A Time To Renew
Karen Tumulty wrote an in-your-face-article for Time:
Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left. The epitaph for the movement that started when Newt Gingrich and his forces rose from the back bench of the House chamber in 1994 may well have been written last week in the same medium that incubated it: talk radio. On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham’s show, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his leadership and the failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages. “If I fold up my tent and leave,” Dennis Hastert told her, “then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we’d have no ability to fight back and get our message out.”
That quiet admission may have been the most damning one yet in the unfolding scandal surrounding Florida Congressman Mark Foley: holding on to power has become not just the means but also the end for the onetime reformers who in 1994 unseated a calcified and corrupted Democratic majority. Washington scandals, it seems, have been following a Moore’s law of their own, coming at a faster clip every time there is a shift in control. It took 40 years for the House Democrats to exhaust their goodwill. It may take only 12 years for the Republicans to get there.
And so it goes in politics. It is one of the reasons why I would almost favor a limit to the time one can be a member of Parliament here in my own country, the Netherlands.
24 Responses to “A Time To Renew”
“then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we’d have no ability to fight back and get our message out.”
I’ll give the man credit, he comes right out and says it. Naked greed and lust for power sure is ugly in the bright light of day. Democrats have always been the true enemy, Al Quaida is a means to an end.
Thank the fates that karma has provided this little morality play that the Foley scandal has become.
I have a confession to make. Untill March 28 2003 I was deeply in the “kill them all” crowd. At one point I called into Hannity to wonder why Norm Choaskey shouldn’t be executed for sedetion. However, while watching the race to Baghdad on Fox(thats right, Fox) I became aware of some glaring inconsitences. I am an avid history buff, especially the wars of the 20th century. I also served as an 11B, including a stint were we would occasionally deploy to our foward positions in the Fulda Gap.
My military experience combined with research let me see past the propaganda I was being fed, and since then my life has been an excersise in attonement for my previous failings.
Why do you care? Because now all but the most zombiefied can see at this point what I saw so long ago. When you understand what motivates these folks, there comes a great clarity. I believe our social evolutin may be in a positive upward evolution.
The first step will be to have the national discussion on all this stuff.
And to hell with those people who do not want to have that discussion.
/end rant
I agree with this article in TIME and as such I can sympathize with your comment.
One thing is important to remember, though and that is… one has to face reality: this will happen with every party once they are in power, especially once they are in power for too long / once they are in power of all branches of government.
Again a reason why a third party might be very, very valuable for Americans.
this will happen with every party once they are in power, especially once they are in power for too long / once they are in power of all branches of government.
I believe the Cheney Cabel went into it with corruption as the goal. They wanted to bankrupt the goverment in accordance with their idealogy. So I dont find your “both parties are bad” moral relativism valid. Sure dems got corrupted, but it took them 40 years. Republicans are being called on it a mere 17 years later. Ther is a differnece wether you care to see it or not
We as a people do bear responsibiltiy for granting all power to one party.
That was truly a stupid thing to do.
I am all for a third party and will watch with great fascination while you build it.
In the meantime I am banded together with few million of my fellow travelrs to force the Dems to become the party of the working man. We are using the CC model of taking over the Republican party.
You guys run a good third party canidate and I will vote for them.
Better get bizzy then.
BTW Micheal, there is a grain of truth to the both parties will end up corrupted meme in your repley.
I am more playing the contrarian in the AustinRoth mold.
Just trying that hat on for size. Hope you dont mind.
Now fire away!
It took the Democrats almost 40 years to reach the point where the Republicans could succeed in 1994. It’s taken the Republicans 12 years. Michael, if you want to understand a great deal of where the Republican party is coming from read up on the K Street Project, one of their biggest projects. I call it blackmail.
Jim S is correct, it was 12 years. Even more Damning.
I just ran to the store to pick up some things. There were lots of campaign signs. I live in a very Republican suburb of Kansas City. So far as I could associate names all of the signs were for Republicans. They made what I consider an interesting point.
How can you tell Republican campaign signs and literature this year? They don’t say Republican on them anywhere.
I noticed that too Jim S. The last campaign ad I saw on TV was all preachy and flowers and sunshine. No party affiliation given. A republican hiding his inner elephant.
Snark
During the embedded media right? which inconsistancies?
Iterested-
it became glaringly obvious that there was absoulutly no plan for the aftermath.
The first thing that set me off was the ship full of humanitatian aid that couldnt get to the docks. I knew we had a limited amount of time to win the Iraqies over.
And yet, they(cheneyco) had put all the supplies that there was on a ship, then acted suprised by the mines. Like mines haven’t been used for going on a few centuries now.
