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Tom Perez B/K/M? This poll is closed. |
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77 | 25.50% |
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160 | 52.98% |
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65 | 21.52% |
| Total: | 229 votes | ||
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John Henry Miller posted:How about published scientists? Can't have industrial pollution if there aren't any industries. 
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Sep 11, 2017 22:30
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Communists aren't anarcho-primitivists.
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Sep 11, 2017 22:31
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John Henry Miller posted:Communists aren't anarcho-primitivists. they do apparently pollute less per capita than capitalists though too bad capitalists are totally cool with destroying the environment as long as it makes them mad $$$
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Sep 11, 2017 22:32
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Death to God almighty, the body of Christ are his followers and they shall be converted into rich, delicious blood of Christ pudding.
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Sep 11, 2017 22:36
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Just the idea that sometimes primarying center leaning democrats end up with an R in the seat instead of a progressive democrat. I don't think NJ is as ripe for that as other places, but I don't think any seat can be taken for granted in this political climate. See, I can relate to this. I was of that mindset for most of my adult life as well. I thought that bringing conservative Dems' weaknesses to light could balloon out of control and end up putting a Republican in charge instead. But in the last few years, it's become clear to me how unhelpful that mindset actually is. Bernie Sanders didn't bring up anything about Clinton that the Trump camp didn't already know. His criticisms didn't prime voters (or very many of them, at least) to oppose her; decades of her being one of the most (often unfairly) maligned political figures in the country did that. Exposing those weaknesses in the primary gave Clinton more of a chance to adjust her platform to compensate, before she went up against Trump. She didn't make the most of these opportunities, but they were there. Also, it's helpful to think through what the risks actually are in these situations. Booker's a tool, but he's probably not going to get ousted anytime soon. He won the 2013 special election and his 2014 reelection pretty handily, and I doubt a left-Dem challenging him in the 2020 primary would be too damaging to his overall chances. Already, criticism of him is causing him to move leftward on some fronts, and that's probably going to strengthen his reelection bid (or, God help us, run for president).
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Sep 11, 2017 22:38
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lol @ an honest-to-god Trump supporter in this thread Hey Trump dude, it is super obvious that you are a rereg, your trolling is like a 3 out of 10 at best
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Sep 11, 2017 22:48
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John Henry Miller posted:Facts vs insults. Here's a fact: you're either unironically a piece of poo poo or you just think it's cool to act like one and either way you should slam your nuts in a car door
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Sep 11, 2017 23:08
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John Henry Miller posted:LOL. Western media smearing former communist nations, color me suprised.
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Sep 11, 2017 23:25
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Kokoro Wish posted:More Thomas Frank: Pro-click illustrating how The democrats are a waste I particularly enjoyed the part about Bill Clinton.
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Sep 11, 2017 23:29
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MizPiz posted:Western media smearing former communist nations, color me suprised. This dude is the type of chud who thinks leftists love the NYT.
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Sep 11, 2017 23:31
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Yes, I was making this point a few pages ago, but was asked for clarification. I'd argue there are a handful. In white-flight suburbs populated by would-be technocrats, the kind of people who are a single missed xanax refill or bad day for their retirement portfolio away from signing onto exterminating all the browner peoples of the earth, the Ossoffs of the world have a place. There, and there alone, it's better to put up a milquetoast centrist who can theoretically win with paeans to the Market, Blessed and Eternal Be Its Name, if only as an exercise in harm reduction. They're not going to win often, and it's a mistake to dump a ton of resources into that hope, but when they do, its a marginal improvement to have Raytheon Acres represented by someone who signs onto the concept of governance rather than someone who doesn't.
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Sep 11, 2017 23:55
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Ze Pollack posted:I'd argue there are a handful. In white-flight suburbs populated by would-be technocrats, the kind of people who are a single missed xanax refill or bad day for their retirement portfolio away from signing onto exterminating all the browner peoples of the earth, the Ossoffs of the world have a place. There, and there alone, it's better to put up a milquetoast centrist who can theoretically win with paeans to the Market, Blessed and Eternal Be Its Name, if only as an exercise in harm reduction. This is probably correct. I just moved away from the San Francisco Bay area, and you just described Marin exactly.
