And a fair amount of disgust toward the Dems - NONE of whom have EVER made an issue of these assholes getting our party's name wrong. SHEESH!!!! They can't even to stand up to the bad guys on THIS? How on earth can the Dems stand up to the schmucks on really critical issues on which we all need their representation and their vigilance, when they won't even deal with THIS?

Shit. Just disgusted.

And of course now they're debating the Stupid Amendment - which shouldn't even be an issue for heaven's sake!!!!

Yes, you realize it's probably an exercise in futility.

Yes, you realize you're not going to change their minds.

Yes, you realize you're not going to help them into the light.

Yes, you realize some people's souls are simply unredeemable.

BUT:

What you CAN do is give them proof of the very visible and very present and VERY adamant opposition THAT HAS THEM SURROUNDED.

What you CAN do is give them the feeling of the walls closing in on them and the tide flowing against them.

What you CAN do is offer them confusion - well, the teabagger organizers tell me EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE is against this, but then why do I keep gettin' these dang letters...

What you CAN do is DESTABILIZE THE ENEMY. Yes, they're still there. Yes, they're still standing. Yes, they're still being blockheads and assholes and ignorant, stubborn, selfish cheapskates. But maybe some of 'em (like, maybe, yours?) are a little unsure of themselves. They go along because they're lemmings and they have the groupthink to hide behind, but forced to stand out there alone, exposed, and still pushing this shit WILL give some of them a knot or two in their stomachs. They'll be standing there alright, but noticing there are rocks in their shoes and the ground they're standing on is actually sinkhole territory. They'll be standing there but maybe a bit shakier than normal - because THEY'RE gonna be up for reelection, too. AND they know they face troubles from more than just you. They've got enemies in their own camp - extremists worse than they are, who messed it up bigtime for the GOP in that New York State district that was always republi-CON until that nutcase wacko hoffman got in there and fucked it up for the GOP candidate and made her bail and then the Democrat danced past them both and won it.

What you CAN do is force them to lose a LOT of sleep, and pop a LOT of Maalox tablets and blood pressure pills, wondering deep-down if maybe they're on the wrong side here, starting secretly to hate how haggard they look in the bathroom mirror in the morning and how increasingly thankless this job of theirs is. You want them nursing such thoughts as - "shit, there's gotta be a better way to earn a living..." or "Dear God, do I need this? Really???" Or better yet - "does my family need this? Is it REALLY worth it?"

What you CAN do is make their job more difficult, make them more uncomfortable, and sow seeds of insecurity, doubt, and discontent.

DESTABILIZING THE ENEMY is an EXTREMELY valuable strategy. Longterm, it's a winner. A destabilized enemy doesn't fight as well or as hard or as efficiently or as sharply-focused or as effectively. A destabilized enemy is demoralized, uncertain, hesitant, wondering why the hell this is still worth it. A destabilized enemy is one that's on its way to eventual, and inevitable, defeat. That's what the teabaggers tried to do at those town hall meetings - "shake 'em up and knock 'em off their stride." Well, it's not just the teabaggers that can do that, and have that effect on their opponents! It's US TOO! It's YOU - with your knuckledragging alleged "representative." This is what you can do and the lovely gesture you can make to them - every day if you feel so inclined.

You don't win now, in such a situation. But you set it up so that you're far more likely to win in the future. What you DON'T EVER WANT is an enemy that's strong, united, focused, and unfettered by doubt, disagreement, distraction, or uncertainty. You want to sow as much dissonance, and uncertainty, and disharmony, and fear and insecurity about their jobs and the stand they've taken. For some, you have to KNOW they're having some second thoughts about taking the stand they have - especially if they keep being reminded about how many millions of us there are who adamantly want what they're trying to block.

DESTABILIZE THE ENEMY. Critical and essential in its importance!

 
even so. They chickened out from a war that they promoted and thought was REALLY REALLY REALLY important for somebody ELSE to go fight. But woe to anyone who calls them chickenhawks.

Truth hurts, doesn't it tom? And heaven forbid, while you're out there grandstanding about war and veterans and how you know so damn much about all of it and you're more-patriotic-than-thou, somebody yanks your pants down in public and reveals your chickenhawk Pampers underneath. Heaven just forbid that would happen!

We certainly can't have this, now, can we? Hypocrisy unmasked.

That will be the worst of all worlds.

It will:

A) further empower and embolden the Party of "NO."

B) grow big, bright, fat yellow stripes down the backs of wavering Dems who MIGHT have been arm-twistable here - finally finally finally to get something accomplished on this issue for the first time since Harry Truman's day.

