"There has always been a waxing and waning in the balance of power in America"

[madfloridian]

I saw this reading recommendation today at Working Assets, and it reminded me of some words that are very appropriate for today.

A Quick Pre-Kos Book Recommendation

Here is something from that book that describes today's situation so well. Though there is a lot of straight talk and few holds are barred in this book...in the end it gives hope.

There has always been a waxing and waning in the balance of power in America between ordinary people and the wealthy and well connected. Our founding fathers saw it coming and warned against letting the power of wealth outweigh the power of the ballot box. Teddy Roosevelt warned, too: "Every special interest is entitled to justice full, fair and complete....but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench or to representation in any public office."

In the past, times of excessive corporate ascendancy were followed by times of correction. FDR's New Deal so radically changed American society that it remained stable and protective of the middle class for half a century. But as the twenty-first century dawned, and the Republicans grew more extreme and the Democrats grew more impotent, and our new Gilded Age ripened and began to grow rotten, no such correction seemed to be in sight

The Democratic Party, just like the Republicans, emerged from the 1990's pretty much the captive of big-time money interests.......The Democrats in the 1990s supported telecome policies that failed to protect consumers and that accelerated the concentration of media power in corporate hands....

Sounds grim, but the book's title says it all. "You Have the Power".

I have been criticized here for getting upset with those who single out some of the Democrats who really are working for us in Congress. They need our support, they have been out of power long enough to lose the fighting spirit...and many, like many of us here, did not really understand who was controlling the message. Trust me, many good Democrats did not really understand. Then Iraq happened.

We need to fight, and to get Congress to fight. But I am among those who think targeting the right people makes the difference.

A group here is trying to push a third party scenario. The author of this book thought about that as well. He decided it would be too bloody. From the 2005 preface:

He speaks of traveling the country as DFA chairman, and what he saw happening.

These victories weren't being organized from our headquarters in Burlington. They were happening because activists and organizers wanted to change the Democratic Party -- and then use the Democratic Party to change politics in America. In many ways, the movement wasn't ideological so much as it was practical. These people were trying to move the Democratic Party back to the organizational model that had worked for us in the past, but that we had abandoned in the era of soft money.

As I watched what was happening in state party after state party, I realized there was no way I could indulge thoughts of leading a third party when the people whose ideas I trusted and whose energy I relied on were working within the system to strengthen the Democratic Party. If these activists were really bringing about change in the Democratic Party from the grass roots up, it might just be possible for me to help them by working to change the party from the top down.

And a little more from the Working Assets blog:

Dean's political memoir-slash-handbook for saving democracy was published a mere six weeks before election 2004, at a time no one would have predicted he'd ever be DNC Chairman, much less within less than a year. All of which makes Dean's book somewhat of an oddity, historically speaking - it's hard to think of another book written by a future major party chairman where the author so explicitly outlines their view of how the party should function at a time they had no expectations to be personally forced to deliver on such reforms. As such, we have a unique opportunity to judge Dean's behavior as DNC Chairman; we can use the criteria of successful party leadership he employed back when he was merely opining on what he might do if he magically had the position. As we approach the first Yearly Kos more than halfway through Dean's term as Chairman, it certainly helps us take inventory of that leadership.

The pendulum may not swing so easily this time, he once said. He is right, we are in dangerous moments now.

History won't correct itself so easily

[Lint Head]

1. Civics 101. Swing to the right. Swing to the left.

When the people tire of the status quo the political winds change. But sometimes mankind swings into a dark abyss when people become complacent and comfortable and accepting of the hand that feeds you. The Crusades is an example. The days before enlightenment.
We can slip into the abyss again in this technological age because it can give control a the corporate fascist mindset.
We options we have to consume with our minds and our stomachs are already controlled. Corporate fascism limits our choices.
We should already have environmental solutions. Art should have progressed but seems to have slipped into rut of pablum.

[AndyTiedye]

2. There Is Something Wrong with the Pedulum

[madfloridian]

3. Yes, there is.

Indeed.

[tom_paine]

9. "The pendulum cannot swing back if the clock is broken"

Thanks, Andy, for that wonderful illustration of something I have been saying since I first came to DU in April 2001.

[Cha]

12. Or in this case..

"The Hand that kills you."

[lurky]

4. Yes, but...

Throughout history, the powerful have often resorted to "extra-democratic" means to prevent the inevitable swing-back. I believe that we are witnessing this now: The elites fully understand that three decades of tax cuts, corporate giveaways, and divestment from America will have consequences. Now the people want health care, they want their jobs back from China and India, and they are starting to get restless. I doubt the R's will declare an outright dictatorship, however. More likely, they will try to establish a faux-democratic system, like the one Putin is constructing in Russia, or like Mexico under the PRI -- where the party of the elites ruled corruptly for 70+ years. When Rove spoke of his "permanent majority", this is what I think he meant.

The problem is, once one of these governments is entrenched, and has control over the media, the security services, and the military, it's damn difficult to get rid of it. That's why I think we have to be damn vigilant about preventing this from happening here.

Just my $.02

[madfloridian]

5. If you read all of the OP, we are saying basically the same thing.

.

[lurky]

6. Cool.

n/t

[madfloridian]

7. True and sad from the link at the end of the OP.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/...

"Dean: "If you want your country back, you have to take it back." Pendulum won't swing easily.

From "You Have the Power", released September this year. Page 186-187

SNIP..."If you want your country back, you have to take it back. Believe me, the right-wingers aren't going to be nice about giving it back."

