If the mighty Rahmbama was able to eject Massa from Congress, how did he miss the continued existence of Dennis Kucinich, who’s done little but bitch and obstruct for his 7 terms in Congress:
In fact, according to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn’t even make it out of committee.
The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: bill “to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program ‘Window on America,'” a bill “to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the ‘John P. Gallagher Post Office Building” and a bill “proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.” (via Kos)
Unlike Massa, who was the best Democrats are going to get in a R+5 district, Kucinich lives in a D+8 district where a well-financed Democrat would probably win the general. Yet he’s coasted to more than a decade of easy wins.
Kucinich is the Ron Paul of the Democratic Party: a useless, one-man purity squad. In Paul’s defense, the whole point of being a libertarian Congressman is to accomplish nothing. Kucinich doesn’t have that excuse.
Michael
Triple dog dare you to go post this at the Great Orange Satan.
The doughnuts will be rolling mightily.
former_friend
Who are you, mrmix, and why are you working to destroy one of our only actual Progressive leaders?
How about you save your fire to talk about things that matter, like the ongoing looting of our nation, its wars, torture, the crisis in Europe … or why the fuck our tv and radio are pumping out Right-wing bile 24/7?
No, you take the time to pick on Kucinich.
Curious. Who ARE you and why are you on this former Right-wing blog spewing misleading rhetoric and promoting dissension among the only political faction in America opposed to the Rightwing agenda?
Mike Kay
he’s not even a purity troll. He had a horrible Anti-choice record.
in Congress, he has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions.
1) He supported Bush’s reinstatement of the gag rule for recipients of US family planning funds abroad.
2) He supported the Child Custody Protection Act, which prohibits anyone but a parent from taking a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion.
3) He voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which makes it a crime, distinct from assault on a pregnant woman, to cause the injury or death of a fetus.
4) He voted against funding research on RU-486.
5) He voted for a ban on dilation and extraction (so-called partial-birth) abortions without an exception for the health of the mother.
6) He even voted against contraception coverage in health insurance plans for federal workers–a huge work force of some 2.6 million people (and yes, for many of them, Viagra is covered).
7) He opposes embryonic stem cell research.
8) His anti-choice dedication has earned him a 95 percent position rating from the National Right to Life Committee, versus 10 percent from Planned Parenthood and 0 percent from NARAL.
But then….. after a life long anti-choice career, he flip flopped when he decided to run for President, and became pro-choice.
Some purity.
Michael
Oh look – we got us a Nader/Kucinich 2012 campaign activist.
Show me on the doll where Rahm touched you.
Mike Kay
@Michael: He got this from GOS. They posted it yesterday.
Norbrook
I’ve felt the same way about Kucinich for a while. He’s entertaining to watch at times, but in terms of getting things done, he’s a non-entity.
What has been interesting is the double-standard that gets applied when it comes to people like him. On one hand, people are using how often a given Democrat voted for the party agenda as a metric for how good a Democrat they are. They’ll make all kinds of threats about primarying them, or other punishments. Then you have people like Kucinich doing the same things, and he gets a pass.
Mike Kay
@former_friend: it’s a conspiracy. Mwawawahahahahhahahhahahahahh!
Dude, answer me this —
a) if Kucinich is progressive, then why was he anti-choice throughout his entire career?
b) if kucinich is a leader, why hasn’t he passed any bills or any amendments to any bills?
Face it, Kucinich is no Bernie Sanders.
former_friend
Who gives a shit about Kucinich? Why are you focusing your anger on HIM of all people?
And it’s a fair question: who are you mrmix?
Mike Kay
@Norbrook: Exactly, Blanche Lincoln is being primaryed for her crap record, but Dennis has the same crap record, he even voted against SCHiP, and the hippie wing gives him a pass. Why? I don’t know, it’s not like they voted for him or donated to his campaigns – the little martian only received 1% of the vote in New Hampshire.
clone12
Of course, Naderbots who worship Kucinich scream about the need to primary Bernie Sanders because he’s a corporate sellout.
brantl
I’m sorry, this is just shitty. Dennis Kucinnich is one of the only people to push the envelope toward rightness in Congress. If you’ve missed the fact that the other Democrats don’t back him up, you’ve missed a lot. He’s the only one that I’ve heard of to say (and he brought proof, too) that Bush’s administration committed war crimes.
Did anybody back him up? Hell, no. When you bitch about ball-less Democrats, Kucinich can tell you that you’re bitching to the guy that organized the choir.
former_friend
Absolutely this is shitty.
Who is this new poster mrmix … where did he come from and why is he attacking progressives?
Mike Kay
@former_friend: Because he has threaten to kill HCR, even though the bill contains his amendment that states be allowed to create their own single-payer systems. Now that’s totally republican: submit amendments, then vote against the entire bill.
SiubhanDuinne
Seriously? A teevee program, a post office, and an honorary citizenship? That’s Kucinich’s entire list of legislative accomplishment in fourteen years??
(Not that there’s anything wrong with Pulaski.)
Mike Kay
@former_friend: Kucinich is not progressive, he’s anti-choice.
former_friend
@Mike Kay:
I don’t buy it Mike Kay: you know damn well Kucinich is standing on principle, even if you disagree.
Mike Kay
@brantl: so why didn’t you vote for him?
Mike Kay
@former_friend: what principal? He already got his amendment into the bill.
former_friend
Mike Kay: “Kucinich is not progressive, he’s anti-choice.”
Okay, that’s just nonsense by a resident wanker.
Who is this poster, “MisterMix?”
Mike Kay
@Mike Kay: what principle? what principle is he standing on?
Mike Kay
@former_friend:
he is anti-choice. His anti-choice votes have earned him a 95 percent position rating from the National Right to Life Committee, versus 10 percent from Planned Parenthood and 0 percent from NARAL.
Linda Featheringill
Good morning.
Well, this is interesting. All this emotion invested in my congresscritter. Wow.
I wondered about defending Dennis and then decided not to. I am sure that Mistermix is young and strong and beautiful and more intelligent than God – all the things that I am not – but I actually vote in Dennis’ district.
So there.
Have a nice day.
Mike Kay
@Linda Featheringill: why would you vote for someone who’s anti-choice?
dr. bloor
He’s being a tool because he won’t fold at the moment, but one-man purity squads actually have a role in any political party.
wvng
Linda, as one who lives and votes in Dennis’ district, what has he done over the years to earn your vote? This is a serious question, not snark.
Mike Kay
@dr. bloor: Sure. Bernie Sanders is great example. But what has Kucinich ever achieved? He voted against SCHiP for goodness sakes.
ldrks
Kucinich is out for one person – Kucinich. I mean, he’s right a lot of the time, but when he is, he’s not particularly helpful. He was also a terrible mayor of Cleveland, for mostly the same reasons why he’s a terrible congressman.
dr. bloor
@Mike Kay:
He’s never been my favorite, and I loathe being in the position of semi-defending him, but if as a progressive Dennis Fucking Kucinich is your biggest worry, you’re having a pretty good day. He should be, as he mostly has been, irrelevant when it comes time to count votes.
