people are quite uninformed about democrats

it is amazing how uninformed people are about the alternatives the democrats are trying to offer to the republicans. especially republicans. you would think that the big right-wing blowhard pundits would want to know what the democrats are up to, what the left is planning on doing if it gets elected. but no. i was watching c-span today, and it was a panel discussion with a bunch of right-wing political pundits such as bob novak and the editors of national review and human events and some other top republican talking heads, in front of a very conservative audience. they have absolutely no idea what democrats believe in, or what democrats are about, or what democrats want to do once we get into power! they actually believe that all we plan on doing is raising taxes and letting the terrorists go ahead and defeat us. they really have no conception whatsoever of what we on the left have been doing. and they obviously have never looked at sites like dailykos.com or huffingtonpost.com; all they know about is right-wing websites like townhall.com, and they don’t even bother with the left-wing sites. these right-wing pundits were tremendously demoralized and were not even supportive of their own party anymore, saying that the republican leaders had basically screwed everything up. i basically agreed with most of what they said about the failings of the republican leadership. but for everyone’s reference, i would like to point out exactly what everyone seems to be so uninformed about:

the democrats have plans. those on the left, on the blogosphere, also have plans. a lot of people on the left-wing side of the spectrum have plans. and i think people ought to take a good look at these plans, regardless of where they stand on the issues. just remember, if anyone says the democrats do not have a plan for something, they are either lying or ignorant. we actually have plans for everything. democrats.gov has the official democratic plans for national security, the war in iraq, homeland security, etc. you can also find out more about the democrats’ plans at housedemocrats.gov and democrats.senate.gov, both of which go into more detail than democrats.gov. now some of these things might seem a bit lacking in specifics, or in substance, you might say... that is what i thought when i looked at them. but, that is because these are pretty much just things everyone in the democratic leadership agrees on, that they think most americans will agree with. and democrats.org also has some stuff about the democrats’ plans, although you should be aware that the democratic national committee is not really in charge of policy matters; the house and senate democratic leadership are the ones in charge of that. do not be deceived into thinking that democrats.com is an official democratic site, however. it is the site of bob fertik, a loyal democratic party operative. but he is quite a bit to the left of the party leadership. democrats.com is really of little importance, unless you want to find out a bit more about what left-wing democratic activists are up to. but there are better sites for that. afterdowningstreet.org is a site to coordinate activities in favor of impeaching bush and against the war in iraq. blackboxvoting.org is a site to tell people about the dangers of electronic voting machines that republicans allegedly use to steal elections. and thenation.com is the site of a very well-written left-wing democratic magazine where you can read most of the articles for free. or if you want people so far to the left that they oppose the democratic party because they think it is too right-wing, try counterpunch.org or znet, which are ultra-left-wing sites. now you might be thinking, ok, what about the centrist democrats? well they have a magazine that is sort of like a centrist alternative to the nation called the new republic, online at tnr.com. there is also dlc.org, the website of the democratic leadership council, an umbrella group for centrist democratic politicians and also a think-tank that puts out centrist policy proposals.

now, you might not know about this if you are a republican or if you are uninformed or whatever, but there is kind of a major divide in the democratic party between the left-wingers like me, and the centrists like those at the democratic leadership council and the new republic. this may spell trouble for the democrats after the election, and it has caused problems in the connecticut senate race. but, in most of the rest of the country, both the left-wingers and the centrists are fully onboard with supporting the democratic party in this fall’s elections. it is very telling that even the communist party is supporting the democrats in this fall’s elections. they are about as left-wing as you can get! and noam chomsky, the famous leftist intellectual from mit, has also been strongly advocating support for the democratic party, which is unusual for him. of course the communists and chomsky also supported the democrats in 2004, but prior to that election year, they both maintained that there was practically no difference between the 2 major parties in the united states. what is great about having the ultra-leftists on board is, some of them can volunteer for the democratic party and help the campaigns, but after the election, the candidates will throw them away like yesterday’s garbage, and they will go back to hating the democratic party again. one interesting far-left website that continues to maintain a hardline anti-democrat stance is the “world socialist web site”, wsws.org, a trotskyist website. it is fascinating how unpopular that sort of anti-democrat opinion has become on the left.