Where were the c-130s and c-141s loaded with back-ups? Nowhere was where. Piss poor planning. It went downhill from there, including the looting and such. Plus within three days, I knew there were no MWDs. My support was entirely based on that premis.
Once it became apparent there were no MWDS, it was my conclusion that they had lied, and I hate being lied too. Once I realized they were liars, things began making sense. The reasons why they couldnt wait on inspectors became very clear. Because they knew the inspectors wouldnt find anything.
Jim and snark, would you agree with me or disagree with me that the two parties, democrat and republican, have switched platforms atleast 2 or 3 times since the dawn of their existance as both parties? if not i two related examples in history that i stem my theory off of:
Teddy Rosevelt was considered a progressive republican because of his work on national income tax.
And FDR was considered a radical of his own democrat party by instituting social programs in the New Deal.
I find these two about both parties to be a compelte switch of what we see today in the parties.
I will share my conclusion of the parties based on this evidence only if questioned.
thank you,
Goose
Of course they’ve changed, Goose. Our country has changed. The issues it faces have changed.
thats not the detail im trying to explain here. I understand things change. Jim what im trying to get out here is that it doesnt matter how long it took either party to get to a dasterdly level of corruption, dems 40 years and rep 17 years. the problem is that they have become corrupted. You cant possibly tell me that either republicans or democrats can have a platform in which every part of the platform is liked by 51% of the nation. thats absurd to expect from only 2 parties. and MvdG, its little better with 3 parties, but again you are only representing both extremes of the spectrum and then the dead middle on a national level. My idea is simple but hard to facilitate. The grey area of politics is large, so expand the political party base. who says a politican cant run with multiple parties attached to his name. example:
In the all but near future 2 parties will be replaced with multiple parties. One person is considering running for office, and he negotiates the support for the “Pro-Life” party, and the “Union” Party and the “classical liberal” party of his/hers area that she/he plants to represent because he/she feels this best represent his/hers personal platform.
although i understand the implications and the all too real consequences short-term for something like this, i cant help but see the benefit it is to the american people have more control over politics in the long-run.
Refute or agree, but please keep in mind i am always a student and never a master of knowledge.
thank you,
Goose
Thanks for the clarification Snark.
Goose
IMHO – I’d very much enjoy such a scenario – but getting there is the tough part. Take Snarky for example he says “I am all for a third party and will watch with great fascination while you build it.” I’m not picking on Snarky – but his opinion on it is what many take – Sure it’d be great but someone else is going to have to do the work for they see only the battle that matters is the one between R &D.
But it would be a great change – and I think it would force a bit more honesty in politics all the way around. Just got to get there – although at one point the Democratic-Republican Party was a third party – shortly later was one side of a 2 party system, etc. etc. etc. In all of that, the Parliamentary system has it’s advantages.
The interesting thing about this article is that it could have been written a year ago. Republican voters have failed to hold our elected leaders responsible. We are a party divided between those who support ideals and principles and those support a man. We are at war within the party. the ones who support the man have the upper hand.
I understand the failings of the parliamentary system but thats not the system im basing this off of, i know it sounds familiar but its not the same. i am talking about literally hundreds if not thousands of parties. that everyone can subscribe too if they want too. a 3rd party would be a change that would almost be meaningless, trying to group 100million people neatly into 3 parties is as absurd as doing it in 2 parties. We have 300 million people and we are the size of europe as a whole land wise. We cant expect a neat order to our politics.
Where France has 3 distinct geographical areas, we have several. And all these different people bear themselves under one flag. There is no way you can represent 300million different people in 2 or 3 parties with only 535 elected represenatives to do it with. If that 1 repesenative of 50,000 people from alabama subscribes to a plateful of parties that the majority also subscribes to, then he will get elected based on the true will of the people. But if people are expected to choose the better of two evils or three evils, whats the point in expecting them to care waht goes on?
always a student,
goose
the fault I see in hundreds of parties is you would at some point need to get the majority to hold the executive branch’s office. with hundreds you would need to have the parties form coalitions like a parliamentary system. Germany’s model for instance. Granted hundreds of parties you could easily find one that fits your style (so to speak), but one of the parties has to have a majority to hold that one branch, plus a majority to at least direct regulation and laws through Congress.