Better targets, please, mr. mixmaster.
djork
I liked Kucinich. I’m not liking him as much these days, though.
His wife is still hot. Maybe that’s why he’s accomplished nothing?
Cerberus
I think he gets a lot of (unearned) love because of his work as an Overton Window mover. He doesn’t get anything passed, because nothing directly from the DFHs will ever be allowed to pass both houses ever, but he presents some level of baseline of DFHiness that compromisers can point to so they aren’t starting from an even more compromised location when they start giving in wholesale to Republican demands.
We can whine about “purity trolls” but it is important that someone in a position where it actually matters is willing to push for and agitate for the idealized state so that people don’t get so wrapped up in the need for shallow “victories” and forget the original point of the compromises.
Now, that being said, I dislike Kucinich, he comes off sleazy, his viewpoints seem more posturing ala Nader than genuine leftist convictions, and he’s got a terrible record and not always from the progressive end of the pool (see his anti-choice record). Hell, he wasn’t even one of the brave congressmen who voted against the Iraq War so I think people are more responding to his Overton Window movements during the presidential debates than his actual character in congress.
I’d love to see someone being the “purity troll” in Congress who was actually sincere and rabidly for genuine leftism and the moving of the Overton Window. Senator Sanders, Representatives Weiner and Grayson have shown glimpses, but I would love someone like an Al Sharpton or better yet a Noam Chomsky reminding people of some important baselines.
Kucinich is just…well…a dick.
JD Rhoades
Back during the Presidential primaries, I took one of those online quizzes that asked about your position on issues and then advised which candidate best fit your beliefs. It came up with Kucinich. (Before any of you single issue purists lights the torches and sharpens the pitchforks, I’m very pro-choice; there really isn’t anyone who totally meshes with every one of my positions).
Whether or not I’d vote for him is a moot point, though since I live in NC and he’s well out of the race by the time the primary rolls around. His inflexibility really has taken himself out of just about every chance to get anything done. Which leads me to join the people asking–what’s the point of this post?
Mike Kay
@dr. bloor: I don’t understand why people give him a pass. It would be one thing if he had accomplished something, like Bernie Sanders, but he doesn’t have squat to his name. No one can say, well SCHiP is better today because of the Dennis. No, he voted against it — he voted against little sick kids. Bastard!
El Cid
Legislatively, I guess I’d be more interested in Kucinich’s votes than legislation he wrote. I know that’s how I feel about my own Congressman, though he happens to be sponsoring a few interesting bills.
Then again, there are 435 of them.
Agree with K’s various arguments or not, I do think it’s useful to have people whose main function is to speak out for / against things. Sure, I’d rather that be combined with effective leadership of other types in the Congress (just out of the blue I’d mention Maxine Waters), but if, say, Alan Grayson were never to sponsor a bill, I wouldn’t be concluding that he was some enemy of the party or politically unimportant or harmful.
Xenos
Kucinich has been firmly pro-choice for eight years now, and he was never a hard-core lifer. With the influence of the Catholic Church in his district one can hardly hold that against him. Next issue, please.
As for being a gadfly, what of it? He is threatening not to vote for HCR, and without such threats the chance for improving the Senate bill with a reconciliation bill would amount to nothing. This is all for public consumption, anyway. Pelosi knows what is up, and if she thought she needed to put pressure on him to secure the 216th vote she would have done so already.
mistermix
My issue with Kucinich isn’t that he’s a “strong Progressive voice”. It’s that he never compromises on anything, which marginalizes him, and that he’s oh-so-happy to get attention by obstructing. It’s like he thinks he’s in the Senate or something.
Kucinich has slowly backed off a pure pro-life stance. You can see his ratings from different interest groups here:
http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=318
Lately he’s been 100% on the NARAL scale.
Mike Kay
@mistermix: can you get my comment out of moderation?
Cerberus
@Mike Kay:
I could understand it more if it was always from the progressive direction. Because there is a value in the movement of Overton Windows for the sole important purpose of reminding people of the point of progressivism and getting the type of rich, white, old fucks that tend to get elected what DFHness actually meshes with the America the rest of us have to deal with.
But he really doesn’t. He’s got a horrible record on choice, he’s voted several times in key votes on the conservative side of the fence for conservative or “moderate” reasons such as the Iraq War, so most of what is being responded to is his rhetoric during the presidential debates and his work as an Overton Window mover there.
Which is…valuable, I guess, but it’s not really the Holy Grail it gets painted as, especially when moving the Overton Window during the debates only gets treated as a spectacle of “laugh at the deluded hippie”.
chopper
@former_friend:
and who the fuck are you, shitbird? some new guy coming here and telling people what to talk about?
mr. whipple
@Cerberus:
In general, I agree with the importance of having people in the caucus like Kucinich re: Overton
However, he’s moved beyond that into mouthing RW talking points against HCR. And in a situation where he’s adament that Pelosi won’t get his vote, the Democrats need to find it elsewhere with a Blue Dog who will only weaken the goals of the legislation instead of strengthen them.
Brian J
I don’t like the answer to everything in politics being a primary challenge. Much like wavering from a diet, there’s always an excuse to do what’s easiest and most satisfying if what you want to happen doesn’t in fact happen. I wouldn’t support, for instance, launching primary challenges to all pro-life Democrats, because while I am very much pro-choice, I understand that some parts of the country aren’t, that it’s possible to be great on many issues while not so great on others, and that if they vote for the leadership, these issues won’t really come up for a vote. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for issues like trade and tax cuts.
At the same time, however, there comes a point when you become a cancer to the party. Kucinich is rapidly approaching that state, if he’s not there already. What he thinks he’s accomplishing for himself, for his constituents, for the country at large, or for the party is beyond me. If his vote would have made the difference, he will have screwed over tens of millions of people and helped countless others who will work day and night to destruct everything he stands for.
So yes, he should be given a primary challenge. It should be made public that the president is supporting his opponent. Just tell me where to send some money, and I’ll do it. That little dickbag, however noble his intentions might once have been, deserves to be taken down.
Mike Kay
@Xenos: improve it in what way? He has yet to offer any improvements.
Anya
@former_friend:
Your imitation of Glen Beck aside, can you answer Mike Kay’s question. What makes Dennis Kucinich a progressive? Just because he called Bush a war criminal does not make him progressive. If he cannot work with his colleagues to accomplish anything worthwhile then he is a failure. He is a showboating asshole who does nothing but protest.
Snarky Pickles
I respectfully disagree. The whole point of being Ron Paul in Congress is to pile on the earmark pork for your district — almost $400M last year — then vote against the bill you know will pass anyway.
Mike Kay
@Xenos:
So standing on principle, you must give Bart Stupak the same pass, as well.
Nick
@Michael: @Michael:
In fairness, Kos himself agrees with this assessment.
mistermix
@Mike Kay: I approved your comment.
@Xenos:
Tell me what Pelosi could do to sway Kucinich. I really can’t think of anything. Her power is within the institution — committee assignments, etc. Kucinich’s interest is how he plays outside the institution, on television and to groups who think he’s dreamy because of what he says, not what he does.
dr. bloor
@mr. whipple:
The Blue Dogs can’t have any influence on the legislation at this point. The House can either pass the Senate bill or not.
