It’s time for a revolution: Bankrupt policies, historic losses call for new generation of leaders

[xchrom]

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/18/its_time_for_a_revolution_bankrupt_policies_historic_losses_call_for_new_generation_of_leaders/




As a wise man once said, never underestimate the capacity of an entire social order to commit suicide. The Democratic Party’s old order is doing it now. It may seem strange but make no mistake, the Democrats’ leaders are already unconscious. If they don’t wake up soon, they’ll go the way of the Whigs. If progressives don’t wake up now, they’ll go with them.

I’ve argued that progressive political movements died at the hands of their leaders; that their death is what caused the political collapse we errantly term “partisan gridlock”; that progressives need a timeout from electoral politics; and that both Democrats and progressives are best served by a return to a more arms-length relationship.

Progressives have long cohabited with Democrats. The relationship, while abusive, is hard for them to quit. Starting over is always scary, and building movements is hard even in good times, so the temptation is strong to keep on doing what they’re doing. Besides, how can you tell the Democrats are really dead? You can’t call in a coroner or poke them with a stick. It’s simple, really. All you have to do is look.

Life is change and these Democrats never change. It’s like watching “Groundhog Day” but without laughs, a love interest or a learning curve. Democrats in Congress ran the same race in 2014 they ran in 1994, lost badly, and then reelected all their leaders. Obama handled the budget this year the same way he does every year, with the same result. Hillary Clinton is poised to run the same awful race in 2016 she ran in 2008.

[99Forever]

1. Superb article.

Unfortunately, it will fall upon deaf ears.

[Scuba]

2. I once heard it said that "the reason for the Democratic Party ...

... is so that there's no alternative to the Republicans."


There seem to be two groups within our party ...

The more progressive bunch who make up the rank-and-file, and ....

The conservatives who have taken over party leadership.


If the progressives don't revolt against these Third Way conservatives we might as well just surrender.

[daleanime]

13. +1

[tridim]

3. Yes, and thankfully Obama is taking the lead and making this happen. nt

[Fred Sanders]

11. Making what happen? Did he make the GOP leadership all old also?

[tridim]

21. Progress.

He's one of the few that are walking the walk.

Sorry you and the OP can't see that. It's reality.

[bread_and_roses]

19. eh????????????????? (n/t)

[leveymg]

4. The best explanation I've seen of why the Party leadership fails us, again and again. Rec

The political system isn't just corrupted and broken, it actually performs exactly as it is designed to, without anyone involved being willing to admit that obvious fact.

[Cosmic Kitten]

26. without anyone involved being "willing" to admit...

Why admit to how the game is rigged?
That won't get anyone a cushy job
making a 6 figure salary!

<sarcasm thingy>

[pocoloco]

5. Fienstein would have completed that picture!!

[RiverLover]

6. I didn't know this about R Emanuel~

...It’s easier to milk middle-class resentment than meet middle-class needs, but the reason Democrats so rarely address the distribution of wealth, power or opportunity is that most of their leaders and all of their consultants are so tightly bound to corporate interests. When Emanuel was on Clinton’s campaign, he was being paid by Goldman Sachs. On leaving Clinton’s White House, he snatched up $16 million in a 30-month layover at another investment bank.

I question no one’s integrity. What Rahm did, everyone does, but isn’t that the problem? All top Democratic consultants make most of their money from big business. However principled or smart they may be, they reflect their clients’ views and apply lessons learned in their service. The inevitable result is a campaign like the one we just saw....

What a racket.

[wavesofeuphoria]

17. Total racket and needs wide and full disclosure ... Wish someone

would run on "transparency in the government" ... To expose this ugliness

[RiverLover]

18. Bwahahahaha! Good one.

[sabrina 1]

33. So Rahm was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs while working for Clinton. That explains a whole lot

about all that deregulation that happened during his administration.

A paid operative for the Big Wall St Banks working to help them set up the scenario that caused the Global Collapse while they profited from the people's suffering.

[Autumn]

7. This is fucking great. Wow

Rec

[jwirr]

8. How much does the senority system have to do with so many older leaders? It used to be that the

longer you are in congress the more power you have. That would certainly inhibit change.

[Paladin]

9. K&R

[CrispyQ]

10. Sent the article link to the DNC for all the good it will do.

It’s a lesson Democrats never learn: Elections turn more on how you govern than on how you campaign. In 2012, pundits wanted Obama to run, Harry Truman-like, against a do-nothing Congress. He couldn’t because Harry Reid ran a do-nothing Senate, blocking any vote he feared might embarrass his caucus. Democrats who never governed as populists ran as populists in 2014 and lost because running on policies you don’t support makes you look like a hypocrite, not a populist.

