How come whenever I come to DU I see rah-rah campaign cheerleading posts outnumber serious issues?

[Leopolds Ghost]

issues that are threatening the future of the country which the Democrats and Republicans
are voting to permanently enshrine Bush's policies?

(and no, I'm not referring to GD-P)

It seems to me Bush will go down as having tremendously succeeded in his aims of
making Reagan's disastrous policies permanent and actual as opposed to mere
hateful talk as Reagan was prone to... and Bush has succeeded in convincing the
elected Democratic leadership of the "rightness" of his policies on issue after issue.

The fact that the House Republicans are even more right wing is just a telling
example of the effectiveness of the Overton strategy of negotiation, which
liberals used to use (witness MLK's skillful playing off against Malcolm X)
until they apparently had a brain siezure and decided the only principled
negotiating stance is to accept the overall preconditions of the opposing
policies in return for a willingness to meet the opposition halfway.

And all the blogosphere can do is bury its head in work of getting Obama elected,
pretending he will "undo" all these things when he is elected, and pretending that the
election will even be close for that matter and that our voices and bodies in the
trenches (like the pointlessly lost lives of WWI) even matter.

If it is even close, if it were somehow mysteriously another 50/50 election,
why bother pretending that you are warriors in battle (partly pajama-clad)
fighting to keep McCain from running away with the hearts and minds of America
when you (the electorate) and the grass-roots of the Democratic party (and the
grass-roots of the Republicans) are merely pawns being put up in a staged fight,
like the cave man in that Geico tennis commercial?

No one really believes in what the Republicans are selling anymore except for the
upper class elite that now controls the Democratic (not just Republican) party.

In a fair fight, it wouldn't even be close.

They, the elite, are the ones who are fighting to keep it close in order to maintain the fiction
that the democrats are some sort of loyal opposition in a pre-arranged system designed to benefit the rich.

As Michael Lind said, we have two parties of the overclass.

There is no honor in valorizing a staged fight or pretending that Rowdy Roddy Piper
or Hulk Hogan will somehow usher in a new day when he is giving the crown (much as
the ordained champion might like to make a difference in the privacy of his own thoughts).

In reality, most of these guys (elite Dems who are being put up for our inspection)
have no intention of pursuing fundamental change because they want the same thing the
radical Republicans want, only less of it. They want to sugarcoat the outsourcing
with middle class tax breaks. They want to sugarcoat the rape and murder overseas
with supposed strategic advances against the perfect enemy, one who can't be proven
to still exist (unless we stop fighting, so we must keep fighting just in case.)

The Republicans are merely the bad cop in this prison cell interrogation we call America,
when the news they feed to you (even LBN here on DU) is merely what gets passed over the
transom of the airwaves into your interrogation cell in order to elicit a pre-programmed
(propagandistic) response -- the response the interrogators (media/congresspeople/and the
generalized interests of the wealthy and upper middle class) are looking for.

(And yes, in case anyone totally focused on election horse race is incredulous about,
this post is about the bailout -- and similar votes to permanently enshrine the Bush legacy)

[thunder rising]

1. much, much concern here

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Hey, keep on fighting. I won't deny the nobility of the cause

Japanese, Vikings, other cultures have an ancient and honorable tradition and philosophy
concerning the willingness to struggle in the face of certain defeat -- even if the defeat
is coming from within members of one's own party (Braveheart, anyone?)

[chimpymustgo]

16. Leopold, thank you for your bold, wise OP. It's unbearably difficult to accept. Impossible for many.

But we must face the facts:

Stolen elections since at least 2000
9/11
Patriot Act
Iraq War Resolution
CONTINUED funding of the war
no end in sight in Afghanistans - send more war!
Federal judges approved (so much dry powder, so little time)
FISA
BAILOUTS for rich people

I'll stop now. Really, if people can't figure this out with the DAILY evidence, there's no helping them. But keep on cheering your team on!

[LBJDemocrat]

10. Yeah; let's alert on him.

He should be posting discussion threads with pictures of our Benevolent Leader smiling and shaking children's hands.

