I Know It’s Not Me, Oh Hell No! It’s Not Me

[Daveparts]

Who hasn’t heard the expression, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” I guess I always thought I knew what that meant but with the Democrats taking over in the Congress so far it means someone’s getting screwed. Who’s responsible? Who can say? With Washington D.C. being designated as the world’s largest idiot sanctuary stupidity becomes easily camouflaged amongst the native foliage.

They seem to have trouble determining when to stand on principle and when to negotiate.When to hold them and when to fold them but so far from what I’ve seen I wouldn’t let them take the cow to market because they’ll come back with a hand full of magic beans every time. In this latest chapter The Democrats have backed down yet again to the administration on cutting of funding for the Iraq war. Cleverly trading 124 billion dollars in Iraq war funding for Republican support of 20 billion dollars in domestic initiatives, including the first minimum wage increase in a decade, better healthcare for war veterans and health insurance for poor children.

Perhaps their mothers never taught them the old adage fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me and fool me three times and I’m the Speaker of the house. The willingness to trade the money to finance the bungle in Baghdad for a raise in the minimum wage it’s almost a certainty that Ms. Pelosi will never earn the moniker of Slick Nancy. First you should stand on the principle that raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do and to not raise it would be an abomination and a disgrace, how dare we talk about exporting democracy while advocating economic slavery at home.

Second funding the Iraq war is an abomination and should be stopped on principle alone and by trading one principle for another you get neither. Perhaps it was a mistake to prominently announce the Democratic agenda complete with a timetable making it easy for the Republicans to defeat by just normal foot dragging. Then once elected on a platform of change to announce impeachment off the table in other words go along to get along. Then in a scene borrowed from Wagnerian opera the speaker grabs the hammer of Thor and throws it at the feet of the king and declares no more war funding. Then as the curtain falls they go backstage and it becomes non-binding declaration.

I thought you won arguments by the correctness of your position but in modern Washington you just make a deal right or wrong! The war is wrong, it has always been wrong and the majority of the American public have finally come to that realization. But the speaker wants to trade a wage increase for the poor for a few more dead bodies of the poor. The idea of better healthcare for war veterans by allowing the President to make more of them rivals murdering your parents and pleading for mercy because you’re an orphan.

I will be the first to admit that my math skills are sub par so correct me if this is wrong isn’t 124 billion greater than 20 billion? Now add to that the correctness of the position, now add to that the popularity of the President yet the speaker is almost hat in hand asking, I will you trade six Barry Bonds baseball cards for a Greg Maddox? I don’t know maybe it’s just me I’d rather lose a fight and get nothing than trade away everything to get half.

Maybe I idealize Washington too much, a sort of Hollywood idealism of Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Then when I look back on the politicians that I personally admire and respect I know its not me, oh hell no! Not by a long shot it’s not me! When Harry Truman ran for President in 1948 Southern Senators threatened to walk out of the convention and split the party if Truman wouldn’t soften his plank on civil rights. Truman refused to even discuss the issue it wasn’t a subject open to negotiation he would rather lose being right then sellout a principle.

When the Southern delegation carried through with their threat and walked out Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey ordered the band to play and lead the crowd in applauding their departure. A moment of disastrous political disintegration had been turned into a moment of sublime moral imperative. The American public could see it as well, these guys meant what they said and were willing to put their own necks on the line to take off their coat and ties and fight about it.

They would make no truce or parley on articles of truth and justice and if only poor Dewey had copyrighted his speeches full of platitudes and kind words his descendants would be on easy street today for the currant crop of Republican hopefuls would all be paying them royalties. From the convention on the distinction was clear, Truman was ready to take off his suit and tie and fight for his beliefs while Dewey promised every thing will be fine we just need a few tax cuts.

There is no disgrace in losing a fight there is only shame in running from it. There is no shame in being out smarted, it has happened to all of us at one time or another in our lives. But afraid to fight with these guys? And being out smarted by George Bush? That takes some explaining!

[NotGivingUp]

1. they do not work for us. they work for the 1%. the whole thing is a farce. nt

[MADem]

2. In DC, your "power" is measured by the number of fights you win.

Shame at losing has nothing to do with it.

The reason everyone is saying "Monkey is on the ropes" is because now he has to wheel/deal, compromise, triangulate .... or give up on plans he has. I'm not happy with the continued funding of the war, either, but I'm not running through the halls of Congress trying to horsetrade, either. I suspect the Democrats don't want this to be a "The Democrats Cut And Run" talking point for 08. They want both sides to vote for ending the war, in big numbers.

Politics IS the fine art of compromise. When it's run as a "Winner take all" exercise, you end up with a lot of hatred, anger, and desire for revenge on one side of the equation. The Democrats are showing restraint, and employing the Golden Rule. It's a smart tactic leading up to 08. Slash-n-burn politics only incites the aggrieved, humiliated, and 'professionally victimized' base of the opposition.

