Over the past week, I've been getting a huge amount of pushback in the comments. In this most recent post where I highlighted Howard Fineman and Obama/Daschle insiders and their notion that Tom Daschle has no enemies and is widely loved in the Democratic Party, I titled my post 'Can someone start an enemies list already?' It was a caustic joke that some of you got and some of you didn't. I should have been clearer.
The point was not to start an enemies list, but to make the observation that the DC consensus is oriented around corporate friendly political figures. People like Daschle, who encourage their staffers go into corporate lobbying and do it themselves, are seriously problematic. These are the Democrats that consistently screw progressive values, that encourage bad messaging, that create the funding problems that starve progressives. Frequently, as demonstrated by the Imus flap, they inhabit a world of white male boomer journalist/pundits who are reflexively defensive of racism and misogyny as long as it's 'in the club'.
These are the people who lose us campaigns. Tom Daschle, though he's not responsible for the Kerry campaign, presided over the loss of the Senate in 2002, and the right-wing turn in 2004. Prior to that, he negotiated the massive Bush tax cuts in 2001 and strongly supported the war. The notion that this guy has no enemies and is a key force in the Obama campaign, a campaign that is apparently based on an antiwar frame, is and should be nauseating to progressive activists. It should be especially nauseating to progressives working in the Obama campaign (as I know it is).
Each of us has a little power, and how we use it matters. Every time we give in to that cynical voice, that voice that says we should ignore the open and flagrant corruption in front of us, we are acting immorally. Every comment, every blog post, every conversation, every vote, every piece of legislation. Every donation. Every single action. I work extremely hard at this because it's my passion, but also because I am horrified and outraged at the moral violence we permit as Democrats and as Americans to people in this country and around the world. We are complicit in how our country behaves. Each one of us. And I think, at some level, that is why each of us is on the blogs, whether you agree with my rhetorical style or not. In our own way, we want to change the country to be more progressive.
I'd like to explain a bit about my approach towards politics with the goal of helping all of us understand some of the arguments going on with this site. There are different ways of diagnosing the sickness befalling America at this point. Maybe Bush is the problem. Maybe the Republicans in general are the problem. Perhaps it's the media, which lies to us. Or maybe it's the DLC, which infects our world with bad data and arguments. Perhaps it's the corporate elite, which doesn't hold its own accountable. There are any number of explanations, most of which I've subscribed to over the past few years. When I watched what happened in the Kerry campaign, how the Alito fight went down, and various insider processes in the Democratic Party, I began to wake up to what I think is a fundamental truth about America, indeed any liberal democracy.
The sickness of America belongs to every citizen of America. Every time we walk by a homeless person, or let a child go hungry, or allow an invasion of a country which causes the deaths of millions, it's our problem. We let it happen. That's what it means to be an American. We get the right to participate, but we must also take responsibility for what the polity does. This is true for other institutions as well, such as the Democratic Party. As a Democrat, I am represented by our nominee in 2008, whether I like it or not. What Senator Clinton does in that role is my responsibility, not just hers. That's what it means to be a Democrat and a citizen. You can't divorce yourself from your country or your party, and pretend that the problems we cause or let happen somehow don't belong to each of us as individuals.
This is how I see patriotism, but the consequence is very personal. I take the failures of Democratic leaders as personal failures. When they do the right thing, I take personal pride in their actions. That's what patriotic citizenship means to me; it means taking responsibility for what America does in all its aspects, while enjoying the privilege of having some incredibly tiny amount of control in affecting that outcome.
There are several consequences of this framework. One is that I don't particularly value 'niceness' in discourse. When I have reflexively defended politicians because they have a D after their name while ignoring the evidence, I believe I have acted immorally and irresponsibly. That isn't 'nice'. It's not comfortable. It isn't persuasive in a sugar-coated happy-talk kind of way, which is all we're used to hearing in our politics at this point. And believe me, I don't like causing discomfort.
Here's the reality that flows from this concept of citizenship, which could be considered 'self-righteousness'. I believe that millions of people are dead because we as a party and as a movement weren't strong enough to stop Bush, and millions more will die because we are willing to tolerate open dishonesty from our candidates and our elites, and pretend like Tom Daschle's genial manner should be the key point of judgment. I hold myself accountable for this, both because of my overall analytical framework but also because on a practical level I have been duped by insiders and regretted it. Every single time I have trusted insiders against my better judgment I have been embarrassed or ripped off. Every single time. Every single time I have spoken out when I saw wrongs it was the right thing to do, both morally and practically.
I consider it immoral to let the charade of dishonesty that pervades our insider culture to continue. I have cut these people slack and regretted it because I became more complicit than I already am. After watching and engaging in the last few years of politics, I no longer feel the need to prove that DC politicians and insiders ought to be treated skeptically. This isn't to say that I'm reflexively anti-Democrat, just that Democratic leaders should prove themselves. Speaker Pelosi has done this. Russ Feingold has done this as well. Schumer and Obama have done this in some ways, but not others. TV is a very powerful enemy in this regard, in that it venerates the powerful and constantly impresses upon us fictions and myths about America. One of these myths is that discomfort is a bad thing, another one is that it is the duty of Americans to support their country and its leadership in all its actions. I don't believe these myths anymore. For me, discomfort in the pursuit of justice is a small price to pay, and dissent isn't just patriotic, it's practical.
We are told, as Americans, that we ought to stop believing our lying eyes. We are encouraged to consider people like Daschle our allies, simply because of his privileged place in the political system, and overlook the genuinely immoral activity of his, which is about selling access. We are encouraged to wallow in the fat of the 1990s, and forget about how Clinton (and Carter) sold out the working class with NAFTA, and how we let him. The messages encouraging us to defend these actions and forget about the larger overall picture are strong, very strong, because the interests behind them are wealthy and powerful beyond belief. These interests create suburbs to buffer us from realities we'd rather not see, and pleasing images on TV to create a cocoon of geniality. They produce large amounts of legal drugs while telling us drugs are bad when bad people take them. They justify murder and secrecy with the incoherent notion of 'national security'.
We must resist these interests, because that's what a realignment in politics really means. It means that entirely new possibilities open up, not in an idealistic sense, but in a very practical sense. As activists who believe not only that America is sick, but that American can be cured through our own personal involvement, it is our duty to resist the siren call of corruption. As activists, as citizens, we must recognize that if we do not act, if we refuse to believe our lying eyes, then America will not be cured, and as we are citizens, that is on our shoulders as moral beings. We can change the world and America if we want to. In fact, as Wes Clark said, we can do it because we are doing.
So that's where I come from, and that's why I use the rhetoric I do. I hope that clears things up. And now I'm going to take a break from MyDD for a few days so I can think about your criticisms some more.
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