:sarcasm:

[ThomWV]

2. Because the people who come here are exactly like the rest of the country

We pay a lot more attention to emotional issues than policy ones - everyone does it, and in fact just about every individual does it most of the time, even those who from time to time come up with serious policy commentary. I think its programmed into us to be split between hard reality and fantasy land, with fantasy land winning about 75-99% of the time for most of us. Its that 25-1% that you wish to see all the time, but you won't get it here or much of anywhere else.

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. It is the same part of our brains that shields us from the inevitability of our own death.

And other cold, hard realities capable of paralyzing us in our tracks
whenever we try to reconcile them with what we like to believe is really happening.

[frogcycle]

3. because that is the nature of humanity

[clear eye]

4. We take our campaigns pretty seriously around here

Many DUers are working for one in their locality, some are doing so practically full-time.

[Fumesucker]

5. Because trying to have a serious discussion is well nigh impossible.

Lots of nasty rhetoric being thrown around the last week or so on the bailout bill, from both sides.

From what I've seen, just about all the really serious issues are divisive if you dig deep enough.

[rateyes]

6. GOBAMA/BIDEN! Woooohoooooo!

Sorry, just couldn't resist. :hi:

I feel your frustration.

[Generic Other]

7. I am a fighter...beat me bloody and it only makes me stubborn

I get up every time they batter me. If I can't land a punch, then I must hope my face breaks their bloody knuckles. I give up when I am dead.

[cali]

8. the bailout is a done deal. Many of us strongly opposed it

there was a lot of discussion here about it, but it's done. And the election is still to come. Very few people here believe that Obama will usher in some halcyon golden age. Most of us understand that McCain would further perpetrate the bush nightmare both here and abroad.

We understand that this election is serious as a heart attack.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. Because it is an internet message board. It is entertainment with a veneer of .............

...... intellectualism. The DU community is pretty much powerless to actually *do* a damned thing except piss each other off or get into self congratulatory circle jerks. We have zero power and zero influence.

[LBJDemocrat]

13. What I'm worried about is what will happen after the election

...whether bloggers and DUers will approve of whatever Obama does simple because it's Obama doing it and not McBush.

[zanne]

14. Are you a motivational speaker?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. I wouldn't make a good one.

[zanne]

27. I'm sorry. That was mean. nt

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. No, it wasn't... I laughed when I saw your comment.

I'm a professional pessimist. Like that guy in Gladiator, if we're all
going to die tomorrow -- and I'll warrant it's a distinct possibility--
best to put a cheerful face on it.

[TexasObserver]

15. News Flash! We have an election in a month!

Do you really think your tortured need to revile in the angst of life is being underfed?

Oh, the drama!

We'll keep posting about our wonderful leader and how he will help us turn this about, and you can worry about how many issues can dance on the head of a pin.

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. How can we (don't pin all this work on Obama's desk!) turn this about?

And why do you want to wait until next year to do so?

The legislature controls the government in a DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLIC, not the President.

In order to expect the President to take charge to reverse all of Bush's policies,
you need both:

a) an Executive who disagreed with those policies when they were enacted, or can
credibly reverse himself on some (not all) of those enabling acts.

b) to arrogate even more power to the office of the Executive than it had before.

This is like all the people who waited until the end of 2004 to stop the Iraq war
in hopes that the next Administration would do it, as opposed to direct action by
a dissatisfied American public (note I did not use the word "electorate").

[TexasObserver]

25. This must be your first election.

Because otherwise you wouldn't need this process explained to you.

Our goal is to win the election. Agonizing over positions of the party candidates a month before the general election is not something I do, and it's not something most Democrats do. Because your choice is McCain or Obama.

The day after the election is a good day to go back to that nonstop handwringing over how life is never going to be as pure as you would have it be.

[Leopolds Ghost]

30. The goal should be to change policy.

Some things are helped by winning an election, some battles are merely
postponed until the election is over for reasons that only humans seem
to comprehend in our own primate-influenced mindset of how politics
is supposed to work -- ("rally round the alpha males and let the winner
sort things out") and some strategic battles are conceded by the generals
far in advance, unbeknownst to the troops, as later revealed in countless
memoirs and revealed that they considered them to be little more than
a tactical feint in a larger campaign to secure other objectives

(such as when the "liberal" panelists on McLaughlin group
applauded McCain for his honesty in saying "Dems shouldn't try to
pretend we want to protect manufacturing jobs that aren't coming back
when better green industry jobs are available.")

