Laura Flanders needs to be specific in targeting Democrats.

[madfloridian]

She keeps saying that none of them spoke out this morning, and that is not true.

She could compliment the ones who spoke out, and criticize the ones who did not speak out.

AAR has many hosts who slam Democrats overall. I heard Jerry Springer do it, and she did it several times.

Criticism should be specific, not just general Democrat bashing, not on AAR.

[madfloridian]

1. And everyone calling in keeps bashing them all....."impeachment".

Dean said the VP should step down. He said impeachment was a way down the road.

She heard that Howard Dean wasn't "terrible". She thinks Harmon did a good job.

This guy calling in now and she are sounding Democrats are not doing anything.

Now I see where things are coming from.

In fact it sounds like DU, where no matter what a Democrats does or says they are not doing enough. I was very disappointed.

[blm]

8. I agree. The left leaning media does a HORRIBLE job with important facts

all the time, and usually get believed by the overall audience.

I think bad analysis from the left to our own audiences is just as bad as the disinfo campaigns by the GOP that go out every day to the average public.

I can't even TELL you how many bad facts I have heard regarding Dems like Gore, Kerry and Dean over the last 6 years - and many of them from the purported left who seem incapable of consulting actual government records.

[madfloridian]

9. Boy, do we agree on this. I have been upset lately.

All of them do it, and they do it to the ones who were trying to change things. And I do include Kerry in that.

We had to rid of Sirius to switch to XM, and I find myself listening to Thom Hartmann on the internet more than I listen on the radio.

I love Randi, and she is more factually oriented than most.

[Armstead]

2. This morning? Meaning the Sunday talk shows?

I didn't hear much speaking out. Mostly just mild disagreement over a few technicalities.

[Armstead]

3. P,S, But I didn't see Howard Dean, who usually does speak up

[madfloridian]

5. It was outstanding, and I am furious.

My hubby walked over to the radio and turned it off.

Why bother to speak out if the liberal radio hosts just call you "not terrible"....and he did everything but call for impeachment.

[Armstead]

6. May I suggest you listen with an open mind?

You might hear things that get you pissed outside the usual Democratic/Republican frame.....There's bigger fish to fry in terms of what's eating this country alive than the partisan bickering.

Also, Flanders is very inspiring in terms of promoting activism, including poltiical activism to boot out the GOP.

She's going to be discussing the response to the King funeral and the role of Blogs in politicasl organizing.

[madfloridian]

7. Bigger fish to fry....don't pull that on me.

It hit both of us the same way. My husband never gets upset. He said he did not pay 200+ for a radio again to hear all Democrats bashed.

Sorry, the bigger fish to fry crap is overboard.

And do not accuse me of not having an open mind.

[Armstead]

10. Sorry, but there are bigger fish to fry

These divisions would be irrelevant if the Democrats were more actively frying those fish themselves. The fact that they are letting so muchy slip by leaves them open for legitimate criticism.

I am extremely sad that I haven't felt like the Democrats represent what are basic common liberal pronciples for too many years. And I'm not a radical by any stretch.

Many progressives are cheesed off because so much has been ignored by the Democrats. Sorry but that's just the way it is, and has been since before Bush took office.

[madfloridian]

12. Some Democrats are trying....do you give credit?

She did not.

There has to be some appreciation of the Democratic party on the left leaning radio, or we are doing as much hard as right wing.

[Armstead]

14. I've heard her be very effusive in praising Democrats

She has been extremely supportive of Democrats who she believes are on the same side.

[madfloridian]

16. On the same side as who, what?

?

[Armstead]

18. Liberal and progressive values

I know what it is, and I blather on about it here on DU often.

My avatar picture is a Democrats who represents that.

If you read his speeches from the late 90's you might get an idea of what I'm talking about regarding the Democratic Party too. Wellstone was often scathing about Democrats, even though he was a party-man all the way.

[madfloridian]

21. So you think I don't?

I do, but I am practical that the way some are acting is going to scare off the politicians to the right again. When the Democratic leaders hear nothing but unreasonable anger on their phones, and get mails that demand more than they can give....they will pretty soon turn us off.