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Sep 12, 2017 01:11
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Ze Pollack posted:I'd argue there are a handful. In white-flight suburbs populated by would-be technocrats, the kind of people who are a single missed xanax refill or bad day for their retirement portfolio away from signing onto exterminating all the browner peoples of the earth, the Ossoffs of the world have a place. There, and there alone, it's better to put up a milquetoast centrist who can theoretically win with paeans to the Market, Blessed and Eternal Be Its Name, if only as an exercise in harm reduction. Politely disagree. The problem here is that then your party very obviously stands for nothing. People see this, and the trust falls. The GOP consistently sticking to their lovely worldview through thick and thin has demonstrably not hurt them. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 01:50
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Politely disagree. The problem here is that then your party very obviously stands for nothing. People see this, and the trust falls. back in the good ol' days of bribery-based bipartisanship the schtick was a little easier to pull off, that I'll grant you
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Sep 12, 2017 01:54
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More Female Pork Barrels
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Sep 12, 2017 01:56
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Calibanibal posted:More Female Pork Barrels it's one of the funnier stories of why red-state infrastructure is so terminally hosed when infrastructure spending is how you buy minority party votes, and you've been the majority party for twenty years now, awful lotta bridges not getting repaired and then came The Sequester, and with it the death of any incentive towards bipartisanship, at all, not that it stopped the Third Way from pretending
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Sep 12, 2017 02:05
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Ze Pollack posted:it's one of the funnier stories of why red-state infrastructure is so terminally hosed What the general consensus on pork spending in Congress? It was corrupt as hell, but it did fund good things. Now that it's gone is it something worth bringing back? I would say yes, as it served as grease in the gears of Congress. But I'm not sure others will agree.
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Sep 12, 2017 02:16
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:It was a lovely implementation if single payer, yes. A phase in of medicare for all would be much better than blowing up the insurance industry overnight. "Give us a supermajority and we'll give you single payer. Look we'll pass it a million times under a Republican governor to show we're serious." *Dems get supermajority* "Okay forget about those other bills, here's our new bill but it sucks so nevermind you get nothing and don't ask us to fix it"
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Sep 12, 2017 02:29
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Seriously, the problem with defending California dems with "oh but the single payer bill is a vague skeleton, it's right not to pass it", is that Dems have supermajority control of the government and can write a better bill anytime they want, so tabling health care instead is just an excuse to do nothing at all. Seems the voters don't buy that excuse anymore, seeing how a month of rage and a serious recall threat magically helped the Assembly Speaker notice "oh hey we control the committees and instead of impotently whining the bill sucks while doing nothing, we have the power to craft better legislation after all." So credible pressure from the left did pressure corporate dems to do something useful for a change, no thanks to all the centrists out there and in this thread who spent the whole month proclaiming that stonewalling single payer is the pragmatic practical thing to do and the left needs to shut up and stop making waves.
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Sep 12, 2017 02:39
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:What the general consensus on pork spending in Congress? It was corrupt as hell, but it did fund good things. Now that it's gone is it something worth bringing back? I would say yes, as it served as grease in the gears of Congress. But I'm not sure others will agree. Pork was the only way Washington worked. If pork doesn't exist, what reason do minority party members have to vote for unpopular bills? (so when they got rid of pork, even the semblance of bipartisanship died)
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Sep 12, 2017 03:03
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I lived in CA at the time, and I am not exactly sure what you wanted from that bill. It was A single payer bill, but not exactly a good one. I would much rather move for a MFA than sand up a new system with no structure. tekz posted:If a democratic supermajority in a solid blue state with an economy that dwarfs that of most countries in the world refuses to implement UHC, I think it's time to give up on the democratic party. Bears repeating.
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Sep 12, 2017 03:54
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I would like to see a candidate campaign on reigning in Silicon Valley in 2020, but then I remembered the DNC is balls deep in their money. 
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Sep 12, 2017 04:18
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tekz posted:Bears repeating. First of all, state parties are not the same as national parties. The Democrats aren't a single block. They are a pretty diverse group of people from county to county let alone state to state. Second, while the single payer bill that failed in California was not ideal, it doesn't excuse the majority from coming up with something that is. If the super majority is squandered then, yeah, the California Democrats need to be repealed and replaced. I can't stress how much of a mistake I think it would be to pass a poorly thought out single payer bill. And passing something lovely and hoping it will be fixed in the future is not what I am after. Imrove upon something that is already good, don't try and polish a turd.