YMMV, and likely does.

[Daveparts]

3. In Many Arguments

we can both be right, we can work out accommodations to suit us both. There are however certain circumstances the require us to say No! I will not accommodate you I will not compromise! You want me to help you rob the bank and I say no! Come on compromise just drive the get away car.
To compromise becomes complicity.

The poet Longfellow was jailed for refusing to pay his taxes during the civil war should he have compromised and said I'll pay half. This isn't library funding we are talking about we are in the the middle of most grotesque act of American foreign policy in history. By comparison the Vietnam war looks almost noble our service people are dying to make theft possible and I won't negotiate, this is blood and bodies and murder and mayhem for the organized theft of another nations natural resources.

Would Gandhi have compromised? Would MLK have compromised?

[MADem]

4. Neither Ghandi (were he a US citizen) nor MLK, in their TIME, could have been elected dogcatcher in

the USA. People get this idea that Martin, especially, was universally adored and bowed down to while he lived. He wasn't. He caught major shit from the right, for being a Black man who spoke out, and he caught major shit from the left, too, for being too "old school" and not advocating "power by the point of a gun."

It was only after some asshole put a bullet through his head that he became a saint.

Nowadays, either one of your examples, if they could be brought back to life, would be elected to any national office in a walk, but BACK THEN, no. They wouldn't stand a chance.

We live IN OUR TIME. We have to make things work IN OUR TIME.

If you don't want to "compromise" well, don't. But compromise is the thing that advances the ball. Standing on principle might feel good, but you'll be standing on it while the GOP tries to run roughshod over the rest of us. I won't have that.

YMMV. And probably does.

[Daveparts]

5. When Compromise is Complicity

I respect what your saying on a theoretical level but when it comes to carnage and murder I will trust my conscience that the people will agree with me and rise up and stop this and you must trust your conscience that a little murder and a little carnage is alright if we achieve a compromise if we can trade corpses for good things. It's your conscience sleep well

[MADem]

6. It isn't complicity if it advances the ball towards the right goal, though.

When "Standing on Principle" ensures that you look like a hapless Quixote, and the GOP Machine marches on.

This isn't theory at all.

It is how things actually WORK.

If you want to take the entire construct a step further, "standing on principle" when that means that your side will SURELY lose, is the ultimate 'complicity.' These steadfast "No Compromise" types can rest on self-righteous, almost arrogant, laurels, while the GOP runs away with all the prizes, and say "Well, at least I wasn't a compromising prick, now, was I?"

And while the "Principled Better-Thans" sit back in personal satisfaction, those corpses you talk about so cavalierly continue to come home, and will do so for four years after 08, because of short-sighted, well meaning neophytes who aren't seeing the big picture or taking the long view.

It's much harder to hold your nose and do the sausage-making work that politics necessitates. Without compromise, all you're doing is giving the GOP ammo to come back and fuck us sideways.

Nothing succeeds like SUCCESS. And backing failed "No Quarter" ideas and standing on principles that won't fly isn't the way to succeed--but it is the way to ensure that the carnage and murder you decry continues under the next GOP President.

You may not get everything you want when you want it with compromise, but the idea is to move the legislature towards our viewpoints--a nudge at a time, if that is what it takes, not alienate them by shaking fists and pounding lecterns in ineffective but dramatic fashion.

But hey, it's YOUR conscience...so you sleep well, too.

[tom_paine]

7. I want to believe what you are saying, I really do

And I am trying like hell to see that side of it, even though my intellect/instinct interface is screaming the opposite.

My instinct/intellect says, "In normal times, what you are saying is true. It's politics It's how the Founding Dads designed it and it's working. BUT THESE ARE NOT NORMAL TIMES. For the first time in my life, perhaps all of our lives, we are battling Bushie Leaders who have 100% contempt for both the Constitution and the Citizenry.

100%. They believe in Leo Strauss and little else. Leo told them to lie repeatedly to their inferiors, that it was ok because that's what superiors do to control benevolently.

Strauss was an idiot because the only people who are attracted to such a vision of perpetual lying to ensure perpetual benevolence are the evil confidence men who see it as a great rationale to endlessly screw the marks.

You CANNOT think of dealing with these people as we dealt with Reagan or even Nixon, who was quite a crook himself but did, in the end, respect the Constitution and the Citizenry a little bit, just enough to keep him from ignoring his impending trial and daring the FBI to come get him and his henchmen.

(of course, in those days when the nation was still being run by the generation that helped defeat Hitler, the FBI would have come right the hell over with a set of cuffs if Sirica issued the warrant)"

That's what my instinct and my intellect tell me. My knowledge of history and tyranny. I am trying hard to believe what you are saying is the right thing to do.

But I think the odds are 2-1 against that and we shall all find out exactly why, by and by.

I hope I am wrong and you are right, is the best I can say, MADem.