meanwhile, of course, a lot of centrists, moderates, independents, and even some conservatives are on board, supporting the democratic party in this fall’s elections. joe scarborough, an msnbc pundit who was once a republican congressman and still calls himself conservative, is now repositioning himself by pretty much doing everything he can to help the democrats while still maintaining the illusion that he is still a conservative republican. and, watching the panel discussion of the right-wing pundits that included robert novak, i saw that most of them had pretty much lost interest in doing anything to help the republicans, and they felt really let down by their own party, and didn’t even care anymore; all the filters that would normally keep them from dissing on their own party were off, and they let the republican leadership have it. you can read articles by columnists robert novak and george will and see how they are both souring on supporting the republican party, after being staunch supporters of it for so many years. public support for the republican party is remarkably low, even among people who are conservative on all the issues and don’t agree with the democrats on anything. it is remarkable how republican apologists are becoming rarer and rarer, at a time when you would expect everyone on the right-wing side of the political spectrum to unite behind their party and silence all dissenting views like they did in 2002 and 2004. but 2006 is looking like it will be quite a different sort of election year than those two. whereas until recently, the right wing dominated political discourse, it now seems that the left wing is becoming increasingly prominent in the voices we hear in the media, a trend that perhaps first began with michael moore’s film “fahrenheit 9/11” back in 2004. the real kick in the nuts for the right-wing noise machine was hurricane katrina in 2005. even fox news’s right-wing anchors had a momentary lapse in party loyalty and criticised the handling of hurricane katrina by the bush administration. so how long had the right-wing radicals been dominating political discourse? not too long, really. the right-wingers only really dominated the media after the supreme court declared bush the winner of the 2000 election. this right-wing media bias was rather annoying and helped get the tax cut bill passed in early 2001, and the media was anxious to portray president bush positively, after ripping him apart back during the 2000 election (which they had also equally done to al gore). anyway, the right-wing media bias got much worse after the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, and for several years, the right-wingers could get pretty much anything they wanted, and the democrats would just roll over and play dead. it was not until late 2003 or early 2004 that the media started to become a little more balanced, and stopped having such a pervasive right-wing bias. and in 2005 and 2006, things have gone steadily downhill for right-wing control of the media. and the left-wing democratic radio network air america radio is doing better than ever... i listen to it all the time. of course fox news still has a tremendous amount of right-wing bias, but nobody takes it seriously as a news channel anymore. the whole mythos that fox news is the one unbiased source of news on tv and everything else has liberal bias, that has been shattered in the public imagination, and people who had once trusted fox news are now turning to other networks instead, as fox news’s ratings have started to fall. now, we liberals are nowhere near having control of the media yet, of course. we still have to take over talk radio and fox news, as well as the washington times, the new york post, the new york sun, the wall street journal, etc. but you want to know what media we liberals already control? well, we have comedy central and all of its fake news programming (jon stewart and steven colbert), as well as the air america radio network. we have keith olbermann on msnbc, who has a 1-hour show every night. and the new york times. and i am pretty sure that both nbc news and cbs news now have at least a slight amount of liberal bias. i don’t watch cbs news so i am not sure about it, but nbc news and msnbc both seem to be more liberal lately. pbs, of course, is neutral, just like c-span. the news hour with jim lehrer and washington week in review with gwen ifill are both pretty neutral, and i think washington week in review is actually a bit conservative in its bias, based on the balance of guests from both sides of the political spectrum. cnbc, the financial news channel, still seems to be biased in favor of conservatives. oh, and abc news? well, they seem to be the most conservative of the 3 network nightly news shows. but their conservative bias is not very strong; it is a very slight conservative bias, barely noticeable, just like nbc news’s barely noticeable liberal bias. cbs news seems a little more obvious in its liberalism. abc news got rid of ted koppel a while back because he was too liberal and they wanted to purge any obvious liberals from their news operation. and of course cbs news did the same to dan rather after his little scandal involving how bush went awol from the national guard. but think about it this way: the parent company of cbs is viacom, which is also parent company of mtv, vh1, and comedy central. so, it is a pretty liberal company, compared to other media conglomerates of its size. they show some pretty racy stuff on channels like mtv and comedy central, stuff that conservatives all disapprove of, but liberals are fine with it (well most of us anyway). now i guess there are still some liberals who get upset by offensive stuff and try and label everything as sexist or racist or homophobic, who are upset about music videos on mtv or stuff like that. but, i do not think you can win an argument by saying you are offended and acting all outraged, even if your outrage is genuine. people like things that are offensive or provocative or push boundaries, so if someone says something offensive, you need an even more offensive comeback to ridicule them. that is how you can establish that everyone is equal, by showing that nobody is above criticism, and if you try and make offensive statements about other people, you will get made fun of even worse, and made a fool of. anyone who gets offended and then announces it automatically loses the argument, which is why i think we liberals should retire that tactic, as it always fails every time we try it. the whole game of announcing you are offended someone said something, and demanding they retract the statement, it is so outdated and boring. it just shows that you can’t think of anything new to say so instead you focus on bad things your opponent said. of course, your snappy, offensive comeback has to be carefully crafted so as not to alienate people, but instead to ridicule your opponent and make them look pathetic and stupid. this rhetorical technique could be of great use to democrats. now of course i agree in principle with the people who get offended, that discrimination is wrong, but i just have different tactics in reaching the same goal. like here is an example of a generic snappy comeback: “your head is so far up your ass that it has gone all the way up through your digestive tract and out your head again, causing a paradox that puts the whole space-time continuum in jeapordy.” or how about this one: “that idea makes a lot of sense... if we go back in time to 1945 and ask adolf hitler what he thinks right before he commits suicide.” another one to try out: “are you even human? because what you just said sounds so retarded, i could swear you were some bizarre evolutionary throwback to a bygone era when dinosaurs roamed the earth.” or if you are really offended try this: “thou hast besmirched my honor! i challenge thee to a duel to the death! fisticuffs only please, except i get to carry a handgun and you don’t.” or this: “how dare you say something so ridiculous! i am offended that you think i am a traitor to america, because america is not even a country, it’s 2 entire continents! i am a traitor to the united states of america, thank you very much, and you would do well to remember that fact!”