C) likely ensure that we lose the majority in 2010, or come close enough that revisiting health care reform thus hobbled isn't even considered an option any longer.

D) give more momentum to the glenn peckers and the tea baggers who'll LOUDLY and WIDELY call this a big personal victory, which may also give them more of their own running for and maybe even winning Congressional seats of their own.

E) dispirit and discourage TOO MANY Democratic grass-roots activists who gave their all AND THEN SOME last year to win workable majorities in both Houses of Congress EXPRESSLY to address some of these long-overdue necessities. And we saw full well how a discouraged base tends to say "the hell with it" and stay home on Election Day.

We will VERY PROBABLY NOT get another shot OF ANY SORT at this - for maybe another generation if we fail now - while we still have a chance!!!! Do you really want to risk that? I say we twist her arm til it damn near breaks off. As i - if she wants or expects ANYTHING for her district besides a used snot rag, she better find a way to be okay with this. Sometimes you've gotta go for it while there's still time. Because the longer this drags out, the less and less hope we have for a positive outcome of ANY sort. Which is exactly why the bad guys are trying desperately to string this out as long as they can. People lose their guts, their enthusiasm, their resolve, after awhile. If you can wear 'em down, you've stolen their win. It's too much to risk.

That hate is SO deeply ingrained, over so many reasons, that it would take an awfully long time to subside even if we were to stop the wars. But that would be a place to start.

Seems to me there's SO MUCH opposition out there, and reasons galore - so many that are understandable. And some of those we CAN do something about.

Look, we portray them as evil in our media; the pervasive, imperialistic attitude from our part of the world that OUR oil is under THEIR sand (who was it just recently who said we're ENTITLED to the Iraqis' oil because of all the war-waging and blood-spilling we've done over there, hey, some of that blood-spill even our own, so there!); our historical imperialism that they see applied to every corner of the globe that we touch - aha! ("See? That's simply who they are, those American pirates" with their multi-national corporate greed-meisters - they're not to be trusted, they do this to EVERYONE"); our behavior only seems to reinforce long-held grievances (Crusades, anyone?); there are nutcases here that would beat them up in the street, and who know next-to-nothing. Persians? Iraqis? Iranians? Saudis? Pakistanis? "FUCK 'EM, ALL THEM AY-RABS!!!" THAT mentality. The mentality that makes some fat-assed, beer-swilling putz arrive at a Dodger game wearing a T-shirt in public that has a cartoon of Saddam Hussein being butt-fucked by Uncle Sam, while the Saddam character is crying out to Allah to save him while the Uncle Sam character is yelling something like "Yeah! You're getting "Allah" me!" And said T-shirt is paraded around in front of every individual in Dodger Stadium, including small children. THAT mentality. BTW - I witnessed that utterly obscene, abominable T-shirt, personally, sitting in front of me at a Dodger game just after the Iraq War had started. Actually, I take that back slightly. It was sitting in the row in front of our whole party, and directly in front of my then 10-year-old son.

That kind of offensive mindset, over the YEARS - decades, even centuries - shown to millions of Middle Easterners MIGHT be treatable, MIGHT be addressable. Unfortunately, the biggest and most ferocious issue that keeps us at each other's throats is the entire matter of Israel. And THAT problem is going to be virtually impossible to solve as long as the U.S. maintains its rock-solid, uncompromising support of Israel. And the Palestinians keep taking it in the shorts. And Israeli settlers keep building more settlements in what Palestinians keep believing is THEIR territory. And everyone in THREE of the world's Great Religions remains in conflict and opposition over who should control Jerusalem, etc. etc.

As long as those problems remain unsolved, especially that most difficult one of them all, the West will always feel hatred from the Islamic world. Merely stopping the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will barely start scratching the surface. It'd be a start, though. A symbol, a gesture of note. But it would only be the beginning. You think Obama has mountains to move with a spoon collection - now?

DEMS!!!!! You fuck this up - and you're fucked. They'll come back to get you and you'll be Vulnerable As HELL!!! You'll just give them more ammo and make their case for them.

I've already heard this morning after last night's elections that "they have the White House, the House AND the Senate, and they can't get anything done."

OUCH.

That is a VERY powerful argument. VERY powerful. If I were the bad guys, I'd be running with that one - EVERYWHERE.

Yes, it's WAY less significant all across the board. Yes, those other issues are WAY more important and critical to people's LIVES. Yes to all of that!

But people were obsessed with Monica Lewinsky. Sex sells and this sure did, for more than a year. Hell, in some respects it's STILL selling. And therein lies the problem. That's what makes the whole Monica business so damaging, longterm.

