Too much Dem-Green acrimony: a thread for progressive common ground.

[Iverson]

Noting how the Daily Democrat threads work, I hope to follow in that spirit.

Disagreement is easy. Lashing out is easy. At some point, though, we have reasons that we call ourselves liberal or progressive. I think that many of us need reminders about those things on which we agree.

The challenge is to identify our common ground.

Since nothing is more subversive than a good example, here's a beginning. My common ground with nearly everyone else here is in the deep objection to consolidation of media ownership, especially since 1980, and a desire to see much of that damage undone, including a reinstatement of the "Fairness Doctrine."

Next?

[redqueen]

1. Common ground.... hmm.....

I think we can all unite behind a solid commitment to environmentally responsible policies. Watching Bush trash every single bit of progressive legislation protecting our environment (even REPUBLICAN legislation) ever passed has been reeeeally sickening.

Just want to point out, though, that your example, Iverson, is one that's shared not just by progressives. Many, many Republicans are also against raising the cap on media ownership, so... it seems we as Americans may have more in common than we're led to believe.

Actually, there was an article about that... can't remember who wrote it... Conason IIRC... anyway the author observed that the last time the parties were this divided was the Gilded Age.

Money... it's always about money... :shrug:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. controlling corporations is an issues plenty of Republicans will support

"the last time the parties were this divided was the Gilded Age"

Interesting, huh?


On edit: I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the Green party.

[PissedOffPollyana]

31. Paul Krugman wrote an excellent article

about our return to the gilded age. It was absolutely amazing. Forget how far back it was, sorry.

[welshTerrier2]

2. Nice Thread

Glad to join the cooperative spirit !!

It's taken a very long time and not all democrats seem to be on board yet, but i'm starting to hear the rumblings from mainstream democrats becoming fed up with corporate abuses and corporate give-aways ...

All government programs designed to help people are starving for resources ... we cannot continue to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq and continue to fail to adequately police multi-national corporations that buy most of our government and our institutions ...

Democrats and Greens may approach this issue with varying intensities, but the bottom line message is the same: corporate crime and big money in government are threatening our democracy ... if we don't pool all available resources NOW to combat this tyranny, discussions about greens vs. dems will be nothing but futile academic exercises ...

Both parties have a common enemy ... and those in either party who fail to recognize this are doing real damage to the causes most of us believe in ... speaking just for myself, I'm a "Green-o-crat" ...

[redqueen]

3. "Both parties have a common enemy "

Truer words were never spoken.

Unfortunately, it can be said that the American electorate, regardless of party affiliation, have a common enemy -- corporate takeover of government.

Many republican people I know were constantly incensed at what they perceived as the democrats being sell-outs. It's quite satisfying to observe their abrupt silence on all matters political since CEO Bush took the reins. :)

[morgan2]

14. both parties have a common enemy

but one of them is embracing that enemy with one hand while combating it with the other. The democratic party and its members have to refuse to support candidates that are embracing the "enemy" if they expect any cooperation.

[Iverson]

19. missed your note #17 at first

I did not begin this thread for simple recrimination. There are hundreds of places for that elsewhere. I hope you will offer something in a constructive spirit; that would be welcome.

on edit: I'm leaving the original message intact but edited the subject line. You see that I make mistakes all the time by reacting too soon. I am glad for your note #17 in the spirit invoked.

[morgan2]

23. didnt mean to be hostile

Just was stating my opinion. What I said in #17, I think is a great way the Democrats dont have to "move to the left" to get the support of the left. If someone had the balls to make this an issue in this campaign I think they could not only get the support of the far left, but the far right as well if sold correctly. Although I guess its pretty unlikely to happen seeing as the party leadership would lynch them.

[pansypoo53219]

4. no, america will not run to the greens if the dems fuck up again

BUT WE CANNOT,I REPEAT CANNOT, SURVIVE FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE CHIMP.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. I guess I don't get it

I am a registered Green. Have been since Clinton signed the welfare deform act. I have also been a Dean supporter since Kerry voted to give the idiot n chief a blank check for war. I have, at this point donated several hundred dollars to Deans campaign and will donate more when he becomes the nominee. I have seen countless threads here demeaning Dean, usually posted by someone who would prefer THEIR candidate to get the nod. I don't read them. My time is too valuable. I think there has been enough dissension in the ranks up to and including a call for greens to leave DU.
If the results of the S.F. mayoral election don't tell you that a large portion of the progressive vote is fed up with the DLC version of the democratic party, I don't know what will. Those of us who used to be Democrats will not put up with a Lieberman or Gephardt candidicy. We require more than that to recieve our vote.
Dean says enough of the things that I need to hear in order to support him, even though he is not a Green. I may be idealistic, but I'm not stupid. The man can win and I, and my family support him.
Moving on, I could vote for almost everyone who is running for the Dem nomination. Would I love to see Sharpton, Broun, Kucinich, in the top spot? Hell yes but they WILL NOT get elected! I am grateful that they are getting their voice heard but Dean is the man.
So, where is the problem?
I

[FredScuttle]

7. I'll gladly enter the hallowed common ground...

when you and the other Greens on threads regarding the SF mayoral election stop calling the elected Democratic candidate a Republican.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

26. Sorry, after re-reading my post

I cannot find an instance of calling the new mayor a repuke. Now Di-Fi, there is a repuke. Perhaps if you get off your acrimony and listen a little, you will see that we actually have some legitimate differences with the DLC version of the Democratic party. Pretending that these problems don't exist won't make them go away.

