Friday, December 10, 2004
Don't Go Away Mad, Just Go Away
My e-mail inbox is a continuing horror. If I go away for a couple of days, I come back to 40 or 50 messages, most of them newsletters from one place or another, and many of them containing stuff that is blogworthy. This morning I decided to turn to that stuff first--if only to make way for the next blizzard of stuff awaiting me in the next couple of days.
First up: You may have seen news articles about MoveOn.org's latest letter to its membership sent yesterday--a strongly worded criticism of corporate-beholden, centrist Democrats that essentially boils down to "MoveOn to Democratic Leadership Council: Drop Dead." The full text of these letters is never posted on MoveOn's website, so I'll excerpt the latest one here.
Along the same lines, David Sirota of the Center for American Progress is out with seven suggestions for Democrats who want to compete in and reclaim areas thought to be resolutely red. It's sparked a reaction from centrists whose natural impulse is to run screaming from anything like economic populism--which is all the more reason to believe Sirota is on to something. Kevin at Lean Left analyzes the controversy pretty well here.
Also in my e-mail is a forward from a friend about "Not One Damn Dime Day," which suggests a 24-hour national boycott of all consumer spending on Inauguration Day, January 20, "to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people." While I admire the sentiment, I think the effort is meaningless. As a practical matter, it's damn near impossible to participate fully. You're spending money every day even if it doesn't flow directly through your hands--on electricity, on Internet access, as you use the gas you put in the car last week. As an act of protest, "Not One Damn Dime Day" is likely to make an economic dent practically nowhere--except at a few campus-area coffeehouses in places like Madison, Iowa City, Austin, and Ann Arbor, where they already know about our moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people. Anybody serious about putting this type of economic pressure on Red America--which is where it needs to be put--would better spend their time concentrating on avoiding the companies listed at Choose The Blue and doing it 365 days a year.
And finally, one more thing, which has been clogging up my inbox for the better part of a week. With the Bush Administration declaring support for the public display of the Ten Commandments, it's worth noting again--because fundies never do--that there is more than one version of the Ten Commandments. Take, for example, this Wisconsin version:
My e-mail inbox is a continuing horror. If I go away for a couple of days, I come back to 40 or 50 messages, most of them newsletters from one place or another, and many of them containing stuff that is blogworthy. This morning I decided to turn to that stuff first--if only to make way for the next blizzard of stuff awaiting me in the next couple of days.
First up: You may have seen news articles about MoveOn.org's latest letter to its membership sent yesterday--a strongly worded criticism of corporate-beholden, centrist Democrats that essentially boils down to "MoveOn to Democratic Leadership Council: Drop Dead." The full text of these letters is never posted on MoveOn's website, so I'll excerpt the latest one here.
For years, the [Democratic] Party has been lead by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base. But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers. In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back. . . .MoveOn then offers members a way to get in touch with state Democratic leaders who will meet this weekend to begin the process of selecting a new chairman of the Democratic National Committee. A lot of the reporters writing about this story still seem to think of MoveOn as some kind of weird, fringe-type political aberration, a sort of electronic juice-bar for Deaniacs to hang out in. We'll know pretty soon if the Democratic establishment shares that view.
MoveOn includes Republicans, Greens, and independents. But all of us who are struggling for health care, clean air, decent jobs, and a sane foreign policy can agree on one thing: we're better off with a vibrant, populist Democratic Party that's strong enough to challenge the extreme-right Republican leadership.
Why haven't we had one? Under outgoing DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, the Party cozied up to many of the same corporate donors that fund the Republicans--drug companies, HMO's, media conglomerates, big banks, polluting industries. The result was watered down, play-it-safe politics that kept the money flowing but alienated traditional Democrats as well as reform-minded independents in search of vision and integrity. And so the Party lost ground.
But in 2004, something incredible happened: hundreds of thousands of small contributors gave millions and millions of dollars and changed the way politics works forever. New we have an opportunity to birth a new Democratic Party--a Party of the people that's funded by the people and that fights for the people.
Along the same lines, David Sirota of the Center for American Progress is out with seven suggestions for Democrats who want to compete in and reclaim areas thought to be resolutely red. It's sparked a reaction from centrists whose natural impulse is to run screaming from anything like economic populism--which is all the more reason to believe Sirota is on to something. Kevin at Lean Left analyzes the controversy pretty well here.
Also in my e-mail is a forward from a friend about "Not One Damn Dime Day," which suggests a 24-hour national boycott of all consumer spending on Inauguration Day, January 20, "to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people." While I admire the sentiment, I think the effort is meaningless. As a practical matter, it's damn near impossible to participate fully. You're spending money every day even if it doesn't flow directly through your hands--on electricity, on Internet access, as you use the gas you put in the car last week. As an act of protest, "Not One Damn Dime Day" is likely to make an economic dent practically nowhere--except at a few campus-area coffeehouses in places like Madison, Iowa City, Austin, and Ann Arbor, where they already know about our moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people. Anybody serious about putting this type of economic pressure on Red America--which is where it needs to be put--would better spend their time concentrating on avoiding the companies listed at Choose The Blue and doing it 365 days a year.
And finally, one more thing, which has been clogging up my inbox for the better part of a week. With the Bush Administration declaring support for the public display of the Ten Commandments, it's worth noting again--because fundies never do--that there is more than one version of the Ten Commandments. Take, for example, this Wisconsin version:
1. Der's only one God, ya know.Some good advice dere, ya der hey, whether ya believe dey came down from da mountain wit' Moses, r'not.
2. Don't make that fish on your mantle an idol.
3. Cussing ain't Wisconsin nice.
4. Go to church even when you're up nort'.
5. Honor your folks.
6. Don't kill. Catch and release.
7. There is only one Lena for every Ole. No cheatin'.
8. If it ain't your lutefisk, don't take it.
9. Don't be braggin' about how much snow ya shoveled.
10. Keep your mind off your neighbor's hotdish.