After all, everyone knows manufacturing solar panels requires higher
wages than manufacturing tennis shoes... right? Especially when the
goal is to drive down the cost of said panels and thereby restore the
US economy by exporting all our coal to China and using the proceeds
to build solar panels here at home when we can't even manufacture
the hats our soldiers wear.

[NNN0LHI]

17. Because some of us know the serious of the situation

And some others do not.

Don

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. To be fair, I have nothing against campaign-centric discussion, especially on GD-P

If the election were by any moral, social, religious or scientific analysis
warranted to be at all close this time around, I could even see obsessing
over campaign minutiae in light of the face of what all is happening
all around us and there would be more to talk about (campaign movements
on the ground) if in fact the election was close enough (and not just on
paper or in the bowels of some electronic voting machine) that individual
actions on the local level are likely to make a difference this time around.
But if the election were in fact going to be that close despite everything
going on around us, it can only mean:

a) the Democratic ticket is intentionally handicapping themselves by moving
to the right in a change year, in order to preserve what the ultra-elite
who pay our bills think is valuable among Bush's policies in the face of
public anger and potential populist upheaval (which the leadership views
as a negative); or

b) there is no hope for America either way, the country has embraced Reaganism
and will only embrace change from Bush's policies that is framed in Reaganite terms.

In my opinion, just as the Roman republic died when the plebeins lost the Social Wars,
the American Republic died when Kerry lost and was repudiated by his own party as too
liberal an opponent for the most right-wing president in US history -- Bush.

[chimpymustgo]

23. I think the republic died with the stolen election of 2000. JFK, MLK RFK murders were the beginning

of the end. Yesterday's bailout, just the latest in a string of evidence that nobody's really fighting for us.

Stolen elections since at least 2000
9/11
Patriot Act
Iraq War Resolution
CONTINUED funding of the war
no end in sight in Afghanistans - send more war!
Federal judges approved (so much dry powder, so little time)
FISA
BAILOUTS for rich people

[1Hippiechick]

19. "...in this prison cell interrogation we call America, " GREAT line, imo.

Have you watched the 6-part series on YouTube entitled "Happiness Machines"? I think you would find it very, very interesting - it's about CONTROLLING the masses in a democracy. I would say the last scales fell from my eyes after watching these. I have posted them here in GD where they got probably fewer than 10 views and even fewer responses. Amazing to me that that would happen in THIS forum. I share you chagrin about the issues here - it's like DU has slipped on the scale of sites to visit for serious discussion. One only has to look at the number of views, responses, and recommends of the topics to see which genre gets the most "hits." The more sensational, the more views, imo.

[bowens43]

22. because most don't suffer from tunnel vision and we're in the middle of a campaign.

[LiberalHeart]

24. Because people like me aren't as evolved as people like you.

[dailykoff]

26. What's astonishing is that they don't see the electoral damage they're causing.

None of these grotesque cave-ins is going to help any Dems win except maybe some blue dog Reps in the deep South. Both the FISA and bailout bills are intensely unpopular, rightly so, and this endless drumbeat of capitulation so close to the election looks like nothing so much as snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on purpose.

[skids]

28. I'll have to get back to you on that... in a month. n/t

[bbgrunt]

31. Gresham's Law of politics and culture: bad drives out good.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. Well, now, there's been a flood of bailout-related posts today.

Looks like everyone else found out which way the house voted same time I did.

Interesting how fast they rushed to sign the bill -- before market close?

Where is all this hidden money the Bush cabal (and their enablers in Congress)
are stashing their cash overseas, and why is it threatened by the US credit collapse?

Anyone think that might be the reason for the provision requiring the US to
bail out foreign banks?

In, say, the Cayman Islands, or Dubai? Or Columbia and Panama, perhaps?