the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

Anyone read Barney Frank's, er, frank interview from a couple days ago? He addresses specifically the work that feeds grass roots movements.

A:I believe very strongly that people on the left are too prone to do things that are emotionally satisfying and not politically useful. I have a rule, and it’s true of Occupy, it’s true of the gay-rights movement: If you care deeply about a cause, and you are engaged in an activity on behalf of that cause that is great fun and makes you feel good and warm and enthusiastic, you’re probably not helping, because you’re out there with your friends, and political work is much tougher and harder. And I think it’s now clear that it is the disciplined political work that we’ve been able to do that’s won us victories. I am going to write about the history of the LGBT movement partly to make the point that, in America at least, this is the way you do progressive causes.

Q: So if you look at something like Pride Weekend—

A:Pride Weekend was very important early on because people didn’t know who we were. The hiddenness was a problem. Today, pride has no political role. It’s a fun thing for people.

I'm happy that OWS hasn't aligned itself with the Dems. If it really works, the Dems will have to come to them, which gives them much more power.

yes agreed but it does need to corral a few political supporters. We need the equivalent of a Jon Corzine proselytizing for it.

the problem with bringing up Debs is that the entrenched political/corporate forces have had almost a century to consolidate their power in such a way that I'm not sure that would happen again anytime soon.

Ideally, OWS would be the Dem Tea Party.

haha, HOOS to thread.

Barney Frank wants everything to the left of Santorum allied w/ the Democrats, no surprise.

I am guessing that "Become a political party" is waaaay down the list of OWS's plans.

We need the equivalent of a Jon Corzine proselytizing for it.

Man, I hope youre talking about fortune and not political skills.

libs tend to be more practical

Okay, now I feel old.

actually my mistake: I meant DeMint.

Anyone starting a Dem Tea Party should probably take the opportunity to read a few dozen books about the Civil Rights movement first - Tea Party as far as I can tell has gotten this far because it is the first bare-feet revolutionary thing to happen to the Republicans in a long time.

If, as an American, you're depressed about the way your party is tending, the Tea Party provide a great example of how best to deal with it.

this is a weird thing to say. The Tea Party has accomplished nothing to speak of legislatively, and is essentially crippling the national electoral chances of the GOP as a whole.

also get a weird or disingenuous vibe from Frank that everybody active in OWS is "having great fun" by sleeping w/ rats, getting clubbed and pepper-sprayed, etc.

what fun!

OWS + grassroots work is more important/significant than voting imho so good on Morbz and Aero (and anybody else I may have forgotten)

my main issue with OWS is they've largely already lost the PR battle and are now scuffling at the margins. May have missed the window of opportunity to gain the sympathies of the larger electorate and impact party platforms.

I didn't care for the remark either. The more interesting stuff I didn't paste.

this is a weird thing to say. The Tea Party has accomplished nothing to speak of legislatively, and is essentially crippling the national electoral chances of the GOP as a whole.

i'd say they accomplished a good deal on a state level (ahem, wisconsin), and the fact that they ran aground is, to my mind, a product of the fact that they were successful in advancing critically flawed policies and philosophies. organizational model is still a good one.

How scared of OWS is the DNC?

Frank's comments about OWS are obviously fairly self-serving there. shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

xp

How scared of OWS is the DNC?

not at all, because they aren't running primary challengers.

May have missed the window of opportunity to gain the sympathies of the larger electorate and impact party platforms.

i almost think they actively shunned any change to matter on that level, like the compromises involved would have been anathema

Partisans only talking to fellow partisans is a great way to build a base and lose in generals every time.

the only reason the GOP has pivoted to pander to the Tea Party types is because they successfully unseated GOPers with their own nominees.

xp

yeah I think that's definitely what happened contenderizer

Trotskyites vs Leninists vs Stalinists... *yawn*

OWS + grassroots work is more important/significant than voting

This whole "activism VS voting" thing reminds me of Gore explaining away his air-conditioned mansion by saying he makes up his carbon footprint in other ways.

not an either/or proposition but one has more direct results than the other

so what?

so buttons

my main issue with OWS is they've largely already lost the PR battle and are now scuffling at the margins

Spring and summer will tell the tale.

