Stop Saying the Other Side Has “Some Good Ideas” [New]
“I am eager to hear good ideas from wherever they come from. – Barack Obama, November 5, 2010
In America, the sad fact is that the common populace hates a loser. They hate Jimmy Carter not because of what he did or didn’t do, they hate him because he lost to Ronald Reagan. Americans view politics as a competition of ideas. Is this the correct, nuanced view? No, but as the President enjoys pointing out, you have to work with the reality you have before you.
If liberal/progressives/socialists are going to win the ongoing war against them, which is being waged by moneyed interests and their conservative allies, the first step must be to acknowledge that the other side can not, will not, and should not be considered allies at any time. We stand for human rights, equality, and justice. Anyone opposing those ideals cannot be considered a friend or partner. “Mainstream” Democrats cannot seem to grasp this concept.
Every week it seems like NPR is running a segment decrying the death of the “collegiality” in the House and Senate. The mainstream media (of which NPR is a part) has long pushed the idea that our nation’s woes are due to a lack of common ground between the parties. I propose that in order to be seen as “winners”, progressoliboscoialists (I just made that up) should be pushing for a wider gap between the parties, for more division.
A clear contrast must be drawn between the opposing forces, and it must be made clear that the ideas of conservatives are not merely an issue of disagreement, but destructive instruments which are directly counter to the concepts upon which this nation was founded. There can be no arrangements made with the opposing force when their explicitly stated goals are all centered at taking away as much power as possible from the other party.
The events in Wisconsin have demonstrated that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the plutocrats and their vassals have no use for compromise with liberals. Even an avowed neo-liberal New Democrat like Barack Obama is to be afforded no quarter:
“If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.” – Mitch McConnell, November 4 2010
American voters have no time for nuance, no interest in incrementalism. They’re not going to put their time and energy into a movement perceived as a gaggle of retreating, spineless wimps. It’s the duty of true progressives to avoiding playing the part, and to abandon the Democratic party if it refuses to exhibit the will to do so.
What Do You Think?
29 Responses to 'Stop Saying the Other Side Has “Some Good Ideas”'
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Mark [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Even I agree with this.
There may be a few times the other side does have a good idea, but then the rhetoric is very simple: “Hey, the stopped clock got something right. Republicans will oppose a plan just because Democrats like it. (See them attack their own health care plan, for example.) Democrats oppose Republicans because they are wrong. If our opponents stumble onto a good idea despite their own cruel ideology, sure, we’ll try it. It doesn’t happen very often, though.”
Spitball [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Sure, try it. If it works, take credit for it. Make the conservatives that want credit argue for it.
Hardball.
Spitball [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 3:26 pm
I’d like to reserve the ability to use this particular phrase, especially with an air of sarcastic scorn and tragic disbelief.
I mean, statistically, they’re gonna hit at least one home-run, right? I’d like to cheer derisively when they do so.
Can you argue with that?
Tim [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 3:34 pm
I smell mascot! And possibly a site name buried in that cute furry bunny. No Surrender Monkeys? Rage against the dying of the light and all that.
Seriously, though, you would think “good ideas” that over 30 years have bankrupted the country, cratered the middle class, and left the dominant conservative ideology unassailable all would count against those ideas being classified as “good,” “valuable,” and “worth listening to.”
David Kaib [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Great post, great picture.
More on the substance later.
Oaktown Girl [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Oy – that photo! Talk about eye of the beholder! I use that photo as my avatar on a music site because I see the bunny as clapping its hands in applause, saying “Bravo!” I’m not alone. I originally found that photo I think on DKos when someone posted it to say “Bravo” about something good being done. But now to the other business at hand:
Yes – Absolutely agree!
I would just add that when using that Obama quote (and I think this is totally related to your post), “You have to work with the reality you have before you.” it’s important to mention that the way he uses it is as an excuse for not working for substantive change, for not pushing progressive legislation. He’s got the strongest bully pulpit in the world and could easily change the dialog and move public opinion thus absolutely changing the “reality” before us. But alas, he just uses “reality” as a way to hide and keep maintain the status quo.
Can’t wait until we get a “preview” function for the comments!
