We previously discussed the disconnect between Democratic leaders and liberal voters in the increasing complaints of leaders like Vice President Biden over Democratic “lethargy.” Democrats in Washington once again seemed shocked that voters are not eager to fight for their retention. Now, Biden has added the helpful advice to Democratic voters to “stop whining” about things that they did not get in Washington and to “buck up.”
The “buck up” comment was meant as an improvement over the “whining” comment. It turned out that “whining” was not greeted by voters as an improvement over “lethargy.”
Here is the latest statement:
“And so those who don’t get — didn’t get everything they wanted, it’s time to just buck up here, understand that we can make things better, continue to move forward and — but not yield the playing field to those folks who are against everything that we stand for in terms of the initiatives we put forward.”
By “everything [we] wanted,” I assume Biden is including the fulfillment of our treaty obligations to investigate and prosecute war crimes such as torture — which the Administration blocked.
I assume it includes removing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which the Administration is trying to preserve by asking a court not to impose a national injunction freezing the policy.
I assume it includes allowing dozens of privacy lawsuits to go forward against companies, which the Administration blocked despite evidence of unlawful surveillance by the Bush Administration.
I assume it includes allowing torture victims to seek review in federal court, which the Administration has successfully blocked.
I assume it includes protecting pristine areas along the East Coast from drilling, which the Administration has fought to open up for development even after the BP accident.
I assume it includes reducing the faith-based programs of the Bush Administration which raised concerns over the separation of church and state, which Obama expanded.
Well, it includes a lot of things that democratic and independent voters wanted. What they got was a Democratic majority saw power as the end to itself rather than the means to fight for principle. For civil libertarians, “those folks who are against everything that we stand” include the Obama Administration which has been a perfect nightmare in the adoption and expansion of Bush policies.
Yet, Biden wants civil libertarians, environmentalists, and liberals to stop whining and buck up. The Administration made a cynical calculation that liberals and civil libertarians and environmentalists have no where to go and that they have to support the Democrats regardless of these obnoxious policies. Now, they are simply shocked that voters are not enthusiastic about their continuing in power.
The Democratic leadership has conveyed that the only principle that they are committed to is their retention of power. All other principles — torture, the environment, privacy, free speech — are immaterial to that one overriding goal. They just do not understand why everyone does not see it that way.
Well, I am one of those whining, lethargic voters and I cannot get myself to buck up to support leaders who turned their back on such core values. Perhaps if enough Democrats are replaced, the party may rediscover the benefit of being principled and standing for something other than their own insular interests. They need to actually represent something other than “we are not as bad as those guys.” The problem for voters is that, by retaining these leaders, we reaffirm that they cynical calculation by the White House was correct. There is no reason why Democrats should fulfill their commitments in these areas if voters do not hold them accountable. I know some on this blog may disagree, but I personally think I will stick with the whining for now.
Source: Real Clear Politics
Slarti I don’t put it on Harry Reid necessarily because Ben Nelson and Lieberman who is an independent that caucuses with the democrats were never ever going to vote for the public option. Lieberman will probably leave and go to republicans if we get close to a tie in the Senate which is looking like a possibility especially if McMahon takes Connecticut. The house is lost and I guess Tony C will be pleased as the progressive change is around the corner – not. Actually it looks like many progressives will be going down with the blue dogs.
Slarti,
I look forward to the debate … I hope Tony C engages on the merits of your argument and you on his.