It goes back to public perception and the manipulation thereof. Unfortunately, public perception CAN be managed and manipulated. Bullshit does baffle. Our side can have all the issues and all the research and all the background and we'll lose every time to someone who can craft a different message that baffles or dissuades, or even frustrates (annoys) the voter - someone who can manipulate the public perception better.

What the Monica thing did was create a huge, cold, wet, heavy, scratchy, bad-smelling, bug-eaten, larvae-filled blanket that dropped over Clinton and everything that involved his side, ie: the Democrats. It laid a gigantic, bright red negative over him and those of us who'd supported him or thought like he did or voiced similar ideas and opinions. It gave observers AND ESPECIALLY critics and opponents more ammo. More entitlement to sneer and snicker and cluck and gloat and roll their eyeballs and quote ronald reagan "there you go again!" Which automatically and subconsciously unleashes the avalanche of negative feelings toward what everyone's been programmed to think about our side since the early '80's: that liberals are bad, naive, stupid, foolish, irrational, tree-hugging, baby-killing, America-hating terrorists. Granted the last three words are fairly recent additions, given the circumstances that were ripe for exploitation over the last eight years. The Monica business only aggravated all of that. Hung Christmas tree lights all over it and flew it around in front of all the TV cameras so it was unescapable anywhere.

It just reinforced all the things that far too many gullible Americans have been trained to hate.

AND, because it's sex, it's gonna be fun to talk about and titter about - for-evv-ver. There are thousands of ways to keep it in the front of the public mind. Every time ANY politician, Democrat or republi-CON, is caught in the wrong bed, there is the inevitable montage and commentary about all the other politicians who've done so. And the BIGGEST OF THEM ALL is Bill Clinton. He's the star on top of the Christmas tree. The leader of the pack. The cherry on top of the sundae. The biggest name on the marquee. And then, everybody gets reminded about all those bad things. The sex and then the lying and the haranguing and waste of time and money all through Congress and the negative feelings that immediately pop up in reaction - to oneself - for being so low-life as to be interested in this tawdry, lurid crap. Negativity all around, of every sort imaginable, AND it's associated DIRECTLY with Clinton, and by extension, the rest of us Dems and liberals and progressives.

Because THEN, thus softened up, the properly conditioned mindset can move onward through the rest of the litany of the REALLY SERIOUS issues - like NAFTA, the ridiculous handling of gays in the military, the compromises with the bad guys on taxes and welfare, the whole argument about the so-called "third way" of the accursed DLC, the betrayal of the true liberal/progressive agenda, ALL of it. ALL THE REST of it.

Just remember the human nature calculus here - too many Americans have the donald rumsfeld mentality - "go wide, sweep it all up." Remember that infamous statement immediately after 9/11 when they were looking for ANYTHING to hang it on?

Another complication of that annoying obsession on the Monica affair is how it dilutes public opinion against us. Seeing that newsreel of any sexual bad boy in Washington DC, which inevitably includes the star of our show, Bill Clinton, just reduces him as any sort of distinguished figure of POSITIVE note. It further reinforces the pervasive attitude of "see? They ALL do it. They're ALL guilty. Both sides. One's no better than any of the others." What THAT turns into is a diminished commitment to one side (OURS), diminished activism, more throw-up-your-hands-and-a-pox-on-both-your-houses detachment, apathy, frustration, and less enthusiasm for our ENTIRE side of things. Everything we believe in and keep working toward.

And we just saw, yet again last night, what a difference it makes when one side is feeling that diminishment, that apathy, that lack of enthusiasm, while the opponents were All Fired Up.

The Monica affair rendered Clinton a late-night comedians' joke, and the rest of us less able to advance our agenda as Dems because we look bad and reckless and irresponsible (the "fish rots from the head" thing) since we're on his team. It puts us on the defensive and gives the enemy more ammo to use against us to demean and diminish our side in the media and the public's view. We look ethically compromised so we're not as effective in standing for the things we do. And we look trivial because - well, all this fuss about cigars and a stained blue dress, those "hot-pants" liberals, can't keep it zipped up, what a cad - tsk-tsk-tsk. JUST the thing when your opponents are the most sanctimonious, judgmental, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou priss-ants on the planet. Nothing like feeding THEIR God-anointed superiority complexes, 'eh?