Snarky, My son was stationed in Black Horse country! He came back saying he was going to shoot the first black horse he say (smile)
I appreciate your comments. I’m curious: are you in contact with other vets and what are the conversations about. Any ideas about how to get this thing right so we can get the heck out of dodge?
interested:
interesting, but i think you are hooked on 1 person only being able to belong to 1 party. Im saying that a politican will have to subscribe to multiple parties. These multiple partys may have voting members who are also part of 10 other parties. i think this clears up my major point. This allows for a coalition of partys by the people not the politicans, unlike germany. As for the executive branch, i have some roman radical ideas about the executive branch that i wont bring out unless the topic warrents it. But to answer you question of 1 party having to control the executive branch, not necessarily, simply the canadite’s personal subscription of parties will have to match those of the majority voters in the nation subscribe too, so like:
Jo, a voter, is part of 30 parties and dislikes 40 aprties and could go either way on 250 parties. Tim, one of the canadites subscribes to 15 of the parties Jo is part of, and 10 of the parties Jo dislikes and 100 that he could go either way on. meanwhile Nick, the other canadite, subscribes to 25 of the parties Jo is part of, only 5 of the parties Jo dislikes and x amount that jo could really care less about.
Maybe this example clears up some thought or just confuses you more
always a student,
Goose
Goose,
I can see what your saying, but well ok lets play devils avocate here – how would you really tell where a candidate stands? By the very nature of parties – no matter our two party system or Germany’s system, they would try to converge into a grouping of similiar type parties to capture more of the votes.
I’m not really seeing the logic behind a third party.
For one thing, wouldn’t a third party that won elections be as corruptable as either of the other two?
Our country is already pretty closely divided–50-50. The problem I see is that the winner takes all and doesn’t have to care for the opinions and values of the other side. The side that gets 51% doesn’t have to compromise. They don’t have to care about consensus. If they want war, torture, to chip away at science or habeus corpus, there are no checks on them. What they’ve really got to do, though, is hold onto that 51% at any cost. Any, any, any cost.
I think that’s what we’ve seen the past few elections.
If there were a successful third party, it would–or at least could–mean the country was split into thirds instead of halves.
And that could mean we’d be ruled by people who just had to hold onto 34% of the vote at ANY cost. Imagine how much more extreme a party that ruled with just 34% could be than a party that had to get 51%!
That’s just a philosophical arguement. It doesn’t address any of the practical barriers a third party would face. Fundraising, media attention, access to public debates. Successful parties don’t just run candidates for President. They run a full slate of candidates: Governor, State Senator, County Legislator, City Councilor, Town Supervisor, School Board Member–Dogcatcher!
Then there’s this–the first few elections, third party candidates are almost certainly going to lose. In losing, they’re going to take away votes from somebody who might have won with them. Isn’t that what Ralph Nader did to Al Gore? What Ross Perot did to Bush-41? Lots of people who vote Republican claim to be Libertarians. But they won’t migrate to the actual Libertarian Party because they’re afraid that Democrats would win the elections. (Maybe these days they’re more afraid of Republicans!)
There are already third parties, like the Libertarians. There have been third parties throughout American history. Sometimes they have good ideas like Social Security. Sometimes they have bad ideas like Prohibition. But they’re out there, standing on principle, pushing fresh ideas–they’re just not going to win. It’s the desire to win, and by winning to get some of your agenda through, that holds the disparate elements of our major parties togeather.
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade. I’d also like a pony, a winning lottery ticket–and a political party that closely represented my values. But there are good reasons why we’ve historically been a two-party country.
Just my opinion.
I appreciate your comments. I’m curious: are you in contact with other vets and what are the conversations about. Any ideas about how to get this thing right so we can get the heck out of dodge?
We have two choices. We leave on our terms and in an orderly manner.
Or we leave on reactive terms.
Either way, we leave. This war is unsustanble. Time to redeploy, re-arm, recruit, and get ready for the payback thats coming. The troops themselves still retain pretty good moral, but they are tired and ready to come home. Most dont think there is any point anymore.
And they are right.
I see your point interested, back to the drawing table for me, and thank you for discussing my idea with me.
Snark – i agree, i think comming home and re-arming and getting a better battle plan is a great idea and its probably the smartest, its not cutting and running its just simply re-organizing without the expense of human life.
Michael-
Just the other day, you were saying how the plan Pelosi put forth for the first 100 hours of a Democratic majority int he house would go. You said that it was hollow, and didn’t say anything. You wanted more from her. I think Hastert just told you why you won’t be getting it:
“…we’d have no ability to fight back and get our message out.”
No ability to get a message out. And why would the GOP not be able to get a message out? If Hastert fears he wouldn’t get his message out, I would say it is because he knows what has been done to prevent his opposition from getting theirs out. I’m not saying the dems have a message or a plan, but I find that quote telling regardless…