"We have a tendency to believe that history corrects itself---that if the political pendulum swings too far in any one direction, it will sooner or later swing back......thanks to the basic solidity of our institutions and the commonsense decency of our people."

"There's some historical truth to that, but it's not going to happen now simply because it's a historical trend......it will happen if people like you use their power--the power they have in themselves and the power they have in being part of a community--to make change."

And he mentions the danger to the judicial system if Bush won:
"we will not see anything vaguely resembling positive change or Democratic restoration for the foreseeable future."

And the saddest part:
"For at least another generation, we will not see anything resembling the America that so many of us know, and love, and miss."

[Cha]

13. They certainly are counting on

the complacency of the American people but even brutal dickheadtators can't predict everything. Sure, they have the corporatemediawhores doing their bidding but we have the internet now to organize which I'm also sure they're trying to get their greedy, foaming teeth into.. I don't see the majority rolling over on this.

Maybe if all I had to go by was the town I live in but I've been on DU and other Democratic sites and I've passion and the determination that's not going away.

And we have people like Dean who better watch their backs!

You're right.."ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY!"

[demoleft]

8. "Empowering ordinary Americans" (H.Dean)

Still the best claim I've ever heard for a manifesto of the democrats.
(Shares 1st position with "I have a dream" by MLK)

...where "ordinary" has the flavour we don't taste when thinking about financial Lobbies.

(The quote is from the MotherJones interview about the internet, 2007. Here for those who missed it: http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/07/howard_dea... )


Ciao! K&R&whatever needed to back Dean!

[madfloridian]

10. I especially liked these quotes from the interview...

"MJ: Do you think there's anything unique to the Democratic Party that gives it an advantage over the Republican Party on the web?

HD: Yes. The nature of Democrats has been more decentralized, more reliant on individuals to make their own decisions in their lives, much less top down. It's almost impossible to run a top-down model and succeed in the Democratic Party. The Net allows this enormous synthesis to go on at the grassroots level before it ever even gets to the party level. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of people in netroots are not right wingers. For right wingers it's all about top down: "Listen to me; here's the line of the day, and here's what you have to believe in order to be admitted to the club."

MJ: If there's a revolution in politics online, what part of the political establishment will be toppled and what part will still be kingmakers?

HD: The kingmakers will be people with powerful messages who treat people with respect, because the netroots are incredibly sensitive to people who are phonies and are just out there to manipulate. And frankly, politicians have tried it, and it hasn't worked for them. The people who are going to disappear are the people who think you can manipulate public opinion. That's why the Republicans are falling on their face right now. Because their own MO is to manipulate public opinion by rephrasing things in delicate ways and not be truthful about what's really going on. It's going to be almost impossible to make public statements that are not true and not have it eaten apart in 24 hours."

[Cha]

11. Recommended Dear

Mad! This is great..we DO HAVE THE POWER if we'll just use it.

We know how prescient "our fiesty little bastid" has been. How fortunate that he fought his way his into the DNC chairmanship..

My tee shirt is still right

[FogerRox]

14. I have the power, Mad, you have the power. KNR

[madfloridian]

15. And so do we both.

[puebloknot]

16. There are other factors in play today which did not exist in the past.

During World Wars I and II, the citizenry rightfully feared the world was coming to an end. But the wars ended and "normal" life resumed.

Today, we have issues of global warming, peak oil, insane national debt, and nuclear proliferation which make our situation unique and much more urgent than it has been in our history. Time is of the essence of the contract the Dems entered into with We the People when they took their oath of office after November 2006. "The way things are done on the Hill" must yield to the reality of our current nightmare, if we are to survive as a country -- not to mention the impact on the whole planet.

Dems who have lost their fighting spirit, or who didn't understand who was controlling the message, are pathetic excuses for leaders. Any citizen with two neurons firing could see through a stolen election in 2000, and the lies preceding Iraq. And Iraq didn't just "happen"! The Democrats voted in their numbers to enable that illegal pursuit.

I, for one, have major ambivalence about the question of a third party, versus continuing support for the Dems. I'm a registered Dem, but an Independent in spirit because I believe it is immoral to vote for the lesser evil, just as I believe it is the height of immorality for the Dems to play political chess with an eye to finessing their way to victory in 2008, while the country goes to rack and to ruin over their failure to pull themselves out of the doldrums and take action in support of their own country, and the one they are bequeathing to their own progeny. America is dying while we wait for the Democrats to find themselves in a cold, cruel world. They need to take a lesson from the Brits during the Blitz. Our *understanding* their existential angst will cost us our freedom, and for some citizens, our troops in Iraq, is literally costing them their lives and making a wasteland of our personal and national hope.

The third party which arises may be the party of despair and unwillingness to be played for a fool once again, the party of inability to engage in lies and personal compromise at the ballot box. That, of course, is assuming there will actually be an election in 2008. Further, whether an election will be an open and honest one, should it occur.

We, as a nation, with our elected leaders, are at the point the alcoholic experiences when he walks into the first AA meeting and says, publicly: "My name is John Doe, and I am an alcoholic"! He can say, further, that he has lost his fighting spirit, that he was not aware of what he was doing when he took the first drink, but his survival will depend on his facing his demons and putting a halt to his destructive behavior. We enable the Dem leadership when we give them a pass for failure to bring *anything* they are doing to ground. Their "I didn't understand" is tantamount to Alberto Gonzalez' "I don't recall."

Reid, Pelosi, et al. are still politicking while America "burns." Pelosi is dining at the White House with a criminal she should be working to evict from the People's House. An intervention is desperately needed. We are in the throes now of a *waning* we may not survive as a nation, as individuals.

Let the impeachments begin!