It's psychology and human nature and group-think and perception management and manipulation and all that crazy stuff. The whole Monica business just gave SUCH a black-eye, in general, overriding, pervasive, visceral. Down in the gut. Instinctive. You feel it before you realize it and have time to process it consciously. It's already there. The point's already been made. The game has already been one. You're trained to go there automatically because the visceral lever was thrown. The Monica mess just fucked EVERYTHING over. Made EVERYTHING worse. Made our case all the more difficult to defend. Gave us all a kick in the teeth. It hobbled our ability to advance our agenda, while piling on embarrassment that makes ANY Democrat, even the most ardent Clinton admirer, cringe and want to run from the room and hide. That, in turn, disables us as far as being able, willing, or enthusiastic, about making a strong case for our agenda.

That's why I think it's the over-arching detrimental legacy. Even with the issues that happened before Monica - that we all still have to advocate for and defend - it just didn't help. It left us on the defensive. And opponents have been able to spread that around, so that it's not just Mr. Sex-Addict that's the problem, it's everything he stands for. And since we're on his team, it's automatically presumed that we're part of that too. By the time it happened in his administration, there wasn't a lot of time left, and I think the fight may have gone out of him. Certainly did with a lot of us. And it left us with that millstone around our necks after he left the center stage and we still had to stay in the chorus. It wasn't his problem anymore because he really didn't count anymore. But we did and it's still our problem because it's still OUR agenda that needs protecting and defending, and his fucking around damaged US. And every damn time some david vitter or john ensign or larry craig or mark sanford blunders onto the headlines, "roll the video!" and here again will be everybody's sexcapades and the biggest offender of all - hey, let's bring back the Grand Wazoo of the Naughty Schlong Hall of Fame - Biiiiiiiiiiiiilllll CLINTON!!!! And we'll just cringe and have to endure that resurrected ordeal of humiliation and diminishment - yet again. Back on defense - yet again.

It came from info@dscc.org - but it was written by a fellow who's sent out emails before -

Dear J.P. -

Please pass this along to our nearly-deaf Senate leadership:

NOT ANOTHER NICKEL until:

1) We get a ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION - that covers EVERYONE.
2) Dems grow some backbone and STOP CAVING to the GOP (hey! Did you hear the news last November? The GOP LOST. Repeat: LOST. WHY are we still treating them like they won?).
3) YANK joe lieberman's committee chairmanship - AND other perks. WHY is he allowed to continue enjoying these privileges, and WHY do the Dems continue to reward his bad behavior? Would you raise your kids that way, condoning and ignoring and rewarding their bad behavior? If he won't stand with the Dems, the Dems should NO LONGER stand with him. Since when did somebody die and make him God?

I'm sorry, J.P. I worked like a dog ALL last year, blogged, hosted a local radio show, went to meetings, hosted a debate party where we shook down all our friends for the Dems and for Obama, and donated until it hurt. I busted my behind and put virtually everything else in my life on hold for this - so my Dems would take the majorities in both Houses of Congress AND the White House, so we could FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY make some changes and fix some very egregious wrongs.

And what do I get? Continued CAVING to the republi-CONS. Heck, NOBODY among the Dems even says "peep" when those assholes mispronounce our party's NAME!!! Nobody even does anything about THAT!!!!

It's a very poor return on investment for me to donate any more to the Democrats. Besides, it's liable to go to helping some Blue Dog and I have NO interest in that, either.

DEMS WITH SPINE, OR NOT ONE DIME!!!!!

I'm sorry, too, because I ordinarily love helping my Dems, and I know this is disappointing to you as an activist. But you've GOT to carry this message to SOMEONE who's listening in the Democratic Party hierarchy!!! I'm disappointed, too. I'm broken-hearted! I'm one of MILLIONS out here who are so fed up we can't see straight anymore!!!

Sign me -

calimary
UBER-FRUSTRATED LIBERAL-AND-DAMNED-PROUD-OF-IT Democrat

Just thought you guys might like to see this. Plus - maybe another meme or two that might be usable? It kinda rhymes, so it might stick in the mind more easily, too.

I'm just Beyond Frustrated. And my checkbook is CLOSED. No backbone? No bucks.

isikoff could investigate Clinton and the Blue Dress Affair til the last cow came to the last home on the last day of Planet Earth. But did he show ANY of that vigilance when these war profiteer/war criminal traitors were at it? For that matter, did chris matthews? (HAH!)

michael isikoff couldn't investigate his way around the inside of a paper bag unless there was a Clinton, a stained blue dress, and a whole lotta tips and blast-faxes from the RNC and the Arkansas Project assholes guiding his way.

Heaven forbid he compromise his precious "access."