Lord knows it should be easy to buy off/blackmail a few Blue Dog votes. Most of them are going to be in trouble this fall.
dr. bloor
@mistermix:
She can make sure the DCCC primaries his sorry ass back to the Mistake on the Lake this fall. As someone mentioned upthread, a well-financed challenger in a D+8 district who pantses him and promises to actually do stuff should do well.
Nick
@Mike Kay:
Sanders, to his credit, managed to get funding to community health centers in the healthcare bill…he did it by compromising.
mistermix
One more thing on Kucinich’s anti-choice record. He changed his position, probably to run for President, but this is pretty damning:
This is from 2002, but the legacy of those votes is with us today.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020527/pollitt
Mike Kay
@Xenos:
So you admit, this has nothing to do with improving the bill, it’s all grandstanding (“public consumption”)
mr. whipple
No, I understand that at this point. But from the beginning he’s shown no desire to change, it’s singlepayer pony or nothing.
He said on Cspan that he would not vote for the Senate bill because it didn’t have a PO. Yet, he didn’t vote for the original House plan that did.
mistermix
@dr. bloor: It’s too late to primary in Ohio this year.
mr. whipple
It’s past deadline for filing a primary challenge this fall.
Mike Kay
I tell ya, Kucinich’s Hippie groupies couldn’t make a bean burrito without the tortilla collapsing.
Napoleon
Well put, that is exactly what he is. Dennis is all about Dennis, a preening publicity hog who at the end of the day would sink 40,000 people a year if it gets him an extra invite to Shirly McClain’s house.
@Mike Kay:
He has not been. Depending on how you interpret it he either flipped positions around 6 years ago or the way he tells it it he has a nuanced position (I don’t buy that, he flipped).
@Cerberus:
I agree, and to add to your examples Sherrod Brown does it right. Kucinich is a joke.
gogiggs
Hey Mike, we get it, he’s anti-choice and he hasn’t accomplished anything. It doesn’t get any truer just because you post it 15 times.
Why is he anti-choice? Probably because he’s Catholic and he was raised that way. Anyway, my understanding is that his current stance is that he personally is against abortion but, as a representative, supports choice. I don’t agree with him, but at least he’s also against the death penalty and anti-war, so his concern with preserving life extends to the actual living, unlike many anti-choice people.
As far as not accomplishing anything goes, I have no problem with that. Almost everything Congress has “accomplished” in the last, what, 30 years, has been a disgrace. I don’t see any credit to be gained in having been a part of “accomplishing” the Patriot act or bank deregulation or ramping up the drug war or ramping up actual wars or warrentless wiretapping and retroactive immunity. If the choice is between a guy who didn’t get anything done and a guy who got a lot of really horrible things done, I’ll take the former.
Dannie22
Hi Mike Kay! I hope your well. As far as Kucinich goes, I used to live in his district. His office is pretty good about constituent services, at least it was when I lived there. Kucinich has always been kooky, so this is nothing new for us. It’s just funny to see all those progressives who think he should be President. My circle and I find that damned hilarious!
As far as his SCHIP vote goes, I think he felt he could take a stand because he knew it would pass without his vote. I’m not saying that’s right, that’s just Dennis. The catholic church is big here in Cleveland, that would explain the pro-life votes.
Also, I think that progressive circles that want him to be the President, has gone to his head. Hence all the grandstanding.
Linda Featheringill
Support for Dennis Kucinich:
1. It may be a class issue. Dennis spent part of his childhood homeless. And ragged. And dirty. Do you know how many people in this district have been homeless at one time or another? Lots. So we might as well support one of our own.
2. It may be reverse snobbery. Fashionable people don’t like him. But fashionable people haven’t done anything for us. So we might as well support one of our own.
3. Pro choice, anti choice. Actually, it looks to me like we won that war. So we might as well support one of our own.
4. Dennis is willing to listen to local complaints and take on local issues. For instance, Cleveland is in an economic mess. But he has managed to save a few businesses and therefore a few jobs. He has not always succeeded but you have to respect him for trying.
5. The old “truth to power” thing. Dennis has always said what he really thought. Even in the midst of a losing battle. Gotta respect that. So we might as well support one of our own.
6. Integrity. Dennis is so unpopular in Washington that “they” haven’t corrupted him. He is still one of us. Might as well support one of our own.
7. And probably other stuff that I forget at this moment.
Does that make it all a little clearer?
PTirebiter
@dr. bloor: Of course you’re right. But I think the anger is actually being directed more at the folks who are now holding up DK as some sort of progressive role model. The same folks now bemoaning the Massa “smear” as quintessentialObama. These self-proclaimed progressives who embrace the ineffectual, and are full of murderous rage for anyone willing to compromise for the sake of real progress. Of course Grover Norquist sleep-overs, in the name of the cause, the cause as defined by them, are okey-dokey. I’m sick of the little sh-ts
dr. bloor
@mistermix:
The next time around, then. The point is that there’s no foundation to believe that Pelosi is all “OH NOES! I’M POWERLESS!” when it comes to dealing with him.
As I said, if Kucinich is going to be Kucinich, then the focus should be on the BlueDogs and the
StupidsStupakers. There’s a reason they won’t let Bart name their names–they’re waiting to be bought off without looking like public hypocrites.Cerberus
@mr. whipple:
Exactly. I want to see someone who acts a lot like him but sounds like Noam Chomsky. Someone moving the Overton Window with often Republican frames and not always in a progressive direction being the sole “voice of the hard left in congress” just paints an inaccurate picture of DFHism and fucks up the whole point of having a guy like him.
tofubo
another post like this, and i stop reading this site
the fact the rest of congress are corporate sell-outs does not make kucinich less praiseworthy
john, can you take mistermix’s posting credentials away
please
Mike Kay
How come the hippies don’t contribute to Kuchinich’s presidential campaigns? Ron Paul raised a staggering amount of money online. Kucinch, he raised peanuts.
Mike Kay
@tofubo: my, you’re a dainty flower.
John Cole
If Stupak and Denniks both vote against HCR, and it fails, tell me how Dennis gets a pass and Stupak’s is wrong?
They going to put an asterisk next to Kucinich in the roll call vote- *(principled position)?
Brian J
@Mike Kay:
You know, I forgot about the big switch, but I never realized how bad it was. Thanks for pointing all of that out.
mistermix
@dr. bloor: I agree, he should be primaried by a competent well-financed opponent. But it hasn’t happened for 7 elections, so Pelosi has no leverage today and she won’t for another two years.
@Cerberus: I’d like to see someone on the left in Congress who can get other like-minded members together and work as a group to insert smart compromises that move things to the left. Instead we have a glory hound like Dennis.
Brian J
@dr. bloor:
This.
Ty Lookwell
I’m with tofubo. The last thing I expected to see here this morning was a post shitting on Kucinich.
Mike Kay
@Linda Featheringill:
tell that to the fundies. They haven’t disarmed. They haven’t demoblized.
Maybe it’s not an issue to older women who can’t get pregnant, but the 70s hippies me generation are the epitome of selfishness.