[Ardee]

8. Not being either Green or Democrat

I must state that I really and truly do not share your conviction that democrats and greens have much common ground to share these days, sorry.

Time and again I see democrats affirming Bush agendas, voting for his attacks on world peace, our civil rights et al ad nausea. I truly believe that all the Green and Nader bashing is being fomented by neoconservative democrats to keep the rank and file angered and that anger misdirected.

I realise and apologise for the post in opposition to your intended spirit of cooperation. I do believe that progressive dems and republicans have common ground with greens, really I do, but I simply do not see enough logic and reasoning among the many here who , in posting invective and diatribe against Nader and greens, simply fail to note that they are arguing against their own best interests.

edited to add:

The same sort of pattern was evident during the rise of the Green Party in Germany and England, acrimony and investive, name calling and general silliness. But now the Green Party is a growing force in European politics and so it will be here one day, and we all will be the better for it!

[KG]

9. well, your post is spot on.

when the loyalists meme is 'my party right or wrong', finding a common ground is going to be difficult if not impossible.

[sujan]

16. agreed

[Iverson]

10. good faith is welcome; more comments encouraged

It really isn't necessary to carry cross-thread ill will or to argue for one person or another here.

Surely there are reasons behind our preferences for thinking of ourselves as liberal, progressive, anarchist, socialist, radical, left, left-of-center, or whatever it might be.

Let's have more.

[snoochie]

11. Going out on a limb, here...

Can we all agree that war is wrong unless we're being attacked?

I remember running across some members here who said that wars to protect our access to natural resources were acceptable.

I'm in complete disagreement. I think war is something we've been conditioned to approve of, and I hope we can all work together to make it less necessary if not obsolete.

Anyway just my 2 cents.

[BurtWorm]

12. I'm one Democrat who supports total election reform

to better reflect the nuances of ideology in the electorate. I'd like to see the Green Party become strong and viable, to offer a true, less risky alternative to the Democratic Party in times of rampant wingerism, or to offer a coalition partner for the Dems at such times. But more important, I would like to remake the electoral system to work for the people who vote rather than the powers they vote for. I'd like public financing to be the rule. I'd like voting systems that allow people to choose several candidates they like, or to specifically reject candidates they don't like, to improve their chances of getting a representative who truly represents their views and interests.

[Iverson]

13. Thursday morning kick

;-)

[Padraig18]

15. OK.

I see election reform, environmental protection, race relations/civil rights, opposition to non-defensive war, opposition to NAFTA and global economic hegemony as common areas of agreement.

Good thread. :hi:

[morgan2]

17. What would be a perfect issue for cooperation

would be Instant Runoff Voting. If the Democratic nominee pledged to support this, I think most Greens would support him. This is the fundamental issue that needs to be delt with to bring some sense of fairness to our elections. That is probably the only thing most of these candidates could say to get my vote.

[jpgray]

18. We agree on almost everything

The problem is, once you agree, how do you DO something about those things which you agree upon? The system will not accept a progressive mindset in third party form--the total lack of any serious third party contenders in most national-stage races shows this. but also, those in the third party refuse to give in to the two-party, let's be corporatists way of doing things.

How do you resolve these differences? You tell the Dems to give up even on their progressive Democrats to promote the third party? You tell the Greens to suck it up and vote for even those Democrats they don't agree with in order to get the few progressive voices into a legislative majority of centrist Democrats? It's a hard proposition, and mostly people argue, and nothing gets done. We've had so many words, Gore to Nader, Nader to Gore, about who is doing the wrong thing and why htey are doing it. While we are having this little "family" debate, the Republicans are consolidating power. We may have some time before they learn to keep it or convert the opposition completely, but probably not much.

[Iverson]

21. reply

We may indeed agree on almost everything. However, a cursory glance at GD would create the opposite impression. Lately, discussants have been referring to each other in terms of trash, excrement, Bush, and all manner of insults. Under these conditions, we are not ready for a tactical conversation.

Witness the Clark-Dean hatefests. To my eye, that is just bizarre, but the people involved feel passionately about their preferences and deal with each other as they would their enemy.

I do not presume to know the grand unifying theory of the left. And you are correct to say that the right-wing continues to consolidate its power. With an eye toward confronting the bad guys, then, I just think that we can best proceed if we remind ourselves of the reasons why we think of ourselves as belonging to the left in the first place.

May I have your response on that?

