But frankly, if the Democrats had succeeded in co-opting such a massive and magnetic grassroots groundswell, the recall campaign in Wisconsin would look dramatically different.Face it. There's a big difference between left-wing activism and the Democratic Party. Why would left-wing activists care about getting a lackluster Democrat like Tom Barrett to be Governor? It works much better to have the big enemy Scott Walker as Governor. It was so energizing in March 2011. This recall is pathetic by comparison. Lefties should take a cue from the UW Teaching Assistants' Association: Repudiate the recall.
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"[M]any veterans of the [Wisconsin] protests are discouraged that so much promising grassroots energy sloppily dissipated at the hands of Democrats."
"The movement got co-opted by the Democratic Party." Those are the words of an anonymous Wisconsinite, quoted by Sally Kohn in a Daily Beast article that analyzes what has happened in Wisconsin over the past year and a half. Kohn opines:
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I saw that article this morning, and this was one of the first comments:
Evar 14 Hours Ago
Ms. Kohn is a Fox commentator. Enough said.
Un Lys, tumbleweed and Ratu999like this.
Such intellectual depth on display by the "smart" people.
The enemy are facts and reason. That's what they need to kick in the ass. The problem for all these lefty movements is that they are based on stupidity, falsehoods, and embarrassing un-American values. Most people just don't agree them them, or when they do they soon realize they look stupid for it and hide. The MESSAGE is the problem.
In this election year, with President Choom in so much trouble, nobody is going to get much out of the DNC (Congresscreeps included) except the Messiah.
But are we really talking about left-wing activists, even? Left-wing activists are into income redistribution, shutting down coal plants, and vegan cuisine. Do they really give a shit that the unions can't collect mandatory dues anymore, or that public sector workers's benefits are not longer an obscene cornucopia, but merely ample?
I don't live in WI and haven't been through there in a few years, but weren't the activists of 2011 pretty much all teachers and other public sector workers?
weren't the activists of 2011 pretty much all teachers and other public sector workers?
If Althouse's journalism photos and videos were an accurate portrayal (and I believe they were), then yes. There were the professional protest types like that Jim guy who wrote his anti-Althouse screed, but those people could never form a movement. They are the lumpen-lumpen-lumpen proletariat, at the ass end of the vanguard.
No, these were people who were angry that they were going to lose a few cushy benefits -- because there is no money for those benefits any more -- and angry, for mystifying reasons, that unions could no longer collect what amounts to a tax under the compulsion of law.
'promising grass roots'???
They were a pack of slimy createns that trashed the place.
There was no grass roots, just dirt.
I wonder if the psychology of the left nowadays is more about thwarting Republicans than about any specific aspirations they want for their own sake?
Like, the issues that Walker pushed mattered to the public sector workers, some of them anyway, and to the union staff. They don't matter at all to students at the U, or to your standard issue left wing bicyclist... EXCEPT they know that if allowed to stand, that would mean the Republicans won something off the Democrats. And preventing that from happening matters a lot to left wingers. Even if they aren't directly affected by it.
Just a theory.
"UW Teaching Assistants' Association"
Everytime that's been mentioned here I have to laugh. Really? Graduate and get a real job. Stop smoking pot and donking the undergrads.
But are we really talking about left-wing activists, even? Left-wing activists are into income redistribution, shutting down coal plants, and vegan cuisine. Do they really give a shit that the unions can't collect mandatory dues anymore, or that public sector workers's benefits are not longer an obscene cornucopia, but merely ample?
Of course they care. Those darn serfs aren't paying their tithes to the church of leftism anymore.
Leftards are emotional creature, hence the recall all being sound and fury signifying nothing. And it will.
John -- I have thought much the same thing. It's not clear why there is such a dispirited tone now compared to the crazy energy of the protests that went on forever. It doesn't make any sense. The leftists and the unionists have what they want in their sights: the recall of the governor.
The analysis that Barrett is a crappy candidate makes some sense, but at the same time there were primaries. Anyone could have run. And anyone could have voted. The only conclusion I can draw is that a candidate who appeals to anything close to approaching 50 percent of the people of Wisconsin does not appeal to the union hardcores, students, professional protestors, and various other leeches who showed up to protest. Those people didn't represent some larger group. They were the group, and it's a tiny, silly minority of people.