Mike Kay
@Ty Lookwell: what’s wrong with that? He shit on little sick kids when he voted against the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Brian J
@mistermix:
So you’re telling me that if all of the higher ups in the House, the DCCC, the Ohio State Democratic Party, the county parties in his district, and the netroots who aren’t in agreement with him came together, along with the President, they couldn’t find someone to take him out? In the end, they might not be successful, but they can read the underlying dynamics to know if there’s any shot and go from there.
Napoleon
@Dannie22:
That is it exactly.
@Linda Featheringill:
He also spent time living on a friends couch at some point after being mayor and weirdly you just in part made part of the case why it is so egregious that he is threatening to be the vote that sinks health care (and I have not even mentioned the family history of some of his siblings). If he could sink a bill that will help many marginal people with the history that he has had what does that tell you about him?
Mike Kay
@John Cole: of course, Stupak says he’s standing on principle as well. Stupak says he’s not a sellout. So what separates Stupak from Stupid? They’re both framing their no votes as principled positions.
tofubo
@Mike Kay:
i am not aware of all internet traditions, so i don’t know how to take that one
nonetheless
kucinich voted against the flag burning amendment, the mca, the patriot act renewal, cafta, the fisa bill, the iraq war supplimentals, terri schiavo, tarp, etc, etc, etc
it’s hard to pass bills, but he’s been on ‘my’ side on trying to stop the worst of the shit that has been passed in years passed
he will always get my support
Cerberus
@gogiggs:
Y’know, statements like that just make me grind my teeth and hate the Catholic Church more and more. Horribly abuse children so that they hate themselves at the start of puberty of earlier and constantly have to fight the idea that they are bad people if they are ever horny or think for themselves, so that they carry emotional scars that make them support horribly conservative views of the roles of women well into adulthood for no other reason than “well I’m catholic, so…”, and all of that while the Church essentially runs a world-wide child molestation ring, a nun-rape epidemic, a physical abuse hell-hole in all of their child-care facilities, and oh yeah, a brothel or two out of the Vatican.
And that’s before we get into deliberately making the AIDS crisis in Africa worse, their hard-line efforts against any form of LGBT protection or women’s rights up to and including shelters, or their atrocious poverty relief efforts often based on how “suffering is good for the soul”.
Nngh. I never used to hate the Catholic Church so much, but now I find myself chanting to Yog-Soggoth every time someone uses the “but he’s catholic” excuse.
Sorry to Catholics who are offended, I understand how hard it is, believe me, I’ve been helping deprogram my partner for years from the accumulated baggage she’s got as a child. It’s just the leadership and the strength of the bullshit always makes me see red for awhile.
SteveinSC
@tofubo: Agree, strongly.
Mike Kay
@Dannie22: Hey Dannie! Thanks. That’s what I thought. Also his hwat amazon wife has gone to his head.
me
John Edwards wasn’t homeless but poor. Did you vote for him?
Fashionable? What the fuck does that mean? Is Anthony Wiener fashionable? How about John Boehner?
If Kucinich wanted to make himself useful, he could smack around Bart Stupak.
Okay, credit were due.
Truth to power my ass. No matter what you think about the health care bill, it does help out a whole lot of uninsured people, and fuck him if he can’t get that.
Like others have said, Democrat’s Ron Paul.
John Cole
And no, it is not the site position to shit on Kucinich. We’ve defended him in the past, and will do so when his actions are defensible.
So lighten up. If you can’t handle a post that disagrees with you without screaming for me to ban the guy, you might find more comfort in my old party and Red State.
PTirebiter
@Linda Featheringill: Class and snobbery may affect DK in DC, but I don’t think they’re playing any role here. I think most of us root for the underdogs and the dorks, but DK is violating his responsibility to “first, do no harm.” I can’t know his motivations or intentions, but he’s displaying an arrogance that serves no one well.
T.R. Donoghue
He did a bang up job in Cleveland too, didn’t he?
Between him and Jerry Springer Ohio was on quite a roll there.
Mike Kay
@tofubo: you must of been proud when he voted against little sick children (SCHiP). You must of been proud when he voted against contraception coverage in health plans – how dare women practice birth control. You must of been proud when he voted against abortion, including when a mother’s health was a risk.
Jake
Really….Have you been following the HCR derby?
Mike Kay
still no answer:
How Kucinich’s supporters don’t contribute money to his presidential campaigns? Ron Paul raised a staggering amount of money online. Kucinch – he raised peanuts.
In short, how come you guys don’t put your money where you mouth/keyboard is?
John Cole
Mike Kay- where did you come from to all of a sudden harbor all these grudges against other commenters? Your name just hit my radar last week, yet you seem to hate half the commenters here. At least it appears you hate them, you are so aggressively an asshole to anyone who remotely disagrees with you.
Cerberus
@mistermix:
We have that. It’s called Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi. Now, I love both of them and wouldn’t trade them out for anything in the world and I feel they both do a valuable service, but listen to them on the publicity circuits. They stand up for moderate compromise positions, selling only the merits of what has been compromised down and what can be expected to pass.
And that’s great and all, a delightfully, wonderful service that often results in proposed legislation being better than it was before, but I’d also like to see some Overton Window pushing. We constantly see some random Sen. Jackass (R-Confederate State) talking about an ideal bill where the poor have to volunteer time to be living golf clubs for rich bastards versus a few occasional blips of a liberal if they are allowed at all speaking solely in defense of a compromised bill and how they’re willing to compromise a little more if need be.
And that’s great for passing things. Won’t knock it at all, but there’s been a big problem in this health care debate. We’ve been talking solely about money, not people and no one is even talking about things like the Danish system because people are afraid that if they bring up anything more progressive than the British NHS, Americans will run cowering and screaming into a corner.
If the debate was seeing someone pointing to graphs of the Scandanavian systems and how badly a bunch of commies were kicking our asses, it would change a lot of debate away from how DFHy our current bill which would only strengthen the liberal cause in favor of the heavily compromised bill we have.
It’s about allowing a utopian ideal onto the debate floor as a baseline to give perspective to the slow crawl of progress we’re going to get because “change scary, fire bad”.
I’m not saying I’d like to see a cadre of obstructionists or wouldn’t like to see a genuinely hard leftist wing of the Democratic Party arguing their cases as a block and working with others to improve legislation, but in the system we have, I’d like to see one member at least arguing for the most leftist position possible on a regular basis.
Now a combination of that and someone willing to accept moderate change at the dire end would be great, but I’d be willing to take anything to combat things like the HRC debate where we are stuck arguing that a simple regulation of the worst excesses of a for-profit private health insurance industry is even approaching what they get in any other first-world nation including Slovakia.
Napoleon
@T.R. Donoghue:
OK, I have to admit I voted for Jerry Springer for govenor when he ran.
Mike Kay
@John Cole: no, I’ve been here three months. I’ve got alot of fans, as well. I don’t hate anyone, as I don’t know their names.
tofubo
@Mike Kay:
like i said, helping to stop bad legislation…
John Cole
@Mike Kay: I dunno. Last couple of days it seems like nothing but machine gun fire aggression from you at the rest of the regulars. I’m cool with people saying what they want, but at the same time, I don’t feel uncomfortable asking people to tone it down a notch to eleven sometimes. These are good people here, and you are acting like they are the enemy.