Tony C,
I think you have an unrealistically simplified view of how government works – let’s look at health care: We were probably 2 or 3 votes away from getting a public option through the Senate. We did get a bill that will do some good which is also provides a framework that can be improved (or weakened) by future legislation (far easier than, say, scrapping it and starting over). When we are so close to something (the public option) that is nearly universally seen by progressives as a significant improvement does it make more sense to fight tooth and nail to hold as much as possible and then continuing to fight for each inch until we get what we want or to ‘take our ball and go home’, let Congress jump back to the right and wait another decade or two to be in a position that we’re close to now? A hypothetical for you: How do you think the progressive quality of legislation would be affected if the Democrats held the House and the Senate and the Senate made a rule change to end the filibuster at the beginning of the next session? (or even just required Senators wishing to filibuster to hold the floor when they wanted to prevent a vote – in my opinion, not doing this is the stupidest decision that I’ve seen Democrats make and as far as I can tell it’s all on Harry Reid) Obviously, we wont know if the Senate will do this, but progressives should start pushing for it the day after the elections (I realize this will only happen if they hold the Senate, but I think it should be done regardless…). Progressive legislation has never come easily and to quit in disgust when we’re so close to victory on so many important economic issues is insanity to me. Civil liberties are a different case, but in short I believe that the best strategy is to fight to hold and increase Democratic majorities while raising as large a hue and cry about the issue as possible – we should also recognize that in all likelihood the issue will not gain enough traction with the public until the economic issues are dealt with (right or wrong, this is my read of the reality on the ground). In the end, voting (or refraining from voting) is about choosing between a limited number of options and while the past is an indicator of what the effects of a particular choice will be, to me the only rational method is to vote in a way that you believe will have the best results in the future (by whatever metric you choose) rather than trying to reward or punish people for past behavior. In my opinion, your proposed strategy is both irrational – punishing past behavior – and faulty – your metric for the effects of your vote does not reflect reality of its impact on your goals (on which I think we pretty much agree). Now I’m returning to my self-imposed exile to await your reply, but let me just say in closing that I really don’t care about how pissed off or disappointed you are, I just care about a rational argument as to why your strategy would be more effective or more likely to succeed than mine – we’re both scientists, so let’s act like it.
Tony C I gave you two examples of candidates with new faces as opponents – Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson. You said they both deserved to lose. Grayson is running against a self- proclaimed theocrat, and Feingold is running against a defender of priest sexual abuse. Yet you insist they should be replaced by new faces.
Tony C.,
I have read all your posts and, in my opinion, this last one at 1:09 pm on September 30, 2010 states your argument in the clearest and most forthright manner.
It is an argument with which I agree except that I will continue to vote … but I wonder when I will reach my breaking point for I am close to it … when will they have asked me to give up too much in order to compromise with those whose political philosophy I despise?
Or to put it in a slightly more dramatic and historical vein … when will I feel as though they are asking me to accept and approve of another 3/5ths Rule …
Tony C You say you are voting for new faces but not democratic liars. What state do you live in that has new progressive faces that aren’t democrats? I am looking at a lot of new faces around the country and I am seeing many scary new faces. You speak in vague generalities about candidates. The only candidate you mention is Obama and he is not up for election this year.
>> Because taxes are about taking the sweat of a man’s brow from his own labor which he has a right to because he owns his own person.
Oh, bull. Your “person” is who it is because it lives in a huge matrix of services and infrastructure paid for by others, often with their lives. The “sweat of your brow” didn’t build the Interstates or state roads you use for free, the “sweat of your brow” doesn’t keep your food and medicine and buildings safe, the “sweat of your brow” doesn’t keep your employer from beating you.
What a load.
As to V.P. Biden’s comments, he was right the first time. Democrats on the left need to stop whining about what we didn’t get from the first two years and buck up and keep working rather than complaining. The glass is half-full. The same goes for Republicans on the far right. They could stop doing nothing but whining, bellowing and impeding and get off their obstructive behinds and move toward the center where 60 to 80% of the rest of us live.
@Byron: Right, that is why so many companies that adopt Deming and six sigma have gone bankrupt.
I know more about business than you do; and I was self-employed for 15 years as a consultant. It is true that there exists fraud, waste and abuse in large corporations, and that is precisely the extent to which they are mismanaged. However, their PRICING is seldom mismanaged, and if you raise income taxes on them they will not respond with PRICE increases, they may respond with getting rid of fraud, waste and abuse. That might need to layoffs of freeloaders and frauds, but it is hard for me to see how that would be a bad thing; let them go earn a real living somewhere.