Emocrat [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Yay! It works! I also really like the followup comment email thingy. That can save a lot of time.
Anyway, Travis is making a very important distinction here which needs to be stressed. I read a piece over at Jadaliyya, which has become essential reading for me. The topic at hand is: What If The Egyptian Protesters Were Democrats? (Meaning big-D Democrats, the party). I can’t argue with any of this and I recommend it to everyone, so here’s a quote:
“According to liberal Democrats, alternate politics are impossible and thus undesirable. The Egyptian people do not share the same viewpoint. There was nothing pragmatic about what they did: it is never a reasonable idea to march into bullets, tear gas canisters, and police boots in order to upend a rotten political system brandishing the imprimatur of the world’s most powerful armies and politicians. But if the Egyptian people wanted a just political system, rather than the practical realities of theft and corruption, they needed to replace and not merely reform their government. To challenge bad politicians by electing more bad politicians is not serious political thinking; it is an inducement to apathy and intellectual frivolity.
The Egyptian people erected a remarkably functional democratic space in Tahreer Square, complete with an infirmary, a kindergarten, and a pharmacy. When Democratic Party bosses get together, protesters are entrapped in chain link cages.
In short, if the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have undertaken no revolution. The Democratic Party represents the pervasiveness of elite corporate power; its liberal supporters represent the appropriation of oppositional politics into the neoliberal economies of electoral hegemony; the Egyptian protesters represent a determined, collective will to social justice and legitimate freedom. If those protesters were American liberals, they would have sided with the state while professing support for the people.”
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/687/what-if-the-egyptian-protesters-were-democrats
Something to seriously chew on, methinks.
Tim [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 5:46 pm
@Emocrat Welcome. Regardless of what happens in Wisconsin, the Middle East, and elsewhere, we are witnessing a moment of opportunity for change. The status quo is insupportable in many places. Except possibly parts of northern Europe where political, economic, and social power is better balanced.
Emocrat [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:10 pm
@Tim. Thanks.
Agreed on change. In thinking on the process by which people make the leap into action, the repeated notion of “getting past the fear” keeps coming up. It’s not easy to get people outside their comfort zones, however that would be described. In the case of Egyptians or Tunisians, the word “comfort” doesn’t fit at all.
I think what we’re seeing in Wisconsin has potential to really get people out of whatever “free speech zone” they’ve been penned up in now.
I can’t think of a time in which a protest has had this kind of staying power. I also think the Egyptians showed us the way, in a manner of speaking. They showed that persistence really pays off.
80K in Madison today, supposedly. That’s like a million people in Central Park and this has been going a full week now. Impressive, to say the least.
But I also notice the national Democratic leadership is too busy to lend a hand beyond a few vague tweets. They are becoming irrelevant.
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Obama has left the Wisconsin movement hanging completely- on the campaign trail he promised he’d be front and center. Meanwhile all he can focus on is deciding how much to hand over to the Republicans when it comes to the budget. Ironic (sorta?) that across the table is Paul Eddie Munster Ryan (R-WI).
Tim [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:16 pm
What I worry about is how events in Wisconsin are portrayed in the media most people read. Hopefully people are upset enough to drown out the tut tutting of the national media. Notice, for example, there’s zero national discussion about the regressive nature of most (all?) state taxes: the more you make, the less you pay. Presumably switching to progressive state taxation would be fair and solve much of the budget problems. But this aspect is invisible.
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:19 pm
@Tim, hopefully this movement can be merged/attached to the US Uncut movement- weather permitting I’m going to Annapolis tomorrow for a solidarity rally with a sign that will read “Out Of Money? Get It From the Banks!”
also the rabbit’s name is clearly Barack O-Bunny
Tim [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Barack O’Bunny = BOB. the President has a new name. Just in time for Saint Patty’s Day and reruns of the Leprechaun horror movies
Spitball [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:27 pm
“the status quo is insupportable in many places”
Yes, it is. One key is that such has occurred in many places, and more or less simultaneously.
How did Peter Gabriel put it? “You can blow out a flame, but you can’t blow out a fire”.
@Travis; RE: Obama leaves WI labor hanging. Couldn’t agree more heartily. He’s as blind as Mubarak in some ways.