Cerberus
Basically, I’d like to see a left-wing Michelle Bachmann, because our media is tied to a specific dualism narrative, which is take Person A seen as the farthest a medium has on the right and Person B seen as the farthest a medium has on the left and “what’s right” is what’s exactly in the middle of the two viewpoints.
So if maximum right is Michelle Bachmann and maximum left is Bernie Sanders, what we get as “what’s right” in the media is often John McCain. Same with how the media often gets judged with “well we have Ann Coulter on one end and Rachel Maddow on the other” as if they were at all comparable in tactics or level of skew from the middle in their arguments. Get a Noam Chomsky-esque figure in either and things improve. See also media when it’s “Ann Coulter on one end and Ted Rall on the other”. Still not fully equivalent, but a hell of a lot closer and better for a more genuine “center”.
Basically, the Overton Window, which works because of how we are trained to think of moderation and dualistic choices.
gogiggs
@Cerberus: Hey, I’m right there with you. I, too, am bothered that early indoctrination by the church can implant bad ideas that can take a lifetime to change. My point was that the question was being asked, “how can a progressive be anti-choice?” and the answer is, he’s Catholic. At least he’s come around to supporting choice as a representative, whatever his personal feelings are.
“She can make sure the DCCC primaries his sorry ass back to the Mistake on the Lake this fall. As someone mentioned upthread, a well-financed challenger in a D+8 district who pantses him and promises to actually do stuff should do well.”
Well, apologies if I’m wrong about this, but that sounds like the words of somebody who has no knowledge of the area Kucinich represents.
I live in his district and have lived in or near it for 35+ years and I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening, or if it happened, of it working. Seriously, that seat is Dennis’ until they catch him with a dead girl or live boy and maybe even then.
Keith G
@Linda Featheringill:
As an expatriate Buckeye, I follow the issues concerning my birth sate. Dennis has always been interesting to watch.
Given what you wrote above, is it too much to ask that he actually develops a record of *voting* in ways that can concretely help the poor. For health care reform that helps the poor, the time is now. Either we get a sucky law that is only partially what we need, or we get nothing. After Nov., we will get less than nothing. Where will the poor be then?
Dennis needs to help those impoverished folk you think he identifies with. I have my doubts.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
Ya know, just when I see you seem to be making sense for once in your life, you go and say some stupid assholish shit like this.
As I have said to you more than once, fuck you. If it wasn’t for my now-menopausal ass and many of my compatriots who came of age in the 70s and who were out there on the front lines of the pro-choice and feminist movement, burning our bras and marching for choice and crashing down barriers, assholes like you would still be looking at illegal abortion death statistics.
Go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw, idiot.
@me:
This. Not to mention what a miserable failure Kucinich was when he was actually in charge of something. No ability to lead or work withing any sort of reality leads to bankrupting your city.
Dannie22
@Mike Kay: you know I love you and I don’t understand why you irritate some folks. I mean Bob or Makewi can troll on these threads and everyone will answer them and even though they are annoying, it’s no problem. But you! You comment and some folks just lose it. I think it’s a case of whoever you hit hollars the loudest. And you keep hitting people. It’s okay with me. Have a nice day, Mike.
Mike Kay
@tofubo:
yeah, they got rid of that restriction, and he still voted against it.
See, he says he voted against the bill for a specific restriction, that wasn’t in the bill. He voted against a good bill. Perhaps he just didn’t know what was going on. But that’s a very, very poor excuse.
Cerberus
@gogiggs:
Yeah, I know it’s definitely an answer to the question and one that’s accurate. It’s just one of those answers that make me yell “Catholic Church” into the sky as if it was the name of Khan.
Especially when it’s used as a pass. “Oh Stupak needs to forgiven for basing his entire resistance to health care on conservative viewpoints on the humanity of women. Why? Oh because he’s a devout catholic.”
NnghYogSoggothrazzlefrazzle.
nancydarling
I wish Mike Kay would go away. I don’t mind assholes on this site, but they have to at least be funny.
Mike Kay
@Dannie22: oh, thanks Dannie. I just think I’m intense. I don’t even know the infrequent posters, so there’s nothing personal involved.
stormhit
@Cerberus:
You have literally no idea what you’re talking about.
Just because your partner is ignorant too, it doesn’t make you knowledgeable.
Xenos
@Mike Kay: Still no answers? Sorry if my response time is too slow for you, bud.
I am not going to condemn Kucinich for sinking the HCR bill until he does so. In the mean-time his standing up for the anti-corporatist position is damn refreshing. That is what I mean by public consumption – someone has to stake out a position on the left so there is some room for Pelosi to maneuver, and the White House sure as hell is not going to do it.
The rabid anti-Kucinichism is as silly as the Rahmapocalypse. And what sort of bad faith purity trolling is it to compare Stupak to Kucinich? Kucinich takes principles to a pretty unreasonable extreme, while Stupak does not appear to have any.
Davis X. Machina
Your home for all things Kucinich: DemocraticUnderground.com
A thread whose first post was just the words “DENNIS KUCINICH!” on the basis of reader recommendations was on 1-18-10 promoted to their ‘Best Of’ page….
That’s D(K)U for ya.
PTirebiter
@Cerberus: As a former Catholic, I hear you loud and clear, but your experiences with the Church aren’t universal. Like a lot of kids growing up in a blue collar environment, for me, the Church was a warm and nurturing refuge. So the ties that bind run deep with us. Loyalties formed as a kid, for all the right reasons, are. at the least, equally hard to break. I’m not throwing this out as an argument to your comment, only as an additional consideration.
Mike Kay
@geg6:
a) what did I say that made sense?
B) C’mon now. You must of come across some one in your life who marched for rights and against the war, who later became selfish (I want my tax cut).
Cerberus
@stormhit:
Mm.
No, really I’m not. Also, she’s not the only person I’ve had to deprogram or tried to deprogram from the guilt-cycle self-destructive behavior unique to catholic upbringing.
Also, I didn’t strive to hate the Catholic Church. I even started out rather sympathetic to it in theory owing to the fact that my grandparents were heavily discriminated against because of racial discrimination based on anti-papism.
But I can understand why you responded the way you did, which I acknowledged in my final paragraph of what you quoted. And I do genuinely empathize.
geg6
@stormhit:
Are you actually saying that he’s wrong about the criminal gang that is the Roman Catholic Church? Seriously?
Dood, if that’s so, I have news for you. He seems like he knows quite well what he’s talking about. Is your real name Ratzinger or something?
If you weren’t implying that, sorry.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
A lot fewer of those than I have greedy, self-centered people who are Gen X or Gen Y.
And just to be clear here, I was too young to march against Vietnam. But I was right there for choice and women’s civil rights.
Mike Kay
@Xenos: see, I reject the whole principles argument because of how he flip flopped on Choice. For his entire adult career, he was anti-choice, then he runs for president, and threw his anti-choice principles over the side in a new york second. By definition, he sold out his own principles.
Mike Kay
@geg6: so what did i say that made sense?
