Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Blue Dogs Strike A Pose-- A Republican One

>

There were a few good Republicans after him, but not really that many

I spent most of the summer in Indonesia and Thailand. In between scaling Mount Batur, white water rafting down the Mighty Ayung River, sleeping ten hours a day and going to a plantation with my friends who wanted to drink coffee made of mongoose poop, I inspired myself by reading Mike Lux's powerful new book The Progressive Revolution, the best and most thorough contrast I've ever seen explaining the difference between progressives and conservatives. I'm back in L.A. now and I see Democrats are in the midst of an internal struggle between it's better nature, progressivism and the Dark Side, conservatism.

It isn't as though conservatives, by nature the defenders of the status quo and of the wealthy and powerful, don't have adequate representation. It's called the Republican Party and soon after the demise of Abraham Lincoln it sold its progressive soul to the industrialist robber barons and southern racists and transformed itself into a bulwark against change. Among the changes conservatives have opposed-- usually hysterically, warning about the end of civilization and the family and religion, were:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

"Every single one of those reforms," explains Lux, "which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism."

Ken and I have been endeavoring to make sure DWT readers are aware that this is part of the historical context in which the battle over health care reform is being waged. Conservative warriors on the corporate payroll-- both Republican politicians like Jim DeMint, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, Richard Burr, Mike Pence, John Boehner, Miss McConnell, John McCain, Evan Bayh, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, etc and their media echo chamber (Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc)-- will stoop as low as they need to, regardless how much they damage the country or the fabric of society, to hold up progress. They always have. Remember, it was conservatives who predicted the end of the world if Jefferson was allowed to publish the Declaration of Independence, if the slaves were freed, if consumers were protected from businessmen selling poisonous meat, if the minimum wage were enacted, if labor unions were allowed to exist, if women were given the right to vote, if child labor were abolished, if Social Security were passed, etc. It never ends; it never will-- not even after the political right went on a rampage in the 30's, not content with destroying the world's economy, plunging the world into a global war of annihilation. And even in the midst of the pan-partisan conservatives' battle against expanding health care, they have a whole package of agenda items they are determined to shove down American's throats.

Earlier today, my friend Cliff Schecter, posted Blue Dogs, Birthers and Bullet Fetishes at the Huffington Post, which analyzes the uncomfortably narrow progressive victory over one of the latest right-wing distractions, John Thune's misguided legislation to override state laws trying to prevent criminals from carrying concealed weapons.
Thankfully, the NRA lost a gun battle for the first time in five years, but no thanks to squeamish Blue-Dog Democrats. Take Colorado Democratic Senators Udall and Bennet, for example. They waited to the end to vote, as if calculating which way to go right up until the vote, and then voted with the gun nuts. Interestingly, two Republicans from generally pro-gun states, Senators George Voinovich of Ohio and Dick Lugar of Indiana, didn't feel a need to cave to the Bonkers Wing of the GOP. Nor did Democrats from pro-gun states, like Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

In any case, a Columbine dad, a man who suffered what is a nightmare for all of us with children in school, decided to remind these two men [the 2 conservative Democrats from Colorado] about what is and is not leadership in today's Denver Post. It says everything that needs to be said on this issue, as well as a host of others.

Sadly, the biggest threat to rational legislating right now is not from Republicans, who are and should be irrelevant, but from Blue Dogs. These people need to be taught not to fear their big contributors, but We The People.

Blue Dogs in the House, the DLC in the Senate... Democrats who feed at the same corporate troughs as Republicans-- legally-protected bribery, guaranteeing that the status quo will pretty much remain unchallenged and that progressive ideas will rarely be enacted. Even with Lindsey Graham voting to support Sonia Sotomayor, two reactionary Democrats, Mark Begich and Ben Nelson have announced that they are undecided about confirmation. Makes perfect sense to me. It's a battle between progressives and conservatives, not really between the bought out Inside the Beltway political establishments and the careerists who use them as vehicles. Is there a way to solve this roadblock against democracy short of violence? Most experts think that there is one way and one way only: real campaign finance reform, the kind that gives ordinary American families a shot against the corrupting influence of Big Money.
It takes a lot of money to run a modern Senate or House campaign, and lawmakers now have to compromise themselves by personally pleading for contributions from big-money interests. Also, the massive amount of time members must devote to fundraising makes them less effective.