anyway, back to the main point, about people being uninformed about the democrats, knowing so little about the democrats that they don’t even know enough to be misinformed. most people are pretty well informed about the republicans, actually. they know the republicans are up to no good, and control everything, and have screwed everything up completely. that is basically all you need to know about them. it is easy to know what the republicans are up to because they control everything and they make all the important decisions, so if you just see how awful everything is going at home and around the world, it is pretty obvious. i mean it speaks volumes that president bush declared “mission accomplished” and “major combat operations in iraq have ended” and then over 3 years later, we are still at war in iraq and the enemy is stronger than ever. if you are worried about national security, or homeland security, or the war on terror, or the war in iraq, well, it is pretty clear that things are totally screwed up. if the bush administration cannot even deal with a simple hurricane, just imagine how horribly they would botch it if we were attacked by nuclear weapons or some other form of weapons of mass destruction. i mean maybe they have succeeded in preventing such disasters so far, but perhaps that is because they are so focused on prevention that they have totally ignored planning for what to do if a disaster actually does happen? so when a disaster inevitably does happen, do you want people in charge who can mitigate it and minimize the negative consequences, or the people who are in charge now? what the war in iraq showed, like the mismanagement of katrina, is that the bush administration does pretty much no planning about what to do if things go worse than expected. and their continued reliance on pro-democracy anti-terrorist rhetoric about the middle east is getting kind of ridiculous in its contradictions, as more and more terrorist groups win democratic elections across the middle east. did they have any sort of plan on what to do if terrorists won elections? no, of course not. so the president of iran, as well as the successes of hamas and hezbollah, have all caught bush off guard, by targeting his weak spot: his officially stated support for democracy in the middle east. no wonder we are losing to the terrorists. it is time to end the doublespeak and come out clearly and decisively on this issue: which is more important, democracy, or fighting terrorism? there is only one right answer. fighting terrorism, of course. it is not any concern to us what form of government some far-off country has, but it is a concern to us when terrorists attack us. so, we should not go around saying how great democracy is and then supporting foreign dictators because they are allies against the terrorists. fuck that. we need to be honest and tell the truth. and the truth is, if you are terrorists then you are our enemy and it doesn’t matter if you are the winner of a democratic election or not, and we do not really care about democracy except at home, because the form of government in another country is none of our concern except as it impacts our interests, such as our interest in not being attacked by terrorists. look at it this way: the bushies say that democracies don’t fight each other. bullshit. israel and lebanon just fought a war. both of them democracies. iran is a democracy, much as we like to deny it. but they are our enemy. can we really let democracy be a trump card, and allow other countries to get away with bloody murder just because they happen to be democracies? of course not. that would make no sense. adolf hitler came to power through democratic elections, but did that stop us from fighting him? certainly not. but bush’s ridiculous obsession with what form of government other countries ought to have is really causing a lot of problems for us. how about we let foreigners make their own decisions about what form of government is best, as long as they don’t attack us? that would make a hell of a lot more sense. the message from iraq is clear: keep your nose out of things that are none of your business. what business do we have in iraq? none whatsoever. iraq is a country, but it is on the other side of the world, nowhere near this country, which is called the united states. so why on earth are we trying to control iraq with our military and manage its political development as if it is some kind of baby? iraq has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years, and is an ancient civilization. i think they can handle running their country better than we can handle doing it for them, because we still know hardly anything about them, and they do not trust us at all. they see us as the enemy, as foreign invaders and occupiers, and they see the terrorists fighting us as freedom fighters (although most iraqis deplore the stupid sunni-shiite internecine violence). if we had left earlier, we could probably have avoided the whole sunni-shiite civil war going on in iraq. but the bush administration actually tried to stoke tensions between sunnis and shiites early on, in order to divide the insurgency to defeat it more easily. they thought, if iraqis saw other iraqis as the enemy, they might not see us as the enemy anymore, and they might focus more of their violent energy on killing each other. well, problem solved. it worked. and now bush wants help cleaning up the mess he created. good luck with that. but i can tell you what the main result of us leaving would be: there would be a national reconciliation between insurgents and the government, and between sunnis and shiites. and some militant groups would refuse to join in the national reconciliation process. those groups would then lose their public base of support, and get defeated pretty quickly, because most iraqis have absolutely no interest in seeing sunnis and shiites kill each other. they just want all the american troops gone, so they can rebuild their country. so would iraq become a terrorist haven? well, it is a terrorist haven right now, the biggest one in the world, but if we left, i am pretty sure it would help in the war against terrorism. in the long run, that is.