Ash Can
OK, Den-Bots, I get it. Kucinich has his good points. That’s great. As far as I’m concerned, though, he shot an enormous amount of his cred when he declared that, if he were the deciding vote on HCR, he wouldn’t hesitate to sink it singlehandedly. If people in Cleveland like him, fine. But by grandstanding on HCR, he’s making his antics my problem here in Chicago, and everyone else’s problem all across the nation. So excuse the hell out of us when we call bullshit on his annoying ass.
The Populist
I’ve never been sold 100% sold on Kucinich. I like his stances on corporate greed but he grandstands too much on other issues.
Sure, we need more progressives in congress but this guy has never been more than an oddity with his claims of seeing UFOs. If we want real progressives that will get things DONE, let’s find more like Alan Grayson. Kuchinich is wasting our time when he plays his games on issues like HCR.
Cerberus
@Mike Kay:
That’s a little far. We should applaud people who grow up. Should John never be trusted because he used to be…misled? I say no.
Likewise, him changing his mind for the better is a good thing, though I’m just generally less than pleased because the change has been rather narrow and he doesn’t have the best of records regarding women’s rights in general.
The Populist
For the record, I am a BIG fan of Bernie Sanders. A true gentleman and constitutional scholar.
Compared to Dennis, Bernie is what all progressives should strive to be.
geg6
@Mike Kay:
That Kucinich sucks in just about every way. And the idea that he moves the Overton window is hilarious. Only people who others take seriously can move it. No one other than Dennis takes Dennis seriously.*
*This is not a slam against his constituents. I’m sure they take him seriously. But they aren’t the people who have the power to frame the Overton window.
Mike Kay
@Cerberus: it was a calculated move tied to his presidential campaign, not a come to jesus moment. It’s no different than when Romney flip flopped when he ran for president. Or when Harold Ford flipped on choice when he ran for the senate.
Xenos
@Mike Kay: The better test would be to see if, having changed his mind once, he then backtracks, reverses, or tries to have it both ways in the future.
The guy is 20 years older than me (technically he is a pre-boomer), and in another 6 years he will be 70 years old. It is another generation, and on gender issues and race issues there have been huge changes in the last 50 years. He came around a bit late on the abortion issue, but he came around, and appears to be sincere. If evidence arises that he is not sincere, then I will agree – fuck him.
Stupak, however, is an opportunistic shit who is tied up with corrupt religious hierarchies to find ways to screw the weakest among us. A thoroughly contemptible jerk.
tomvox1
That’s President Kucinich to you PINOs.
Mike in NC
Top Comment of the Day
ODB
Check out his voting record here: http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=318
Looks like ammo for both sides.
Da Bomb
@Dannie22: I kind of agree with your sentiment. There are horrible trolls that have showed up on this site for quite a while. People respond to them and think they are funny.
If you don’t like what someone says, just ignore them. I know i have on several occasions. If you don’t like what the poster says, then don’t respond to that thread.
I have never been a big fan of Kucinich.
some guy
He’s got a 92% lifetime score from the ACLU:
http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?repId=477&page=legScore
He’s got a 100% rating from Human Rights Campaign:
http://www.hrc.org/documents/Congress_Scorecard-110th.pdf
He’s got an 89% average from the League of Conservation Voters:
http://capwiz.com/lcv/bio/keyvotes/?id=468
NARAL gives him a 100% rating since 2004:
http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=318&type=category&category=2&go.x=6&go.y=12
Yeah, let’s focus our efforts on ousting people who agree with us 95% of the time. That’s fucking genius.
some guy
He’s got a 92% lifetime score from the ACLU:
He’s got a 100% rating from Human Rights Campaign:
He’s got an 89% average from the League of Conservation Voters:
NARAL gives him a 100% rating since 2004:
Yeah, let’s focus our efforts on ousting people who agree with us 95% of the time. Genius!
[a version of this post with citations is awaiting moderation]
some guy
The difference is that Ron Paul just votes against virtually everything. He’s nicknamed “Dr. No” because that’s all he does. While Kucinich doesn’t draft a lot of bills, he does, in fact, vote in favor of quite a lot of progressive legislation.
Yeah, he’s wrong on HCR and that sucks. But I’d take Kucinich’s voting record over most of the Dem caucus on just about any other issue. Talk of primarying this otherwise reliable liberal vote in the House is ridiculous.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Cole: Don’t agree with this analysis. The dude says some provocative things, but the hostility and name calling comes from others who don’t like what he says. That’s how I see it. But it’s your blog.
Parole Officer Burke
@nancydarling:
A very cogent point. Step up the comedy, Mike.
Molly
@geg6:
I like you tremendously, geg6, so don’t send the rusty pitchforks my way. :) But we should stop this. I’m Gen X, and myself and many of my cohorts agree with you on pretty much everything.
So, peace from this Gen X-er to one of many Boomers I appreciate for fighting the good fight. Plenty of us are fighting too. It’s just more popular for the media to publish studies that pit us against each other.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@tofubo:
Jeez Louise, just plug your ears and go LALALALALALALALA…
Go to Kos, they hide rate things so people like you won’t faint.
Will
@former_friend:
What’s with the obsession to name names? Disagreement is fine, but I don’t know why you demand someone’s identity be outed, also.
Linda Featheringill
Peace, Brothers and Sisters –
Our point of view is colored by where we stand in life but we want the same things, we are vulnerable to the same things, and our interests are pretty much the same a lot of the time.
Snapping at each other like a bunch of dysfunctional turtles will not solve our problems. Cooperation might.
So give hugs to each other and then go out and address the real enemies and Give Them Hell.
katiemc
I am a longtime reader/lurker and something about mike kay feels fishy to me. It’s almost as if he had an agenda for coming to the site a few months ago. Something feels forced and disingenuous. As well as the side kick dannie chiming in. Just my two cents.
Michael
Here’s what I don’t get:
Why all the commenters in this thread who say they’re in Kucinich’s district aren’t calling up right now?
I think that, rather than arguing with some guy on the interenet, your time would be better spent calling your Rep, Mr. Kucinich and reminding him that, while over the years you’ve supported him repeatedly, sometimes compromising is the right thing to do, that this bill will do too much good, that this moment is too fleeting and we can’t afford to wait another 18 (!) years to try to tackle this issue again, that it will bring a tremendous amount of help to his own district and constituents, and that, after he’s voted for its passage, you’d love to see him try to work with Rep Grayson of Orlando and the 40 Dems in the Senate on getting a robust public option bill to the floor.
THAT’s what you should be doing with your time, not trying to convince someone (troll or otherwise) that Kucinich is actually a boon to the progressive cause. GO HELP THE PROGRESSIVE CAUSE YOURSELF. Your Rep is a ‘no’ on the single most important piece of legislation the Dems have brought to the floor in decades.
Instantly Moderated Commenter
@katiemc: I am certainly no fan of Mike Kay’s rhetoric (see, e.g., here), but I would not like to see other commenters attack his supposed integrity or motivations.
We all have some kind of personal “agenda,” after all. No need to impugn others’ motivations without good evidence.
Admiral_Komack
Fuck Dennis Kucinich.