[daleanime]

14. +1

[winter is coming]

30. +1. And this is why some would really like to see Warren or Sanders run:

when they talk about the game being rigged, it's not just running-for-office rhetoric. We're going to see a lot of sympathy expressed for the middle class and the 99% in the run-up for 2016. Pay attention to past actions, not present sound bites.

[antigop]

12. no, dummies, we need to shut up, get in line, and support the Third Way.

[Octafish]

15. Names names. Take Steny Hoyer, please.

Dueling Democrats

No matter what happens election day, Democrats are in for a wild ride in 2007

By David Sirota

EXCERPT...

What will happen, for instance, when Chairman Miller pushes through legislation that outlaws the most vicious of Corporate America’s pension cutback schemes? Will people like Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)—who has bragged about starting his own K Street Project—lead the opposition? How about when Chairman Levin introduces a resolution demanding an exit strategy from Iraq? Will he face a battle not only with Republicans, but with Democrats backed by neoliberal, pro-war think tanks like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)? And what about when the Bush administration sends down its next corporate-written trade deal? Will Democrats have the unity to defeat it? The answer is that progressives will certainly have a decent chance of enacting their agenda—but not without bruising fights within the Democratic caucus.

SNIP...

http://inthesetimes.com/article/dueling_democrats

And to think some often wonder why we can't get the money out of politics.

[Enthusiast]

16. They got their's. Now they simply do not a fuck give.

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[Jesus Malverde]

24. Got it and spent it and NAFWG about passing on that debt to the next generations...nt

[polynomial]

20. The Democratic quantum suicide

Or the real title of the article should be “The nowhere man”.

It takes courage for the front line intellectuals in the mainstream media to out those who have been screwing up the system. Through the years it’s been more obvious to me the Bush and Cheney leadership was only profiteering in politics and should be condemned and banished.

It is disgusting while showing a dichotomy that distinguishes a culture so warped and poisoned in America we have advertisements on television that plead for money to help our veterans that have suffered in the last wars like Vietnam and Iraq.

Seems like we all are concluding those in the leadership do know what they are doing. They don’t even shoot from the hip anymore, heck they don’t even get the gun out of the holster, actually preserving the family fortunes and careers accumulated these past decades even at the expense of the electorate is becoming too, too obvious especially with our veterans…

One Irony is that those elected have a chance to become millionaires while at the same time the electorate has the same chance to slide into poverty. It is only a matter of time when the system will snap on its own no revolution necessary…do it yourself mainstream media managed screwed up culture in America will help it collapse.

We all know here on the DU blog the political lies that transpired in advertisements during the last election was way enormous enough to make any citizen ad nauseum searching for a new God. Good reason the numbers are growing to join Isis.

Its simple, get rid of the lies in news and politics and that money funneled to that end will disappear. Surprise Gomer they like that game because its easy money… this is an embarrassing boomer leadership and the media made it happen.

That being the real reason America is drifting off the economic cliff. Even the one percent could be in a panic realizing what is thought to be sustaining is not so.

Keeping their millions and billions or making more isn’t going to happen with sequesters or austerity, or shutting down the government, or go to war against a boogie man.

So we have the no where man chasing the boogie man…

[pa28]

22. After that pasting in November they are pretending to discover economic populism.

They aren't fooling anyone.

[Jesus Malverde]

23. DU Rec! - The locust generation

Came into it's prime under Reagan and our society still reflect that. Nurtured by daddy reagan they adopted sick anti-society, free market, deficit spending, debt loving ways.

Unfortunately they have occupied power for so long. They've selfishly refused to share and nurture a new generation of leaders.

We're going to have to wait for nature to take it's course and only then will other generations get the chance to learn those roles.

It's the same in politics, academia and maybe a little less so in business.

[marmar]

25. C'est vrai.

[Cosmic Kitten]

27. K&R

[fadedrose]

28. I posted link for this in another group

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1277

[bemildred]

29. Word. nt

[Oilwellian]

31. Pelosi & Reid think it's all about them

One problem is the Gollum-like self-absorption that comes with wearing the ring of power too long. Asked by a reporter about stepping down, Pelosi snapped that no one asked McConnell to quit when he lost, then whined that when she became speaker Time magazine failed to put her face on its cover. Weeks later, Reid rose in the Senate to whimper self-pityingly that he hadn’t been home much lately.

[MisterP]

32. but if we stop blaming the voters we'll have to change leaders, and then we might win!

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT'LL COST US?!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

34. Being "Not as Bad" is past it's expiration date and needs to be taken off the shelf.