You know what the Tea Party has accomplished? With their batshit worldview and 'critique' of the Administration, they make 'mainstream' Dems snarl at any left-leaners' failure to defend Obama against both imagined and real faults.

dunno if you can blame the Tea Party for that. GOP has always been the bogeyman, whether it was Dubya or the Contract With America or the Tea Party

Tea Party's biggest influence has been on the media imo. Fox has something to use as a rallying cry, MSNBC has an object of hatred, etc...

They did incredibly well across state elections, as has been said, and reasonably so in the midterms. Those are the types of elections that the general populous doesn't really turn out for, though, which is why I'm interested to see how they do in November and in 2014, when people might have realized just how shitty things have become under them in various states.

If such a huge swathe of the Republican Party didn't believe that Obama is genuinely destroying this country's very soul (i.e. if there was a white Democrat in office) I think the party would be much more broken than it currently is. I imagine the same might happen with a Dem equivalent because we "true" liberals are still a minority.

We need the equivalent of a Jon Corzine proselytizing for it.

ewww ... i know what you meant, Alfred, but i'm still ewwwwww at the mention of that flaming sack of diarrhea's name.

and not to step outta line re OWS (since i have no involvement with them and i obviously defer to anyone that does), but my prob ignorant opinion is that the best thing for them is to remain aloof of the Democratic Party (at least in its current state). if Obama et al had been even a third of what they led folks to think they'd be, there'd be no OWS to begin w/ (and his "change we can believe in" 2008 campaign bullshit is responsible for folks not getting organized even earlier).

whether it was Dubya or the Contract With America or the Tea Party

The TP is a new level of bete noires for the Dem rank and file.

^^^alzheimer's setting already?

setting IN

like really you don't remember the garment-rending/teeth-gnashing despair of the Dubya years? remarkable.

yep and I still think it's more rabid now

also, the wingnuts also believed that Bill Clinton was genuinely destroying the country's very soul. Teabag-style hysteria is nothing new (only the Tea Party/Teabag nomenclature is new).

^^^

they impeached Clinton for chrissakes

the problem with developing a "Dem Tea Party" is that libs seem much more chained-for-life to the party than the righty nuts are to "theirs.".

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't see any evidence of this at all. The right-wingers were all too happy to rally around McCain. Sure maybe some of them were into Perot, but Perot was more likely to get the support of independent-esque libertarians than righty nuts. This is actually one of the GOP's greatest strengths-- getting the base to rally around a lame Presidential candidate. It's the independents that they have to worry about.

the prob with developng a dem tea party is that the far left-wing is a marginal demographic in america. including in nyc. in a lot of ways the carnival atmosphere of zuccotti park helped mask the fact that, outside of one or two large rallies which were boosted by union turnout - there weren't that many people. I was there every day for weeks on end. there weren't that many people.

it has nothing to do with the party system.

which is why it's a PR battle. OWS needs converts.

the PR battle won a few fronts -- lookit at how The One Percent entered discourse. Even the GOP had to appropriate it.

they impeached Clinton for chrissakes

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:59 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as i remember it, there wasn't anywhere near as much foaming "they're destroying america!!!" panic w clinton than there has been with obama. clinton got impeached, sure, but there was a grinning, gameplayer's distance about the whole thing.

and i honestly think that dems were more freaked out by bush jr than they are by the tea party

"...as there has been with obama."

there wasn't anywhere near as much foaming "they're destroying america!!!" panic w clinton than there has been with obama

well, Bubba is white. So yeah that removes a significant portion of the type of shit levelled at Obama. But there was still plenty of hysteria - Hillary killed Vince Foster! Socialized medicine! Travelgate!

Ron Brown RIP

the far left-wing is a marginal demographic in america

I'm not talking about FAR LEFTISTS, but 1933-1975-vintage mainstream liberal Democrats. Who are now batshit-crazily labeled far leftists.

yeah well that war was lost

well I meant it in a relative sense. I don't think their label really matters. in places where solid left-wing democrats can win elections, they do win elections! there just aren't that many of those places.