. The people who won't fight against Cheney now, will just as easily not fight *for* national health care in the future. No "idea", big or small, is going to fix this.

I cannot remember if it was Eldridge Cleaver or Abie Hoffman who said that moderate liberal regimes inspire more protest than conservative ones because of the lack of progress achieved when compared with the expectations created. If that is true, then when the next Democratic Cheneylite becomes president we should expect more protests about Iraq and other problems that the Democrats will not fix because of their corporate and foreign constituencies.

Thanks, sglover, for the compliment.

You and I appear to be monitoring similar wavelengths in the zeitgeist, and I agree about the increasingly tiresome blather daily churned in the left-inclined blogs -- especially some of the A-List big boys -- but that is a rant for another time.

Equally, I am confident you and I are not alone in our discontent with a blundering Democratic majority in Congress, and it is my sinking intuition that although a Democratic Presidential victory seems likely, particularly if the Republicans run either a Morman flip-flopper or a flagrantly public adulterer with a penchant for cross dressing in public, there is the distinct possibility that enough voters are sufficiently disenchanted with a do-nothing Democratic majority that losing control of Congress is more likely than the pork-barrel hacks presently in office would prefer to contemplate.

The Republicans have an indisputable argument that "o.k., you guys had your chance and did nothing with it." A little authentic, traditional conservatism (balanced budgets and all that) with a dash of libertarianism, i.e., restraint of government in the private lives of individuals, might well have an appealing ring to it in the flyover states.

there is the distinct possibility that enough voters are sufficiently disenchanted with a do-nothing Democratic majority that losing control of Congress is more likely than the pork-barrel hacks presently in office would prefer to contemplate.

The Dems are certainly demonstrating their mastery at snatching defeat from victory, but I suspect that overall they'll do very well in '08. The again, who cares? By doing essentially zero forward-looking, precautionary work now, Dems are setting themselves up to seize a poison chalice in '08.

I caught part of the last Democratic "debate", and maybe the most hilarious part was when the assembled mediocrities had to describe votes they'd made that they now regretted. Of course all the front-runners are real, real sorry about their Iraq votes. (Golly, how could I know?!?!) But the most laughable mea culpa was from some Congressworm (Dodd?) who was real, real sorry for voting to scrap habeus corpus -- less than a year ago!! And we all know how, days after their latest FISA sell-out, the Dems were scratching their heads and mumbling, Gosh, maybe we didn't think that through. You have to work, you have to strive, to reach that summit of transcendant fuckwittery.

SO after these last 7-8 months, only fucking morons believe the Dems stand for anything other than gaining office. I'll vote for Kucinich in the primary (though it's tempting to re-register as a Republican to cast a ballot for Ron Paul). But I'm not sure if I'm even going to bother to show up in November. Whether the Dems win or lose is essentially irrelevant.

But I'm not sure if I'm even going to bother to show up in November. Whether the Dems win or lose is essentially irrelevant.

Yeah, just like in 2000....

Yeah, just like in 2000....

I'm still waiting for the Dems to head off a bigger disaster in Iran. Do you see them doing anything about that?

I didn't expect the Dems to turn the latest FISA rejiggering into a solid Bush victory. But they did, didn't they?

I expected the Dems to wind the current war down. That's why I voted for them last November. But they didn't, did they? And they won't, will they?

I didn't expect the Dems to emulate the Republicans over bankruptcy "reform" mere weeks after they lost in '04. But they did, didn't they?

Oh, I know. They don't have the votes. Karl Rove is so shrewd and cunning. Republicans say mean things! Poor, poor, six-figure-salary Dems!

I used to be angry at them, too, but face it, Nader and the Greens were right.

Not so sure about that Nader thing. While i am with you all the way about Demos compulsively rolling over and handing the GOP the Vaseline, it is difficult to imagine Gore making a worse mess of things had Nader not split the 2000 vote.

Not so sure about that Nader thing. While i am with you all the way about Demos compulsively rolling over and handing the GOP the Vaseline, it is difficult to imagine Gore making a worse mess of things had Nader not split the 2000 vote.

You're right. Let me amend it to, "Except for the particular case of Bush v. Gore, Nader was correct".

sglover, I empathize with your point of view. What will the Democratic apologists argue, after they have secured the presidency and a Congressional super majority in 2008, when our troops are still in Iraq in 2016? Worse, what will they argue after the bombs begin falling on Iran? Moderate corporatists will always find a way to marginalize leftists while the bombs fall on people who pose absolutely no threat to our existence. A threat to our hegemony is reason enough for them to advocate the Republican's militancy.

Corpus sez:

I think your first two worries are probable and explain the Bush administration's efforts to create a resource empire, but I don't think the massive die-off is inevitable. Nor do I think the Bush administration's response has been particularly helpful. We are running out of cheap oil, not energy. We are not even close to running out of energy. The climate change is controllable if we work at it.

1) I said we're running out of *cheap* energy. It is cheap energy we need to continue feeding 6+ billion people.

2) Climate change can be ameliorated if we work at it. Controllable is an open question. At best it will take a few centuries to return the planet to its base state, if that is even possible.

Few people seem to understand how precarious our situation is. Modern agriculture is highly dependent on cheap energy inputs and stable weather patterns. (Wheat futures just went up 30% because the weather knocked out 20% of the Canadian wheat crop.) Just one year without harvests, and the planet will be left with a couple hundred million people. Of course, the more likely scenario is a series of devastating regional Ag disasters which will thin out the herd in a step-wise fashion.

And I haven't even begun to address the die-off of non-human animals as humans are "forced" to continue destroying natural habitat in order to feed themselves. Of course, once the human pop equalizes to a more manageable size, non-human animals will have their pick of the niches to move into.