You cannot expect me to believe that if Ford adds $500 to the price of their truck they are going to make more money; if that were true they would do it tomorrow. They have a lot of money invested in figuring out exactly what the price shoud be, it isn’t just pulled out of a hat.
Higher taxes would make these very companies more efficient and reduce the waste. Is that something you are complaining about?
Tony C:
“And one more thing: If corporations can be as indifferent to income taxes as you claim, why do they spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid them, or get them reduced? Why are Republicans foaming at the mouth to reduce taxes on corporations and the rich?”
Because taxes are about taking the sweat of a man’s brow from his own labor which he has a right to because he owns his own person. I doubt corporations are thinking about that but that is the proper refutation for taxation. Obviously some tax is required to run government but we could certainly OPTIMIZE the system.
@Slarti: I am claiming something a little different than you think. What I am claiming is that after 30+ years of voting for Democrats and liberal causes and a social safety net, and supporting them with my donations, all the empirical evidence I look at shows me that my party (or what was my party, I have none anymore) inches further to the right with every election, lies more, breaks more liberal promises and more thoroughly sides with the rich over the poor.
Obama broke me. I was inspired, I donated much more than I usually do, I advocated for Obama. He lied. He lied about filibustering FISA and then voted for it, he was lying about civil liberties, he was lying about the wars, he was lying about health care, he was lying about transparency, he lied about lobbyists in his white house, he lied about holding Bush accountable for war crimes (and then committed his own), he lied about using the courts to try terrorists, he lied about Gauntanamo and then opened up Bagram for the same purpose, and he has defended every violation of the Constituion since then. He lied about everything.
But he opened my eyes. My claim is NOT that things will get better, my claim is that all the evidence indicates that voting for Democrats DOES NOT MAKE THINGS BETTER.
I cannot vote for reprehensible Tea Party racists or openly corrupted corporate Republicans, but I also cannot vote for lying, corrupt Democrats. So my only choice left is to NOT vote for incumbents, and vote for new faces, and HOPE that does better.
My claim is that for me, I just don’t care how painful the outcome of this decision is, the pain of voting for people I know are lying is too great, the pain of continuing on what looks to me like completely discarding the Constitution and civil liberties and equal treatment under the law is too great. It is my HOPE that punishing Democrats at the polls will produce a more desirable outcome.
Think of it as a bargaining threshold. If your employer was in financial trouble, would you agree to a 2% across-the-board cut in pay to keep your job and keep anybody from being dismissed? I certainly would, 2% wouldn’t kill me and I care about my fellow employees enough to share that pain. Now, how about 5%? How about 15%? How about 50%?
At some point I will just have to say no, the pain of being unemployed (but free) is less than the pain of being underpaid. So let me go, and use my pay to lessen the burden on my former fellows.
The same applies here. How far to the right and how much corporate advocacy will you let the Democratic party go before it is no longer your party? They no longer TRULY stand for anything I believe in! They SAY they do, and then REALLY do all the things Drs. Turley and Greenwald have detailed in their blogs.
I am sick of it. What I am claiming is that voting for Democrats rewards them for duplicity and continues their slide to the right, and not voting for incumbent Democrats is the only thing I can think of that has any chance of stopping that duplicity and slide to the right.
Tony C:
“Any business that has been around at least five years is ALREADY OPTIMIZED.”
you are absolutely and unequivocally wrong and obviously have no business experience whatsoever, other than possibly a failed lemonade stand during grade school.:)
I could walk into Ford or GM today and find fraud waste and abuse and could probably find some way to increase their profits with a little tweak here or there. You can do the same with any business of any size.
Deming and 6 sigma are about continuous improvement.
Tony C:
“You don’t care that consumers have alternatives and the owner does not; you think if he just puts a line item on the bill called “my increased income tax” then his patrons will understand and shell out more because they have good hearts and see he needs to keep his income up.”