I would not blame them, frankly.

Laura seemed to tie "impeachment" to the standard now.

I don't. I am not against it, but I think enough are just about saying it. How anyone could be critical of Dean's interview today, at least people on our side...is beyond me. Even if I did not like him, I have to have admit it was good.

I think the ideas of the left are pretty good overall, but the methods are going overboard.

[Armstead]

24. Overboard because it's necessary -- They keep ignoring it

(Please see the Wellstone speech below. He hit the nail on the head back in 98 -- especially if you read the whole speech.)

[Armstead]

23. Wellstone in 1998 -- A speech that foreshadowed a lot

This is an excerpt from hen speech he made in 1998. These express the roots of the present discontent.

(Since it's a public speech, I'm including more than four paragraphs)


http://www.geocities.com/~demcrat/frame32.html

And how bright is the Democratic flame? How great is the difference between the sales pitch for the current menu of policies and the ability of those policies to deliver? Too much of the current Democratic message seems to be traveling on hype, as if the lingering fumes of what is in reality a timid policy will be enough to propel us into the future.

Even though the Great Society achieved more than any government program since the New Deal, some still talk about its (quote) "failure" because they hold President Johnson to the full value of his admittedly immoderate promises. And if, in the fullness of time, the program of a President, who for all his faults, was as great a legislator as Lyndon Johnson fades when compared to its advertisements, what pray tell can be the legacy of the vast gulf that now exists between rhetoric and reality?

With the aid of Dick Morris, President Clinton has been the master of bumper-sticker politics, of the manipulation of symbols to shape the most ephemeral of swing-voter moods. They sold school uniforms as if they were the answer for education; they sold V-chips as if they would eliminate youth violence. This hype of little things as if they were big things merely guarantees failure and disillusionment, and drives home the point to far too many that policy doesn't make a difference, after all. This is merely symbolic politics.

Progressives need to move beyond symbolic politics and embrace changes that have real effects on people's lives. We need to progress beyond the era of changes the size of school uniforms, and move ahead to a bold agenda that affects people lives.

Traditional progressive bread and butter economic issues are the heart of the solution. It's about ensuring decent jobs with a good wage. It's about ensuring a free public education in all the communities of America, whether they are in the shiny new affluent suburbs or the crumbling old schools of the older suburbs and cities. It's about ensuring a system where all Americans have access to health care, instead of a steadily declining share of our population.

And we need to be talking about those issues that are not on the table: We live in an era awash in special interest campaign money, and the Congressional majority does their bidding to block campaign finance reform. We live in an era of increasing monopolization, but the Congressional majority speaks as if antitrust law were abolished. We live in an era of a frighteningly global economy, which has in the space of the past few weeks plunged millions of Asians from the middle class into poverty, but the Congressional majority clings to their laissez-faire orthodoxy. William Greider has written excellent pieces on this last subject this month in "The Nation" and "The Washington Post."

Those are the issues to which Democrats need to return. In the current atmosphere of frightened Democrats, some may say that this agenda is unrealistically liberal, but I simply say, I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party!

In reality, my prescription is not really about left or right. Most people in the diners and cafes of America don't think in terms of left, right, and center. No one ever asks me that. They're not at all interested about disputes between DLC-Democrats and progressives. They don't care about the packaging and positioning of the Democratic Party.

For most people, politics is much more connected and personal. One of our great strengths as progressives, if we communicate it correctly, if we speak so that we connect, is our bond with real people. It's not about a ten-point program, or the latest Washington angst. No, it's actually about bread-and-butter, kitchen-table economic justice and opportunity concerns that really affect people.

[madfloridian]

25. Wellstone would never have called me a Good German.

He would never have said I was hurting the country.

He would never have based a person's credibility on whether they would use the word "impeach" or not.

He would never have listened to Howard Dean's interview this morning and said it was "not terrible."

He would been alarmed at the blanket criticism of Democrats who are trying to change things.

[Armstead]

26. Again i don;t condone personal attacks -- But read the Wellstone speech

He was a classy guy, but pulled no punches in his criticism of Clinton and the framework of the Democratic Party at that time.

