Enthusiastically reccing for Scuba's sterling contributions to DU, but

utterly rejecting what I see as a slippery Third Way attempt to

Sun Oct 7, 2012, 10:03 AM
woo me with science (28,997 posts)

It's time for this destructive meme about shutting up during elections to stop,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021488072

Last edited Mon Oct 8, 2012, 12:36 PM - Edit history (1)

once and for all.

We have in recent years witnessed a creeping, growing, extremely disturbing line of argument on political discussion boards about shutting up (On edit: Or restricting our participation to adulatory praise) during elections, as though it is a given that good citizens must silence themselves so as not to disturb the delicate strategies being implemented by our parties. Or that they should not ask questions, because they will upset these delicate plans...

This week, we actually heard this garbage move beyond political discussion boards and come from one of the the campaigns itself:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021483594

This bid for silence is an affront to everything our representative political process is supposed to be about. It is a flagrantly antidemocratic demand for passivity by the governed, and it's an outrageous, dangerous meme that we need to stop dead in its tracks. Our entire political system is built around and depends upon government responsiveness to the people's voices. It's called representative government, and vigorous citizen participation in the political process is at the heart and the core of it. *Especially* during election seasons.

This new, outrageous claim that citizens should silence themselves during elections, or restrict themselves to praise, is a corruption of everything elections are supposed to be about in this country.

We have a serious problem of growing corporate control and authoritarianism in this country and in our two political parties. We are living in a time of "free speech zones," ....as though our entire country should not be a zone for free speech....and assaults on peaceful protesters.

It is well past time that the people of America speak out clearly and remind our politicians on both sides that they work for us....not the other way around.

So the next time someone tells you that you need to be quiet or obediently restrict your commentary to praise because it is election season, let them know in no uncertain terms they have it exactly backwards. The very health and survival of our representative government depends on our willingness to speak out and make clear what we expect from our elected representatives. Our power and our responsibility are in our voices....*especially* during elections.

128 Recs

Frankly, if I were Scuba, I would resent your attempt here to use a post that ostensibly honors my contributions in order to take a swipe at other DUers......to mischaracterize and smear as "anti-Obama" or "anti-Democrat" the important continued use of this board as a venue for discussion about what we expect fom our party and how to leverage our power to achieve it.... rather than as a place for submissive participation in an advertising machine where only adulatory posts are welcome.

K&R, and as Piketty has noted, the disproportion will only escalate from here simply as a result

of how the system is now structured. Nothing has to happen; it will occur naturally as current laws stand.

Simply because of how the laws and tax structures have been rigged, owned, hoarded wealth will continue to grow itself, and smaller and smaller proportions of wealth will be left to the rest of us.

The mechanisms are in place to create serfdom, and that's no exaggeration.


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Happy Halloween:
(Thanks, DeSwiss)

He's right. The corporate agenda is a menace to the country and to democracy itself,

being relentlessly pushed by both Republican and Democratic corporatists, including Hillary.

And until people get past the hyperpartisan wagon-circling and start rallying the nation to demand representation on issues rather than party, these criminals in both parties will continue to feed us a suicidal corporate agenda.

Hillary stands for more deluges of corporate money driving policy, the familiar agenda of perpetual war, TPP, austerity, mass surveillance, assaults on journalism and suppression of dissent, "Kill Lists," indefinite detention, all manner of corporate domestic policies, and dismantling of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution....and so will the ultimate Republican candidate.

Republicans have virtually no chance of running anyone in 2016 who can stand even for a while during the campaign against these things, to help educate the nation and grow the dissent we desperately need to save ourselves from the corporate coup well underway in this nation.

Democrats actually have a couple of possibilities who might be able to do some good, if we get behind them strongly now and push to keep menaces like Hillary out of the running.

We can respond to the hyperpartisan corporate dog whistles and mindlessly rally around Hillary because Nader is a poopy head and Hillary has a deceptive (D) after her name, or we can look honestly at the malignant agenda she represents and try our damnedest to avoid running another corporate Trojan horse in 2016.

I know which route I would rather take.

Don't even start. Seriously.

" Do these 'arrangements' have to do with specific suspects, perhaps?"

Good god. They have access to EVERYTHING. There is no excuse for that. Hell, there is no excuse for our OWN government to have the vast, vast majority of this information. How DARE they hand it out like Halloween candy to BRITISH SPY AGENCIES? (not to mention sharing with contractors, corporations, the DEA, and Goldman Sachs knows who else...)

"What other solution would anyone suggest"?!!!11!!1!

Solution to what? That's the cherry on top, seriously. When you want to defend the indefensible, pretend it's the only possible response to an imagined problem. Somehow, the USA managed for all these years without engaging in mass spying on Americans; creating detailed databases of Americans' private daily lives, associations, and communications; and handing it all to British Spy agencies. But gosh, what other SOLUTION could there be?

Yeah, Hitler called what he was doing a (final) "solution," too... Every nascent authoritarian state pretends to be coming up with "solutions."

You, of course, will respond with more of the same here, because having the last word is the unwritten rule for diversion and message control.

I won't be feeding your nonsense further, and I hope no one else does, either. But I just had to underscore how silly and absolutely insulting to all of DU these talking points have become.

Keep this on top. Our government has no right to be making "ARRANGEMENTS" like this.

Well, gee, I'm really confused now.

Our government would never do this, right? How could these "arrangements" possibly have been made?

I'm sure there is a good explanation. Something involving Smith vs. Maryland, or Judith Miller, or metadata, or the fact that Snowden is a poopyhead or Glenn Greenwald is gay.

Or maybe it's just necessary because ISIS is under our beds, or Ebola might get us.

I trust and adore my government so much I want every aspect of my life naked to them *and* anyone they choose to share it with. That's what's most important, right?

Well, it's good to know that you consider $13 bucks an hour an acceptable "new normal."

The disappearance of all those careers? Meh!

I'm not being facetious at all. It's refreshing that you are so explicit about what the Third Way considers just fine for the new American standard of living. Slightly higher slave wages!

Don't look at the reality in front of you.

Careers replaced by low-wage work: Welcome to your new low-wage future.

+100000 That old Third Way messaging problem.

It's a perilous tightrope walk, to have to claim to support the same values and principles and goals as traditional Democrats, while *carrying out* a corporate-backed policy agenda that consists of exactly the opposite.

No wonder Third Way messaging feels bizarre and crazy-making. There's always that abrupt, painful oscillation between claiming vehemently that they represent the same progressive values and goals as other Democrats (e.g., "The President wants the same things you do. He just can't get them PASSED right now!&quot ...

...and then accusing other Democrats of being extreme and "fringe" and unreasonable for having those very values and goals.

A clearer word for it is "lying."