I see, so we can purchase a Chevy vs. a Ford and we don’t have to pay the taxes (not sales but other taxes)? It isn’t about consumer choice at all, every company has the same basic taxes they have to collect on behalf of the government. Now you are correct that individual companies can decide to make less money and absorb the tax and make less profit but at some point you cannot sustain growth and research and development.
Inflation will also play key role. So the consumer really does not have a choice and will pay the taxes imposed by government and passed on by the corporations and small businesses.
Tony C,
Why don’t you apply the scientific method to your strategy – can you make a scientific argument as to how it will (eventually) improve things (and the likelihood of that outcome)? I can make a pretty sound argument that loss of control of just the House would result in the prevention even watered down progressive legislation (which is far better than no progressive legislation or conservative legislation, in my opinion) and a witch hunt against President Obama (and likely other Democrats as well) using House subpoena power (a la President Clinton). You rightly question Byron for his failure to provide an argument supporting his position on corporate taxes, but commit the same failure regarding your electoral strategy – there’s a word for that…
The tenor of the debate here is quite cogent on all sides. However, despite the assurance from Tony C. a Republican victory will continue the crushing of the less affluent classes and continue to widen the gap between wealth and less wealth. I know it is easy to view this stuff in the abstract but I have spent too much of my life toiling with people and in places of misery and that doesn’t just include the poor and people of color. My feeling comes from the gut and so is not an abstraction. Nevertheless, after observing the warp and woof of politics for nearly 60 years, I know for a fact that Tony, insightful as he is, has got this one wrong.
Byron,
You and I rarely agree on issues. Yet, you’ll find out as I did–and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a liberal or conservative–that if you disagree with Tony’s position on an issue YOU ARE WRONG. He may also imply or tell you outright that you stupid…or you don’t have a brain…or you’re not “a thinker”…or you don’t understand sarcasm…or you don’t know what you’re implying with your own words…or you don’t base your opinions on facts…or you don’t understand the meanings of words…etc. He is a research scientist. He knows how to think logically. People like you and me and a number of other folks who follow the Turley Blawg are but poor benighted souls wandering in a morass of our own intellectual incompetence.
Do you think I’m using irony in the final sentence of the paragraph above? Check with Tony. He is the Word Master.
😉
P.S. I didn’t even bother to respond to his last insult to my intelligence.
“Glenn Greenwald has claimed he does not vote; I would not describe him as an “expatriate,” he visits in the US for interviews and TV appearances all the time. He does live in Brazil, his boyfriend is a Brazilian citizen and they cannot have a residence in the USA.”
Tony C.,
It seems Glenn and Gore Vidal are living parallel lives, with gore the better writer. I myself believe that it is fatuous to try to influence people on how to vote if you’re not living in a place where the impact of that vote won’t really affect you. That is not to say he is not entitled to criticize, but you must admit that the success/failure of his advice doesn’t really affect his life.
I read Glenn occasionally and he has always struck me as a champion of freedom, but distresses me with his “Holier (hipper) than thou” attitude.
Glenn Greenwald
TUESDAY, SEP 14, 2010 06:15 ET
Interview with Sen. Russ Feingold
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/radio/2010/09/14/feingold/index.html
Excerpt:
Even for those who are disillusioned and angry with the Democratic Party, or even apathetic about the outcome generally of the 2010 elections, Russ Feingold is one of the very few candidates whose re-election is genuinely worth caring about. No matter how bad Democrats generally become, Feingold’s presence in the Senate provides unique and real value. I spoke with him for 15 minutes late last week about a variety of topics, including Obama’s civil liberties record. The discussion can be heard by clicking PLAY on the player below. But before you listen, I’d like to review just some of the reasons for my view that Feingold’s re-election is compelling and important, and why I strongly encourage donating to his campaign as part of his “Money Bomb” today — here — as he tries, within the confines of his self-imposed campaign finance limits, to defeat an extremist, multi-millionaire, right-wing candidate who will be as radically awful on civil liberties, secrecy and war issues as Feingold is great.