Linda Featheringill
To Michael:
Quite right. So I did just that.
Bob S.
@Ty Lookwell: Kucinich bashing was the first thing I expected to see here given his sacrilege regarding the Insurance Company Guaranteed Profit Plan- I mean the health care reform plan- being pushed by the White House.
mistermix forgot to mention that yesterday Kucinich introduced a bill for withdrawal from Afghanistan, invoking the constitutional responsibility of Congress under the War Powers Act. Wasted three whole hours debating a war when the House could have been doing something important.
Mnemosyne
@former_friend:
Because he’s going to vote “no” on healthcare reform. Why are you uncomfortable with people pointing out that, despite his overblown reputation, this is exactly the kind of non-progressive vote that Kucinich makes all the time?
Mnemosyne
@Dannie22:
People underestimate how far constituent services can take a politician. One of the reasons Jesse Helms was returned to the Senate over and over again was that his office was fantastic with constituent services.
One of the reasons that my district went from Republican to Democrat was that our former rep, Jim Rogan, was absolutely horrible with constituent services. He thought he was going to be on the Supreme Court someday, so why were all of these lowly voters bugging him to do stuff for them?
Marc
I’ve fought my way through many/most of these comments. I don’t live in this District (or even state, anymore). But as someone who did all through the Oakar years, the 4 year interregnum with Martin Hoke (R-Irrelevant), and then the Dennis period until 04, don’t for a minute think you could oust Dennis in this district. His strengths here are in the Edwin Edwards “dead girl, live boy” class. Dennis has always had a base on the West Side (ethnic) of Cleveland that would guarantee him a starting point of 35-40% of the vote. Unfortunately, that ethnic base is Democratic, but heavily Roman Catholic and/or Orthodox and elderly (by now). IOW, classic Blue Dog Democrat country. They let Dennis do his thing as long as he doesn’t cross the “Church” on issues. (In fact, if you put Dennis into a classic European “Christian Socialist context, he really starts to make sense.)Cleveland/NE Ohio hasn’t elected genuinely liberal/progressive Democratic Congresscritters since Jim Stanton and Charles Vanek left the House in the early ’80’s.
some guy
And by “all the time” you mean a small handful of times.
He gets higher ratings from the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, and the League of Conservation Voters than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did, and the same NARAL rating (100%).
I’ll take Kucinich over most of the Dem caucus on virtually every issue except HCR.
Will
@JD Rhoades:
Progressive Dennis Kucinich could be the congressperson to kill healthcare. That’s the point of this point.
Mnemosyne
@Cerberus:
Here’s the thing with the Overton Window, though: it doesn’t move towards your side if you lose the fight. It moves towards the other guy’s side.
That’s one of the reasons why the administration is going to the mat for this healthcare bill, flawed as it is. If the bill passes, we have established the principle that the government has an interest in having all its citizens have healthcare. If it fails, that will “prove” that the government shouldn’t be involved at all and it should all remain for-profit, and getting another reform package put together will be even harder and the package itself will be even less progressive next time.
Forward momentum is what moves the Overton Window, not noble failure.
Mnemosyne
@some guy:
I don’t trust anyone who just happened to have an epiphany right before he ran for president that, gosh, maybe women are full human beings who can make their own healthcare decisions after all!
YMMV, but since I might, you know, actually have to make a decision regarding my own uterus at some point, it’s pretty important to me that I don’t have congressmen poking their nose in and telling me what care my doctor can provide.
Plus I think he’s a grandstander who takes positions that he knows will fail so he can get good publicity, so there’s that, too.
some guy
Fixed.
Look, Dennis’s position on this is awful. But he’s not “the” Democrat voting against the bill. He is one of many. And most of the others are far, far worse on almost all other issues, as well. If you’re going to primarying opponents of this HCR bill there are far, far worthier targets.
Better yet, how about working to replace some of the Republican reps who never ever vote with the Dems on absolutely anything.
some guy
@Mnemosyne:
Prior to 2004 his record on abortion was a disgrace. But it’s been 6 years since his conversion (for whatever reason) and he’s be a solid vote for abortion rights since.
I agree that he’s a grandstander who can’t move the mythical “Overton Window” because no one takes him seriously, but he votes the right way on most issues so I’d much rather see him stay in the House than be replaced with an unknown quantity.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
My Grand Unified Theory on the whole health care reform brouhaha remains that the big split among blogosphere liberals isn’t really hippies vs. pragmatists or lefties vs. centrists, but “people who prefer noble failure to watered-down victory” vs. “people who prefer watered-down victory to noble failure.” That’s why it’s so acrimonious: it’s really a difference of opinion about tactics, but it’s getting erroneously mapped to ideological difference.
Zuzu's Petals
@former_friend:
Omebody-say inks-thay e-hay’s on-ay a-ay os-Kay oard-bay.
Zuzu's Petals
@John Cole:
Slow clap.
Batocchio
Kucinich raises some important issues, including recent discussion of our two ongoing wars. He’s also consistently raised the issue of single payer health care. He voices some important points, and if (as reported upthread) his office serves his actual constituents’ needs, he’s doing a decent job on the local level.
However, Kucinich also isn’t very realistic on the policy front, and never seems to have a Plan B or compromise position. In the last presidential race, at one point he was talking about running with Ron Paul, who did oppose our presence in Iraq, but has some horrible domestic policies. While I think there’s a sincere side to Kucinich, there’s also a fair amount of vanity. He shouldn’t kill health care reform, but the greater villains by far are the Blue Dogs and the entire Republican Party.
Cerberus
@Mnemosyne:
Not really, no.
The Overton Window really doesn’t care if you succeed or not. The anti-choice movement hasn’t really won jack shit for a good number of decades but they’ve moved the window so many times by being more and more insane and evil that we no longer blink twice that most women have to snake their way through an army of terrorists threatening their lives just to get basic medical care.
Now, if you want to argue that bills in Congress are better passed shitty and improved over time. I’m all on that side of the aisle in a heartbeat. We pass whatever we can pass and we build on it, same with every fight. But we argue for the moon, because it takes decades of people arguing the “radical” for the norm to move achingly slow towards progress.
It’s about moving what “everyone thinks is possible” with one’s rhetoric aiming for the moon and moving what “everyone thinks is normal” by incremental steps in the hard policy.
Now what is actually possible at any moment, that’s a tough decision. If we had a working congress or more Overton Window moving congressmen we could probably have more of a forward push than what we’ve got. Absent that, what we’ve got seems to be all we’re going to get, so might as well pass and build now that it’s here.
That and shoot Bart Stupak in the throat.
Mnemosyne
@Cerberus:
Since Utah is getting ready to prosecute women who have miscarriages, I’m not sure what you mean by “haven’t really won” anything. They won the “partial-birth abortion” fight. They’ve won all kinds of parental notifications fights. That’s why people think it’s normal to have to fight your way through a gauntlet to get medical care: because they keep winning those small battles.
Which, again, is exactly what the anti-choice movement has done: talked big about ending abortion entirely while taking small steps to make it more and more unavailable to women.
Noble failure gets you absolutely nowhere when it comes to changing the conversation. Your own example demonstrates it.