Same goes for most of that fraternity-from-Hell that's otherwise known as the Washington/White House Press Corps. They did NOTHING. They checked into NOTHING. They questioned NOTHING. They challenged NOTHING. Until closer to the end of the bush regime when they realized the coast was clear, and too many other Americans knew the truth (and they noticed they had to start playing catch-up).

Actually, I take that back.

Delete the "Maybe."

All I'd keep thinking is - "shit, that CAN'T be good for you" - every time I'd see somebody tackled or hit or taken down with the usual brutality. When our son was growing, and manifested almost no sports capability OR interest (he loved his karate - but even more than that, he loved his guitar!), I was BEYOND grateful! Just BEYOND grateful. Still am. And now he rocks out at clubs around town, and never had to go to the hospital for a concussion or neck injury or anything. Thought he'd sprained a finger once in karate class, but that was pretty much it on that score. And even there, he never was quite good enough to get into the high-impact, high-stress, almost gymnastic upper levels. He was pretty good but not one of the standouts who did all the really tricky maneuvers and would wrench their backs and dislocate their knees. One kid even landed wrong and broke his leg. YEOW!!!

None of the members of my immediate family was born with the "sports gene." Myself included. And I am BEYOND grateful. Our son gets enough of a workout just rehearsing and performing. And our daughter works out all the time at the school gym. And we walk the dog.

Never did enjoy football. It always scared me, because I could never get past wondering what those guys were all doing to themselves physically while they were burning it up out there on the gridiron. By the time they're in their 40's they'll be near crippled - if they're lucky.

so we figured up how much it'd be and put the money and a tip on the table and got up and left (letting one of the staffers closest to the door know that we were taking the kids outta there). Immediately. Smack dab in the middle of one of their good loud screams. BOOM! OUTTA THERE. And That's That. Neither of us could stand the idea of letting our noisy little temporary tantrum-throwers disrupt the entire restaurant. You don't have to say anything. You certainly don't have to threaten anything. Don't even have to give them a dirty look. You just suddenly up and GO. Instant response. Instant consequences. Boom! You're GONE. And suddenly they find themselves in the car going home and fun's over.

You do that once or twice (or even three times) and eventually the kids do seem to get the message (ours did) - that Your Behavior Will NOT Be Tolerated In Public!!! You want to go out with your big boy pants and big girl purse and have a Big People's dinner with Mommy and Daddy in a Big People's Restaurant? Then ACT ACCORDINGLY!!!!! Or else you get lurched outta there before you even get the free bread basket and taken straight home with NO big fancy dinner and and it's leftovers in the kitchen for everybody. We were very fortunate in that our kids got this message very quickly. I think we only had to do that once. I think it's the abruptness, the shock value, the sudden and very obvious course change - AWAY from the fun and the excitement of going out to that big fancy nice new place they don't usually get taken to.

It also taught them pretty darn early about how you behave in the "Big People's Places." As in - you behave WELL. And QUIETLY! And with MANNERS. Or you DON'T get to come.

They DO make America fun again! And to some extent - they make America feel young again. All those kids bouncing around - who wouldn't? It's a tonic, and man do we need one!

I think he's far more likely to make a good decision than his God-forsaken predecessor. For many reasons. And I'm glad he went to Dover. I think it's called the Dover Test. I read about something along those lines once, in the context of the bush era when his selected lordship refused to take time out from his busy day to greet the returning soldiers' remains. Something about a leader who has the grace and courage to go to Dover AFB to meet those returning body cases personally, up close and first-hand. Something about how - if you're in a position of that kind of power, in which you can wage war - you need to come face-to-face with the immediate, most personal, and most intimate consequences of war waging. And in this country, it behooves you as leader to go to Dover AFB, because that's where the bodies arrive. Find the cost of freedom - directly there on the tarmac of their return. And that's what Obama did. That's what Clinton did, too. That's what selfish, arrogant, cowardly, excuse-making weasels like bush and cheney didn't do.

What I like about this the most is hearing other voices starting to say the same thing. REALLY beautiful to hear Harkin voicing this out loud. It needs to be out there, it needs to be said, it needs to be brought up, again and again and again! The more it spreads, the more (hopefully) that swine lieberman and others will start to feel the walls closing in on them. They need to be made VERY painfully aware that there may be pretty serious consequences for going rogue like this, and siding with THE ENEMY. And just WHY does TRAITOR joe deserve to have a frickin' committee chairmanship? He isn't even a Dem anymore. For him and his ilk, it has to be more and more uncomfortable and even painful to have to face rising and angrier choruses of "WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON, ASSHOLE?"