Feingold is responsible for what is easily one of the most courageous political acts of the last decade, when he stood up on the Senate floor a mere six weeks after the 9/11 attacks — in a climate in which almost nobody with a real platform was willing to dissent on anything, let alone anything significant — and vehemently warned of the dangers posed by the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. He then proceeded to cast the only Senate vote against that Orwellian-ly named bill, making it a 98-1 vote in favor. As he explained on October 25, 2001, he had even spoken on the Senate floor on September 12 — within 24 hours of the 9/11 attack — to warn of the dangers to the Constitution which overreaction would cause. I’m quoting his October 25 Senate speech against the PATRIOT Act at some length because, even now, it’s so worth hearing, but back then, literally within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, he was one of a tiny handful of people with a national platform who was saying any of this:
(Feingold): I also quickly realized that two cautions were necessary, and I raised them on the Senate floor the day after the attacks. The first caution was that we must continue to respect our Constitution and protect our civil liberties in the wake of the attacks. . . .
The second caution I issued wa
s a warning against the mistreatment of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country. Already, one day after the attacks, we were hearing news reports that misguided anger against people of these backgrounds had led to harassment, violence, and even death. . . .
The Founders who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights exercised that vigilance even though they had recently fought and won the Revolutionary War. They did not live in comfortable and easy times of hypothetical enemies. They wrote a Constitution of limited powers and an explicit Bill of Rights to protect liberty in times of war, as well as in times of peace.
@Byron: And one more thing: If corporations can be as indifferent to income taxes as you claim, why do they spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid them, or get them reduced? Why are Republicans foaming at the mouth to reduce taxes on corporations and the rich?
According to your argument, nobody should care: They can just raise their prices and cover the tax no matter what it is, and keep their income constant. Just pass the bill on to the consumer.
Hopefully, that will help you see that your argument is completely bogus: They fight tooth and nail for lower taxes because taxes actually COST THEM PROFITS. There is no other reason, it isn’t complex in the least, higher taxes cost the rich money, for the exact reasons I have outlined above.
@Byron: I see, you will just reassert your stupid claim without answering any of the substantive arguments I put forward.
You don’t care that consumers have alternatives and the owner does not; you think if he just puts a line item on the bill called “my increased income tax” then his patrons will understand and shell out more because they have good hearts and see he needs to keep his income up.
You can’t win an argument with me by assertion without evidence. Sales taxes ALSO decrease sales by raising the price, THAT is simple economics. People judge the price on the TOTAL BILL, not the individual components, and I have both been and known people that do not purchase lunch because they think it is too expensive relative to their pay.
So, if we are going to engage in a war of assertion, I claim you are WRONG: increasing prices decreases sales. Any businessman with half a brain already charges as much as he can reasonably get for his products or services, and if he raises the prices FOR ANY REASON he knows he will reduce his profit, because he HAS half a brain and has already explored that route to increasing his income and it didn’t WORK.
Of course his costs are covered in his prices, but his income is not FIXED like a salary. It is what is left over, and he is boxed: He can’t increase prices without losing business. He also cannot decrease his costs; if he has half a brain he doesn’t have anybody to fire, because he long ago reduced his staff to just what he needs to service his employees without losing business, and his other costs are out of his control (except, perhaps for negotiation which he already should have done.)
Any business that has been around at least five years is ALREADY OPTIMIZED. There is virtually no leeway in prices, employee costs, supply costs or rents. Raise taxes and the cost is NOT passed on, the taxes are paid out of profits, the only thing the owner can reduce without losing business.
My assertion is: You don’t understand what you are talking about, you will just continue to parrot the talking heads hired by the rich, and continue to work diligently against your own self-interest, because you have forgotten how to actually understand anything for yourself.