[madfloridian]

27. I don't pull punches either.

But if I am going to be forced to take sides I will go to the middle.

So you are thinking he would have not pulled punches about people like me who are trying to work to change things in the party?

Dean is not Clinton, Laura Flanders is not Wellstone.

[Armstead]

28. No he would have supported people who are trying to change things

He was totally into grassroots Democratic politics as an expression of progressive organizing. But he was battling the Democratic Establishment all the time -- often noisily.

And I don't think it's a matter of "taking sides" between the left and the middle, because "middle" is totally open to interpretation. I believe a progressive populist like Wellstone was much closer to the middle than some wealthy corporate Democrat who believes in the same basic concepts as Corporate Republicans.

[madfloridian]

29. Well, the ones here who demand perfection and no compromise...

whatever you call them, are making it impossible for a lot of us.

I AM fighting the establishment, plus I am having to fight off the group that says I am hurting my country....and also having to fight the right wing.

Those who are in the group you hesitate to call left....whatever you call it....have it easy. They just keep demanding things, and not accepting it when it comes. That is very easy.

What's hard is working to change it. It is even harder when so called liberal radio hosts never give credit due.

[Armstead]

30. A small suggestion

Maybe instead of getting upset at categories of people, it might help your blood pressure to look at these thing in terms of individuals.

I know some people who I agree with politically totally, who I can't stand to be in the same room with. I also know people who I totally disagree with who I like a lot as people.

A butthead who is also a lefty is a butthead first and foremost, regardless of piolitical ideology. Same goes for all ideologies. Same goes for nice admirable people too.

[madfloridian]

31. I think in terms of radio that is on our side...

supposedly..not targeting every single one of our Democrats. I think that is what IS feeding the discontent here. I think some really good people are not able to see that just because a radio host says something...it is not always right.

I think that people who write for progressive groups have a responsibility to point out to those people that they may have to work with others to get some change....that they won't get all of it.

And that hurting the ones trying to change it is not wise.

[madfloridian]

11. And another thing...I AM an activist.

I do think a lot outside the frame, but I am getting scared of what I see coming from the left so often.

What I have seen here lately, and the things that have been said to me....are making me leery and shifting me back to the middle.

[Armstead]

13. I don't know what you mean by the "left"

Most of the people who you are referring to would much prefer to feel able to aim all of their energies at defeating the right wing. They DON'T like feeling estranged from the political party that supposedly represents their political positions.

And it isn't all "angry radicals." I know a lot of moderates who are frustrated and angry about the same things as progressives regarding the Democratic Party.

(I'll acknowldge that not all on the left are peachy keen. But that's the case with any large number of people.)

[madfloridian]

15. I mean people who say I hurt the country by supporting the Democrats...

I mean people who call folks like me good German.

Right now, listen to Bob Fertik, making it all about impeachment..

Right now they are attacking Huffington Post, one of the best on the internet.

That is who I mean.

Dean said VP should step down, but that was just enough to make him "not terrible."

They are basing it all on impeachment...not very smart. There are other things.

[Armstead]

17. I don;t agree with impeachment but I don;t see any harm in free thinking

I don't condone the good German stuff that gets thrown around.

But I think there's a level of LONG-simmering frustration that many peopel feel as our values have been pushed into the dumpster for 30 years, with only token fighgting done for them. So impatience and frustration is understandable.

[madfloridian]

19. I feel the same way, but right now...

what I heard from her just now and what I see here are really worrying me.

I don't think any Democrat will be able to meet the standards of perfection set forth here.

[Armstead]

20. DU tends to run hot and cold...Subtlty is not always its strong point

[madfloridian]

22. But radio hosts are held to a higher standard.

And she did a blanket critique of all of the Democrats. The only one she praised at all was Harman.

[madfloridian]

4. Why would she say Dean was not "terrible"?

Because he did not use impeachment, but called for him to resign?

This is a veritable Democratic bashing show. I have not heard her in a while.

We want people to speak out we need to compliment them when they do.