[jpgray]

33. We're going to be forever frustrated by the nature of our system

Because necessarily anyone who seeks power is bound to be corrupt on some level. You get these very ambitious or blue-blooded individuals who are in it either for their own selves, or figureheads who shill for a group's outrageous profit margin--such is Bush, who makes the world safe for Defense interests and oil companies.

Neither is going to be acceptable to the far left. We have some good major candidates, but I will admit the top polling candidates fall into one of those two categories. Those like Kucinich will be on the fringe, while the varying degrees of shilling and egotist Dem will be in the spotlight. These top Democrats, however moderate and self-interested, would still be immeasurably better than Bush, and it would disrupt the steady near-fascist power consolidation.

So all I can see is uniting behind somebody that nobody is necessarily going to like uniting behind. Ideas on how to do that, anyone?

:)

[MadHound]

20. I'll chime in Iverson

This is one that the rank and file Dems and Greens are for, however the Dem leadership dislikes.

Public campaign financing, on a national, state, and local level. It is high time we got big business and big money out of government, and this proposal would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

But as I said, the Dem leadership is againgst this, which is one reason why a lot of us disgruntled Dems went Green.

[Polemonium]

22. Heaps of common ground

Strong environmental protections - certainly

Campaign finance reform, Health care for all of us, less poverty etc.

I personally have a growing need to have my voice in government, something like proportional representation.

Either way I'm a green and I'm working my but off for Dean.

not sure how long I can keep this optimism up better post....

[Q]

24. Of mice and men...

- I've always thought and have stated before that Greens are the conscience of the Democratic party. They had good cause to leave the party and it's the inability of many Democrats to see it that's causing the bad feelings.

- I prefer to stay with the party until the last possible moment...at least to see if they handle the 2004 election better than 2000. The 80s were bad for the party...but 2000 was a fiasco. I was ashamed of my party for not standing up against civil rights violations in Florida and other places. I still believe to this day that it was the DLC influence that kept the party from fighting the theft of the election.

- The 2004 election is important for many reasons. Bush* staying in the WH will mean more than just four more years of an ignorant chump...it will mean that America accepts the Bush* doctrine of 'preemptive' wars and corporate dominance. In other words: fascism.

- Sadly...too many Americans are kept ignorant by a corporate media...making 'informed consent' voting impossible. The rest of America is kept poor and struggle just to keep 'food on their family' and pay the rent or mortgage. This leaves it up to a small percentage of Americans to make the changes necessary for a return to some semblence of democracy.

- I'm convinced that the 'entire' Left will one day come together to fight what looks like the reincarnation of Hitler's Germany. Alas...it will probably take another four years of Bush* to make that happen.

[reachout]

25. Corporate Personhood

I guess I'm a "radical" because I like to address the root causes of problems. I think that a lot of the problems relating to corporate dominance in this country (especially in politics) can be traced to the entirely bizzare (to me) idea that corporations are persons and entitled to the full constitutional rights like equal protection.

There is actually an exploitable legal flaw in the corporate personhood case. It's a lot to go into, but I would highly recommend Thom Hartmann's book "Unequal Protection: the Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights".

I think that once reasonable people understand the kind of crypto-plutocracy that is created under this system, it has potential as a unifying issue. I believe it can even bring portions of the right into the fight.

[usregimechange]

27. I agree.

:kick:

[PVnRT]

28. Dem-Green acrimony?

Shit, there's so much acrimony amongst just Democrats that we've forgotten about the Greens (well, all except for the knee-jerk left-wing-haters).

As for the Fairness Doctrine, yes, that would be nice, but the Republicans will fight it tooth and nail. Despite all their protestations about the "liberal bias media," they know that, for the most part, the media is on their side. They want it to stay that way.

I would like to see a commitment made to education - pay teachers more, get more talented and intelligent people into the profession, if only for a few years, get better textbooks, and get rid of standardized testing. The focus needs to go back to teachers teaching and students learning rather than "accountability" and administrators and politicians looking for someone to blame.

[Iverson]

29. education is a fine example

Just as an aside, at the NCTE convention this year, there was an enlightening session devoted to deconstructing that scam called No Child Left Behind.

[Iverson]

30. is that everyone?

I didn't count closely, but it looks like between 15 and 20 different individuals have spoken up. Anyone else care to chime in?

:donut:

[PissedOffPollyana]

32. I'll bite! (well, only figuratively)

More great places for common ground are the safety of our food & environment, education, healthcare, economic stability beneath the upper 2% line. But it all comes back to corporatism/fascism, which is a result of lack of campaign reform and public financing. So, all of the issues tie to that big one and we need to make that connection clear to the public in no uncertain terms.

The thing we all need is to get the dirty money out of the system by 100% limited (but reasonable) public budgets. All broadcast license holders must, to retain their licenses, provide adequate time to individual candidates and debates. Let's work toward returning it to a real discussion where candidates must actually connect with people rather than bombard them with ads while making nice with the moneymen.

That is a plank I can really get excited about!