Emocrat [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:29 pm
@Travis: classic names. Damn if Ryan doesn’t look like Eddie Munster after a few years of reading Ayn Rand whilst on a years long meth bender. His thinking matches that description as well.
@Tim: yeah, the media is terrible. Even NPR is dissing the protesters not so nicely. CNN is predictably awful, which is weird, since AC is so high and mighty about “those lyin’ dictators” but loves to lie himself when it comes to Americans whose rights are being shredded in an authoritarian power grab.
The thing is, though, that more than a few studies have shown Americans to be very critical of the media over the years. Given that we’re talking about fundamental rights and a deeply declining standard of living, people like AC will end up burning themselves. I’m sure people watching AC 360 are suffering whiplash flipping between the freedom fighters in the ME and the “parasites” in Madison. It won’t work.
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:33 pm
NPR has been on the side of the plutocrats for a while now. Fun game: count the number of hours your local NPR affiliate dedicates to Marketplace and Planet Money, then compare to the amount of local affairs programming. In Baltimore the ratio is somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:1 in favor of updates from the Wall Street Casino.
Emocrat [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:43 pm
@Travis: Yup. Here too.
I wrote them years ago about their local morning talk show and asked them point blank if they were getting their talking points straight from Fox News. I quoted the local host and then pasted in transcript items from Fox that was nearly identical. I also included the bio of the guest, who was merely “talking his own book” as a FP flack funded by the Israel Lobby, which they never bothered to mention to the audience. I believe that was around 2004.
I didn’t receive a response.
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 6:45 pm
I asked why our local politics program doesn’t include liberals, only old Party Machine Dems who are anti-tax and pro austerity. Shockingly, no reply.
Spitball [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 7:19 pm
I’m spoiled because of Minnesota Public Radio. Heavy focus on state issues (local are Minneapolis and St. Paul) and well-hosted call-in programs.
Not perfect, sure, but a real benefit to our standard of living here. More radical programs on various public stations, KFAI, for example.
I’ve been here so long, I forget how horrible it is to live without it.
William Timberman [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 7:37 pm
The status quo always defends in depth, and for obvious reasons, it always has an army of of defenders. The old revolutionary lefties who used to spend so much time agonizing over what constituted pre-revolutionary conditions, and how they might be engendered actually knew a thing or two.
The truth is that MOST of the time, NO amount of provocation can actually start a self-sustaining revolution. You can nibble all you want around the edges of the oyster, but you can’t ever seem to clamp your teeth on the center.
And when the time so long awaited in some quarters finally does come, as it always does when the contradictions finally get severe enough, and obvious enough — as in Russia, so also in Egypt — things tend to move in a rush, and the revolutionaries are forced to follow the people. (Not a bad thing, IMO, but inevitably much messier than the soi-disant vanguard can abide.)
Where are we now, here in the good old U.S.A.? Well, I’d say near enough to smell the fire and brimstone, but not anywhere near enough to convince anyone of weight that they have much to worry about.
Hence Barack Obama, or as BAR calls him, The First Black Pharoah.
David Kaib [New]
Monday, 21 Feb, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Re: everyone hates a loser – I think that is part of it. The other part is that is if people don’t take their own ideas seriously, why should anyone else.
I think it’s also important to point out how profoundly undemocratic it is to insist that elites should get together and hammer out their differences. The only way regular people can have any influence is if parties offer different things, and then try to deliver. Of course, its not surprising that public officials and the media are hostile to popular influence.
@Oaktown Girl – My sig is exactly about that problem: “Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.” It is truly disturbing to see someone so well positions to change what is possible insisting he is powerless.
pieceofcake [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 10:37 am
How can I comment if I agree with most of what has been said? -(and I like ‘Sitetobenamedlater’) – and how can I change my password?