One way to get cleaner elections and better government is for Congress to adopt a Connecticut-style reform being pushed by Democratic U.S. Rep. John B. Larson of East Hartford and Rep. Walter Jones Jr., Republican of North Carolina. Senate sponsors are Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

A hearing on the "Fair Elections Now Act" will be held by the House Administration Committee today. We heartily support Mr. Larson's initiative.

The bill would create a voluntary program and would work like this: Participating candidates for the House and Senate would have to raise a large number of contributions, not to exceed $100 each, in order to qualify for public funding. Qualified House candidates would receive $900,000 in Fair Elections funding split 40 percent for the primary and 60 percent for the general election. Qualified Senate candidates would receive $1.25 million plus another $250,000 per congressional district in their states to take into account population differences. That funding, too, would be split 40-60. Qualified candidates would also be eligible to receive additional public funds if they continued to raise small donations from their home states.

The Senate campaign money would come from a small fee on government contractors, and the money for the House races from 10 percent of revenues generated through the auction of unused broadcast spectrum. The reform could cost between $700 million and $850 million a year, but it would remove much of the influence of special interests on elections. That's money well spent.

Labels: , , , , ,

4 Comments:

At 8:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you love the left so much why don't you go on down to Travis Childers seat and run as a liberal. You'll get clocked. The left is so out to lunch in this debate that they don't even see the politics of the moment. Conservative dems must look abrasive and "anti-washington" for them to stick around.

And news flash my friend. The massive majority that allows this health care reform bill a chance in hell of passing was BUILT BY ELECTING CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS IN REPUBLICAN SEATS!!!

We've been in the majority for all of 3 years and the left already wants to "cleanse" the party of the disloyal few. What a joke.

 
At 9:14 PM, Blogger Brittanicus said...

As our rights are infringed upon by our own government, Americans and those here legally will never benefit from a decent health care plan, owing to the abomination called ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. By an Act in United States Congress passed in 1986, Hospital and ambulance services must provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment in spite of citizenship, legal status or capacity to pay. The predicament being that 20 million plus illegal immigrant families are using this law, for even minor ailments such as the common cold. Why should foreign nationals sign up for health care or anything, when they can get Taxpayers to pay for it all..?
But this is not just an American dilemma, as it has been forcibly imposed on subjects of the European Union. This is causing a major derailment in the EU, because both legal and illegal entrants are stealing away the single payer medical care providers, to the citizens who have paid into the system from the time they first started work.

A decent controlled governmental health care benefit, can—NEVER--be established, when a startling report disclosed the details of a cloaked meeting between nationwide businesses and open-borders groups working under the radical cover of the IMMIGRATIONWORKSUSA a lobbying group. The secret Capitol Hill National Summit" took place last month and revealed the sinister intention behind the lobbying entities efforts.
Tamar Jacoby, who runs ImmigrationWorksUSA, kicked off the conference by stating the true aspiration of the coalition. The basic target is to promote THE FREE FLOW OF LABOR INTO THE USA, with—AS ALWAYS-- the taxpayer being the beneficiary for corporate welfare. They want expedited cheap labor, where no American worker—NEED APPLY!

WE MUST ACT NOW, OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE! These special interest lobbyists are well furnished with money from corporate America. We must empower mandated E-Verify as part of the Save Act, where everybody is screened in the workplace. Call your lawmaker TODAY! at 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system--even government run. BUT IT"S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?

Millions of phone calls from angry Americans are jamming the Washington Switchboards. It is making these pandering politicians to corporate welfare, very anxious. Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the monolithic problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block. WE MUST STOP IT NOW OF SUFFER FROM IRREVERSIBLE POPULATION GROWTH.

DEMAND NO AMNESTY! NO FAMILY UNIFICATION KNOWN AS CHAIN MIGRATION! BUILD THE ORIGINAL FENCE! NO MORE HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER KIND OF BENEFITS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. CLOSE THE BORDER AND STATION THE NATIONAL GUARD. $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, JUST IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS? Learn uncorrupted facts at NUMBERSUSA.

 
At 7:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the heads up about the book 'The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be by Michael Lux'

It will next in line on my reading list.

 
At 9:59 PM, Anonymous me said...

Where do all these right-wing loonies come from?

 

Post a Comment

<< Home