All hat, no cattle.
No follow through.
The 'activists' and protesters have no follow through. No game plan. No practical vision of how to really accomplish their goals. The excitement of the game without the game plan.
The progressives and leftist liberals are all about the surface and nothing about the long game. The hard work that it takes to get to the goal. They are like a bunch of attention deficit children who expect immediate gratification.
Progressives like Obama are children. Impatient and unfocused children. It is time to let the focused adults finally back in charge.
THIS is why, even though I am not a Romney fan, that I think that Romney would be a good president. Based on his traditional American family value system **,his history of being goal oriented and being capable of orchestrating many successful 'game plans' as a business man I think we may have a person who could lead us out of this Obama death spiral.
**(there is nothing un-American about being a Mormon than there is about being Jewish or Baptist.)
There we were, waving our signs and chanting our chants and showing everyone what democracy looks like... and they had to go and ruin everything by holding an election.
The basic problem is that just being against things eventually runs into the question of what are your alternatives. The protesters did not show up for that exam. Fail.
Some energy always sloppily dissipates no matter what. It's a thermodynamics thing.
"Seven Machos said...
weren't the activists of 2011 pretty much all teachers and other public sector workers?
If Althouse's journalism photos and videos were an accurate portrayal (and I believe they were), then yes. There were the professional protest types like that Jim guy who wrote his anti-Althouse screed, but those people could never form a movement. They are the lumpen-lumpen-lumpen proletariat, at the ass end of the vanguard.
No, these were people who were angry that they were going to lose a few cushy benefits -- because there is no money for those benefits any more -- and angry, for mystifying reasons, that unions could no longer collect what amounts to a tax under the compulsion of law."
That's where it started for sure. Selfish government workers. But then the others got involved...college student with brains of mush looking for a cause, and the permanent Madison population that finally saw an opportunity to protest, which is all they really want to do, but have for years had no real cause to. I mean no one is going to apy attention to a few hippies prattling on about social justice in Madison. Together they don't make up a homogenized group, and the effort was doomed to fail.
The recall was not a means to an end for many of these people, but the end itself. Even many public workers have given up hope for restoration of the gravy train...Walker's recall is simply about making him pay for their now permanent lot in life. So Barrett, who had the best chance to win, was a perfect choice.
Since 2008, the left-wing activists have driven the agenda of the Democrat Party.
Per Jay Cost:
"Unlike Carter and Clinton before him, who at least tried to tame the party clients, President Obama has time and again acceded to their demands, at the expense of the public good. The stimulus bill, designed by congressional Democrats with Obama’s blessing, pumped $800 billion into the economy, largely through Democratic clients like labor, environmental groups, and African Americans. Obama followed that up with a bailout of the auto industry that gave the United Auto Workers much more than they would have won in bankruptcy court, then proceeded as if the economic crisis had passed. His financial reform legislation was highly preferential to his big-money donors on Wall Street; his cap-and-trade bill tried to award environmentalists, well-heeled businesses, and the poor in one fell swoop; and his health care bill is the apogee of anti-republican, liberal clientelism, a sprawling, trillion-dollar payoff to an array of groups that leaves the average American in no better shape.
The 2010 midterms saw the worst drubbing for the Democratic party since 1938 as the GOP won control of the House of Representatives—due punishment for Obama’s focus on the party clients at the expense of the national interest."
Yep...the Democratic Party is as despicable and as much owned by special interests (the financial elites) as the Republican Party.
Anyone who maintains any faith at all in the integrity or efficacy of our two party system is blind or self-deluded.
"Since 2008, the left-wing activists have driven the agenda of the Democrat Party."
An example of someone who is neither blind nor self-deluded, but is simply brain-dead.
"The problem for all these lefty movements is that they are based on... un-American values."
What is an "un-American value?
"I wonder if the psychology of the left nowadays is more about thwarting Republicans than about any specific aspirations they want for their own sake?"
If it were, it would simply be yet another way in which the Democrats would be emulating the Republicans.
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