(1) Nathan, go back to your own posts when the House passed the bankruptcy bill. You didn't bray about the progressive amendments the Senate would pass. You said the Dems would pull out all the stops to stop it. You specifically said that the veto-proof majority by which the bill was approved in the House would not hold up in the Senate. When your prediction turned out so disastrously wrong, you clammed up for awhile. Now, short months later, you've rewritten shameful capitulation as demi-victory. Post hoc, anything short of the worst imaginable becomes a credit to the Dems. Keep moving the goalposts like that and the Dems will always come out on top.
(2) "I consider myself a progressive because the people I work with, from community activists to unions, do have leverage. The Dems as a whole do not have my politics, but they have more than the GOP, and when we organize, "we" (meaning progressives) can have leverage over them."
To put this in a Humean perspective, "reason is, and ought only to be the slave to the passions," but reason clouded by passion serves passion badly. What you call "wallowing in . . . irrelevance" I call recognizing the very long odds against my side. No one here is going to argue against organizing among community activists and unions, among others, but the history of "progressives" casting aside THAT kind of power as soon as Dems invite them to the table and give them a polite hearing is too common to ignore and too depressing to dwell upon. Come to that table very often and you'll conclude one of two things: (a) "We got hosed again! This ain't working!" or (b) "I'm at the table with Tom Daschle! That makes me a PLAYER!" Give it time; you'll end up at one point or the other.
This is my three-post limit. You get the last word Nathan.
Michael McIntyre
>>> nathan at newman.org 05/25/01 02:11PM >>>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael McIntyre" <mmcintyr at wppost.depaul.edu>
I see. The operative principles are:
-(1) Every Democratic surrender is a brilliant tactical (or even strategic!) retreat.
Would never argue that and often argue the reverse. I was talking about Daschle's actions in the last four months and the proof is in the results- control of the major committees. Sounds like the definition of successful strategic retreats.
(2) Every inaction by Bush is put down as a glorious victory won by the Dems.
Never said that, but the failure to appoint Cox was specifically done citing Dem opposition tied to the whole "blue slip" controversy.
(3) When 2/3 of the Senate Dems vote for a horrendous bill, laud the power of Daschle to make it "more progressive" in conference committee.
While I don't support the bankruptcy bill, there are definately "more progressive" elements in the Senate bill worth preserving which are actually better than present law, such as preventing predatory lenders from escaping liability through passing on loans to bankrupt firmss, preventing rich people from abusing the bankruptcy system by buying big homes in Florida and Texas, and making payment of child support the highest priority for repayment ahead of credit card or other debts.
These are not small issues to preserve in conference.
Note that even with the changed law, you can still file automatically for Chapter 7 if you earn less than the median income in your state, which is now nationally $36,200 for a single man aged 35-44. Considering that one study by federal bankruptcy judges found that the median income of people filing for bankruptcy in 1999 was $22,000, the bill is only going to hit a certain class of middle class folks.
On balance, I don't like the bill but even its proponents don't think it's going to collect that much more money from folks filing for bankruptcy. And it will end some real abuses of the system if the Senate amendments are preserved in the final bill.
(4) Forget what the Democrats have done. Talk about what they will do. When they fail to do that, talk about something else.
Hmm...I noted what the Dems had done-- gotten power sharing, blocked Chris Cox and other nominations, and now gotten control of the Senate. Sounds like it's others in the discussion who are talking about something else.
>As for strategy, let's be clear. The electoral leverage of the Left (the
LEFT, damn it, not "progressives") is >nil. Nada. Zip.
Well, wallow in your irrelevance then. I consider myself a progressive because the people I work with, from community activists to unions, do have leverage.
The Dems as a whole do not have my politics, but they have more than the GOP, and when we organize, "we" (meaning progressives) can have leverage over them.
-- Nathan Newman