Author’s Note- Your off-topic question aside, if you crap up the comments of my articles with dozens of posts talking to yourself, I will send them all to the spam filter. Not joking. Think hard before you comment and make ‘em count. This warning applies exclusively to you. Enjoy! – Travis
pieceofcake [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 11:18 am
wait – there are few things which irritate me –
I mean I’m very impressed by ‘the people’ of Wisconsin – that they are ‘out there’ – That ‘somebody’ is finally out there and I’m tempted to join them -(but only the demonstrators) – and NOT ‘the people’ of Wisconsin per se – because didn’t they just -(in November) – vote this ‘Jojo with no Ideas’ IN? – And I just can’t forgive that fast – and being just back from Egypt I might like -(in spirit) the comparison between the ‘demonstrators here’ – and the ‘demonstrators there’ – to try to teach the “homelanders’ a lesson – But will it work? – I know everybody is used to all these crazy comparisons right now – but another ‘American revolution inspired by the ‘Jasmine revolution’ (or Egypt)? –
There seems to be ‘boredom’ settling in about all ‘this Arab revolution stuff’ – and I fear a lot of ‘the people’ are changing their TV channels already back to the ‘lighter’ stuff – because now it’s enough – Right?
pieceofcake [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 2:05 pm
now Travis – how did you do that? (ad this most important footnote to my crappy off-topic ‘stuff’) – and don’t be such a ‘party pooper’ – We ALL try to talk to ourselves (constantly) – That’s why we here! – and I (always) enjoy!
Spitball [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Well, PoC, the “comparisons right now” need not go much further than “oh, look, citizens demanding recognition from their governments by taking to the streets, circles and squares.”. All of these events are “out there” (as far as I can tell) and they are all occurring simultaneously. How (if) these events, all driven by local issues (perhaps shared “globally” but maybe not) and taking place in spatially distinct locations, might interact with each other is the question I’d like to answer.
I suspect that the innertoobs and the twittering cell phones provide the means to allow interaction, but how such will be revealed in the “real” world has yet to be seen. Meanwhile, I’d like to try and infuse positive “elements” and “effects” into the chaotic mix, so that maybe (just maybe) these will push the probabilities toward more (not less) justice within human culture(s) when the “dust settles”.
Spitball [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Travis is magic in this Universe.
pieceofcake [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 2:40 pm
that might be a good idea -(about the need for comparisons to go much further) – and a Egyptian friend of mine promised me that in his country – if they finally will get the luxury to ‘really’ vote – they will not vote for some ‘idiots’ and then complain a few month later -and they for sure won’t do it in such a ‘naive’ (impatient) – way’ as the Americans -(that’s what he said – so don’t yell at me!) – and he never ever will use the ‘excuse’ that he had been ‘manipulated’ by some ‘mainstream’ media – It’s still too much in his bones what it means to be ‘manipulated’ by a ‘real’ bad dude -(not some whishy washy American darling like Obama!) – and hey – ‘Do you really know how great it is to live in a country where the ‘revolution dust” has settled a long time ago and now everybody can ENJOY ‘bickering’ about the lighter stuff -(meaning – without heavy head injuries!) –
These Wisconsonians are soo cute -(I was once in Milwaukeeee – lots of Joymans there!!)
vote for the same idiots as we do – and he thought that ‘thought’ really ‘counted’ – and then we decided that only
needing to go much further – What about comparing ‘people’ who have the luxury
Red Valhalla [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 7:06 pm
The other side has not had many good ideas since they joined Northern Democrats to support the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, and that was really a Dem’s doing. They were last on a roll with some good ideas more than a 100 years ago. And earlier I guess they got the Civil War mostly right and Reconstruction, too. And it’s been downhill for them ever sense.
Regarding Obama leaving the Wisconsin workers hanging, absolutely true. Lifting a finger to support them, as opposed platitudes like “some of the the things out of Wisconsin are troubling” (like what? that crushing unions thing?) would step all over Obama’s business offensive, footsies, kissy kissy.
Chamber of Commerce might not go to the mat for him in 2012…oh wait.
Well, at least he doesn’t owe public sector unions anything because they didn’t go to the mat for him in the general election…oh wait.
David Kaib [New]
Tuesday, 22 Feb, 2011 at 7:12 pm
I’m less concerned about what Obama says about WI than I am about the many things he could do directly to advance union rights. He could, without congressional authorization, extend union protections to employees of federal contractors, which would be a huge advance for union rights.
I don’t say this because I expect it, but I’d rather complain about that failure, one which cannot be justified by any of their excuses.