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Sep 12, 2017 04:27
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Nobody is complaining that the California Dems refused to pass a lovely bill. They're complaining that the California Dems refused to even try to write a good bill, then used the very shittiness of a bill that had to be incomplete and lovely to avoid the supermajority requirement for funding as an excuse to kill any discussion of health care reform. "Look how lovely this bill is that we blocked from not being lovely, this proves UHC is a pie-in-the-sky nonsense that can never work" is not a good argument. Furthermore the "hey stop complaining, if you're polite enough the Democrats will magically decide to help you rather than their donors" strategy objectively failed on pragmatic policy grounds. When they thought people wouldn't complain, the Assembly killed any discussion on healthcare "until we get around to it, maybe next year (never)" whereas loud enough public rage plus a recall threat resurrected health care reform and actually got the Assembly Speaker to assign a committee to work on it. You should learn some lessons from this, "Heck Yes! Loam!", about who is actually competent when it comes to making movement happen on legislation (leftists ie whining activist babies), and who is not (people like you with status quo bias who ate up every excuse for why we just can't spare any time for health care right now, which turned out to be bullshit because the only obstacle to working on health care was the unwillingness of Democratic politicians to do it until faced with a bigger threat to their jobs than donor displeasure). VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 04:57
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Um, what movement have leftists done in regards to legislation? I'm not trolling, I'm earnestly wondering.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:01
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Peachfart posted:Um, what movement have leftists done in regards to legislation? I'm not trolling, I'm earnestly wondering. Are you trolling? Because the topic we're discussing is an example of what you're asking for. Namely, the California Assembly killing the health care bill with the Speaker's excuse "this bill isn't good enough nothing we the lawmaking body can do to write a better law sorry we just don't have the time, maybe next year", then dramatically reversing himself after two months of massive public anger and a recall threat, and oh looky the Assembly has time to hold hearings on a Universal Health Care bill after all. Go figure! VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 05:09
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You didn't answer my question, and I am not trolling. You stated:quote:You should learn some lessons from this, "Heck Yes! Loam!", about who is actually competent when it comes to making movement happen on legislation (leftists ie whining activist babies) So what movement have leftists done on legislation? Because I haven't heard of any, and I'd be very interested in hearing about it. Edit: Unless you are counting 'public anger' on having California basically just look at a bill.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:11
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The bill and any health care progress in California was dead for the year with "maybe next year, if the senate fixes their bill by then" from the speaker. Now the speaker has appointed a select committee to study health care so it is no longer dead and movement has happened. The speaker himself has changed his position from "the Senate needs to do this, not us" to "oh the Assembly is so happy to join the conversation". I do not know how to make this any clearer for you. Maybe take two minutes to read the link I provided with the news you are asking for? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 05:16
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VitalSigns posted:The bill and any health care progress in California was dead for the year with "maybe next year, if the senate fixes their bill by then" from the speaker. Okay, so anger over the failure of California to pass their bill has gotten California to appoint a committee into looking into it. I was hoping for something more substantial. Committees are formed to study issues all the time, and this committee seems to exist simply(and this is from the article) 'to start an honest discussion'. I mean, good. But also, eh.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:26
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Yes, the public anger resurrected a dead bill and got committee hearings scheduled, this is the first step in passing legislation, so it is movement. It is of course, not a finished bill, which is why the public pressure must be maintained so Rendon doesn't start to believe it's possible to safely and quietly kill the bill like he hoped he could do in July. It also proved all the status-quo-bias folks who were reassuring us that it's just impossible to work on health care see the Democrats say so, so it must be true, now sit down shut up and don't make waves, were completely and totally wrong the entire time and they're not the political wonks they think they are, they were just uncritically swallowing the party line and don't understand that legislatures are large bodies with many committees specifically designed to be able to work on different pieces of legislation at the same time in order to make it possible to pass a legislative agenda during a session of finite length. Fortunately the people who do understand how legislatures work demanded a committee for a critical priority and made it happen, because the supposed process obstacles were lies and excuses and the only real obstacle was the unwillingness of the Speaker to go against the donors but this crumbled when he was confronted with a bigger threat to his job than donor displeasure. Hopefully those folks will learn from what happened here and will not just quietly and blindly accept all the excuses that corporate dems throw out there whenever they don't want to follow through on a campaign promise. And rather than complaining about activists and trying to shut them down and shut them up, they will realize activism is effective and join them in pressuring Democrats to take action on their supposedly shared goals.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:49
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Aside, I find it very interesting that the centrists' supposed objection to the single payer bill was that it was incomplete and needed a ton more work in committee to turn it into workable legislation, but when leftist activism gets that committee formed, suddenly it's just "eh". This is exactly what you claimed you wanted to see happen for two months, but I guess because it was activism by someone else and it wasn't achieved by the "sit quietly and politely until politicians up and decide to cross their donors out of the goodness of their hearts" strategy suddenly you don't care anymore.