Death Panel Truck
@Mike Kay:
“Must of“?
Seriously? You must have attended a lousy grammar school. The only people I know who use “should of,” “could of,” “would of,” etc., are illiterate rednecks.
Cerberus
@FlipYrWhig:
All progressive in-fighting is always one of two things.
1) An argument over tactics. See Malcom X vs Martin Luther King Jr or the current lefty blog wars. Two groups that fully agree with the destination, sometimes even in ideal form, but disagree violently about the fastest way to reach it to the point that this debate over tactics can overshadow the actual fight against the actual enemy.
2) An argument over priorities. There are a lot of things broken that need fixing and different groups are going to think different ones are more important than others or are willing or unwilling to trade one set of rights for another. This is often exploited like hell by the right-wing. Think women’s rights groups and black groups falling out in the 20s, Stupak’s attempt to sneak a quick elbow back at women’s groups during health care or gay groups trying to push up their bills up the queue.
Conservatives don’t fight because they don’t really have goals that need reaching so they’ll embrace anything that has a shot at delaying progress no matter how contradictory it was to the tactics or arguments they were using yesterday.
In my experience, while priority arguments tend to be one’s that break up movements and lead to mistrust, tactics arguments tend to create the most bruised egos and have the most heated rhetoric. I think it’s because when something is close or opportunities seem nigh, everyone knows something is going to happen and there’s a million different people with different ideas on the how who until something awesome happens thinks everyone else is the one fucking up this one big chance.
On that note, I can sympathize with the more idealistic side in that the debate was a joke and the Dems started way too moderate and gave away a hell of a lot more than they had to, but I stand firm with the PTDB side in that, what we got is what we got. We pass it and we try again later to build upon it or scrap it. Same with everything.
Cerberus
@Mnemosyne:
Uhm, I agree with what is best. I’m not on the noble failure side, being as I am an activist of several minority groups and having a solid understanding of the nature of progressive change and victories. I’m not entirely sure why you think I’m on their side or why I need convincing.
My argument in as much as I was making one is that the Overton Window is a notion based on perception, media, arguments. To that end yes, it is good to have people argue for the moon because arguing for the moon moves the Overton Window. See Fox News. It’s not out to “win” anything really, but by being crazier and crazier, it moves the media further and further to the right in order to not seem like hippies in comparison or even torture where by taking a hard-line stance, Americans were normalized to the idea of “ok, America tortures now and you’re a fag if you’re against it”.
My anti-choice argument was connected to that. They’ve “won” very very little, most of the legislative victories they’ve gotten in states have been overturn by the courts, many of the policies they’ve gotten passed have been embarrassing failures, and a lot of what they argue for is beyond the pale of almost everyone.
But, just for example, Stupak’s little stunt isn’t going to hurt the anti-choice movement and has in fact already helped in erasing the horror of Dr. Tiller and filling the media chatterboxes with lots of noise about how religious and “principled” and “passionate” anti-choicers are. The Overton Window shifts back a little on something that is a “noble failure”. But it did shift enough that there was a “shut up Stupak” addition to the Senate bill extending the Hyde Amendment.
I think the history of activism shows that the general best approach is to not censor one’s arguments or life-experiences to argue for the ideal state and settle for anything that’s a step up in actual legislation.
Again, I think aiming for noble failure is stupid. I agree with PTDB, but I also vehemently disagree with the wing that was trying to squash anyone who brought up full public health care because somehow that would “ruin everything”. You argue from the most radical position you can, you settle for a moderate increase in what you want.
Mnemosyne
Except that Stupak’s amendment to the House bill wasn’t a failure. It passed. It is part of the House bill. Not only did it pass but, as you said, the Senate added a version to their own bill. So, again, it’s kind of weird to use a right-wing success to claim that successes don’t move the Overton Window in the successful group’s direction.
I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t even talk about the public option, but I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that they’re opposing the bill because if healthcare reform goes down to defeat, the mere fact that some people (like Kucinich) were pushing for a version that leaned more to the left is going to move the Overton Window to the left and that is patently untrue. The failure of the bill will actually move the window to the right on healthcare.
Which is why I’m pissed at leftier-than-thou types (obviously, not you) like Kucinich who are more interested in burnishing their public image than in actually getting something done.
MIchael
Yeah, Cerberus, Mnemosyne is totally right on this; the anti-choice movement is a horrible example of “noble failure” or being really loud in the media being an effective way to move the Overton Window. They’ve been steadily gaining ground on a variety of issues for decades, not the least of which include the partial-birth abortion and parental-notification stuff. I’m sorry, but you seem to be totally unaware that some women have to literally cross state-lines to get an abortion because it’s become de facto unavailable where they live.
That fight is far from over, and anyone who thinks we’ve “won” it is not paying attention.
Linda: bravo. That’s a perfect example of the fact that, while I probably disagree with your take on Kucinich, the truth is we’re all on the same side here, all working towards the same things, etc etc.
I see Dennis has co-sponsored Grayson’s Medicaire-buy-in bill. Good. As talkingpointsmemo points out, the creation of the exchanges works very well with the subsequent creation of a robust public option.
The Senate bill + reconciliation sidecar is just the opening blow
EthylEster
@chopper: and who the fuck are you, shitbird? some new guy coming here and telling people what to talk about?
with any luck former_friend with soon be a former commenter. ;=)
Anticorium
@FlipYrWhig:
Post of the day.
mapaghimagsik
I don’t have any particular hate for Kucinich. I would have really appreciated the posters bringing up the anti-choice record to have dug into that a little deeper. I guess I can get superficial hate from hot air.
So welcome MrMix or MisterMix. I guess by sheer comment posting, your post was successful. I look forward to a little more deeper stuff from you, but thank you for the daily hippie punch I get to see at balloon juice.
tc125231
What a pair of emos you and Cole are! Your posts are full of narratives of the following order:
“My neighbor on the left plows roads and is quite reliable about it, but he cheats on his wife and doesn’t bathe enough. We don’t like him, Let’s send him to Gitmo.
“My neighbor on the right plundered an S&L that sold old people bogus bonds, and the plundering ruined the futures of 20% of the town’s children. But hell, he’s just a financial criminal. What do you expect? He tells good jokes at the bar.”
Keep it up and it will be hard to tell the two of you from editorial writers at Kaplan’s Pravda on the Potomac.
Mike Kay
@Death Panel Truck:
Mike Kay
@Death Panel Truck:
whaddya got against illiterate rednecks?
Ya know, elitisms is a sure fire way to lose an election. Just ask Wind surfing Kerry and Prince Albert Gore. Hell, even that pick-up truck nonsense played well with the yankees in Massachusetts, and we can’t forget how the blogosphere fell head over heals for Edwards corn-ball “y’all, I was born in a small town, son of a mill worker” shtick.
Mike Kay
@katiemc: I admit it. I’m a paid blogger for big pharma.
Hamsher makes the same charges about bloggers at DKos. I became friends at Netroots Nation with a long time blogger who works as defense attorney in Maine. He posted a critical diary of Hamsher on DKos, and Jane accused him of being a paid PR representative of the insurance industry. It was sad watching Jane become so paranoid.