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Sep 12, 2017 05:59
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A committee isn't a bill. A committee is an excuse to get you off their backs.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:11
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Note how two months ago the centrist argument was that leftists don't understand the process, don't understand how important committee work is, and are impatient babies who want a pony overnight. Now that leftist activism got you what you said you wanted for two months, all of a sudden you're declaring legislative committees a worthless excuse to shut up criticism. No one waved a magic wand and passed a bill overnight on the back of a unicorn, so you throw up your hands and say activism was useless and we should stop trying. Imagine I capped this off with a long Ytlaya-post about how affluent liberals who are comfortable with the status quo care more about feeling smart and "being right" than actually making progress toward goals they nominally want but aren't too invested in getting. You got what you claimed you wanted, but because it wasn't gotten with your strategy now you claim it's not good enough so you can say the activists' strategy didn't work after all and you don't have to admit you were wrong.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:17
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That anger and backlash (in part) came about because of the ground-game ran by the California Nurses Association and DSA chapters who started organizing and canvassing, knocking on doors, getting people to talk about their experiences with healthcare, explaining single-payer and it spun out to networking from there. I'm sure other groups were involved but those two for sure. Definitely an instance where once people are told what it all means and how it relates to them in a personal setting, the reception is pretty widely positive versus whatever info they may happen to catch from the internet or other media and they're left on their own to figure out if it's worth loving with or worrying about.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:18
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VitalSigns posted:Note how two months ago the centrist argument was that leftists don't understand the process, don't understand how important committee work is, and are impatient babies who want a pony overnight. I would love a single payer bill. I also know that you love to put words in my mouth. I do get a laugh that you think I am affluent and happy with the status quo, simply because I questioned what the left had accomplished and don't think this committee will do anything. If I thought this would go anywhere I would react differently. But I don't. The article even says 'Rendon did not explicitly say whether the hearings are meant to result in a bill that could establish universal health care in the state'. It just smells like they are bullshitting you.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:32
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But I guess the best part is you get to win either way. Either you are right, or you get to yell about centrists again. Congrats.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:34
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Peachfart posted:A committee isn't a bill. A committee is an excuse to get you off their backs. Amusing aside: if you are correct (and you may be) that the committee is just an excuse for Democrats to dishonestly kill UHC at the behest of the donors, then you're conceding that the thread title is correct, the Democrats are a waste and cannot be worked with in good faith, but must face constant threats to their jobs in order to coerce them to actually govern on behalf of the people or better yet primaried and replaced as soon as possible with good faith actors from the progressive wing of the party.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:34
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call to action posted:This is why I don't trust liberals. Trail of Tears? Vietnam? Iraq? No, the pussy grabbing orange guy is the worst! Just as a darkly amusing aside he's quite possibly the worst person to be president, and also probably the worst at being president. But yeah, he hasn't killed enough people to actually be the worst president.
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Sep 12, 2017 06:34
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VitalSigns could you provide me with evidence, preferably in the form of HD video, of a leftist (i.e. card-carrying DSA member or equivalent) standing in front of Anthony Rendon and saying "I put a recall on you for healthcare things" etc etc, forthwith Anthony Rendon schedules a bunch of committee meetings? Because otherwise, I don't know man, your case that activism did a thing, seems kinda shaky. How do you know it wasn't concern-trolling centrists in this thread that convinced Anthony Rendon to do that?
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Sep 12, 2017 07:05
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