Occasional Words from the Resistance – Network DE Kickoff
…from the desk of RE Vanella
What a day! I’m not going to rehash many details of what was a very satisfying Carney bashing yesterday in this space. We use the adjectives corporatist, neo-liberal as adversarial accusations. To see the show up close and personal is a physical experience, stomach-churning. The reputation well earned. It was like he was channeling Larry Summers. But my bitterness was held at bay for an hour last evening.
Network Delaware had its full public debut at the Christina Cultural Arts Center. Standing room only in the theatre and overflow in the first floor gallery. I was really moved by the people who turned up – both numbers and diversity. I’d estimate 200. I saw our neighbors and from all walks of life. Beautiful. Eugene Young made some rallying remarks and I felt inside myself, where the Carney-induced nausea had been, what I’ve heard described as hope. I hesitate to summarize words I listened to but may misstate in a retelling especially when emotion is involved. However, I think it’s fair to say that the politicians and organizers and community leaders associated with this organization are sincere about this effort. The “Delaware Way” was mentioned, but as something holding us back not moving us forward. Personally, I’ve always used it to accuse an adversary.
I do want to take a moment from my pitch here to note. On the other thing, we’re all in that together. If you’re willing to go out in the street to oppose our vile embarrassment of the world’s most dangerous clown then we’re comrades in that. Zero questions. Also, and for the record, just vote for Hansen in the 10th. Now’s not the time, like in the voting booth, to have the argument, and you know why.
The fight is about people. There’s deep-rooted, systemic marginalization that needs to be addressed today. Peter Tosh says, “400 years, or more.” The income inequality of a new gilded age is all over the internet and looking worse by the minute. If we don’t start taking care of people we’re not going make it. This could get us before the climate does. I sincerely believe that. I hope all the freedom and liberty and George Washington and Enlightenment magic baked into this actually works. Bicameral legislatures, civics, etc. We need every bit of it. Whatever you have that you don’t know how to use, they know how to use it.
So use the internet to check it out. www.thenetworkde.org
Somebody once wrote it only works if you work it.
Eugene closed with a story about taking a youth group to Memphis each summer to visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel. One of the inscriptions reads:
And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
— Genesis 37:19-20
Resist.
I was doing the sign in. The crowd inside the room was approx. 225 and there were an additional 30 – 40 or so people in the hallway outside the room and downstairs! The energy last night was off the charts!
For anyone interested it getting involved, here’s our website.
Last night’s turnout was invigorating by way of a politics for the far-future.
I’ll highlight this, from Ian Welsh, full post here: http://www.ianwelsh.net/lessons-for-the-resistance-from-the-bush-resistance/
“There are a couple lessons to learn from this.
The first is that while partisan Democrats may be one’s allies when opposing a Republic president, their opposition is opportunistic and not principled. The second they are in charge, they will support or wave aside the same actions they condemned coming from a Republican. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work with partisan Democrats, it means understand when they’ll stop fighting AND that once they don’t need you, they will regard you as a threat and seek to to eliminate you.
The second is more important: The control of a party matters more than the results of any individual election.
This is where half the readers will disagree, indeed, they will disagree violently and emotionally.
But there’s a reason that the US is where it is: After each over-reach, after each extension of executive powers, to the creation of police state and the waging of war, the Democrats didn’t roll back the worst excesses when they got into power, NOR did they push the lever further to the left. In fact, Clinton had many policies worse than Reagan/Bush (welfare, crime) and Obama had many policies worse than Bush Jr., as has been discussed.
In order to stop the next Trump, not just this one, you must have control of a party to the point that they are forced to roll back the terrible laws and policies of the last 40 years–and not just roll them back, but start pushing the lever even further towards equality, away from oligarchy, and towards civil liberties and widespread prosperity.
If you do not do that, your victory over Trump is temporary. You win against him, but you do not win against what caused him, and what he represents.
The right-wing understands that. The Netroots said “More and better Democrats,” and while it had some successes, it didn’t have enough, because it failed repeatedly at primarying bad actors.
The Tea Party succeeded: They were able to remove enough Republicans they objected so that the ones who remained were scared to cross them. While doing so, they were willing to lose seats, because they understood that Republicans who would not vote for them when the chips were down might as well be Democrats. (This is where the screams about the Supreme Court would be inserted. There is truth to this, but you are now losing it anyway.)
If the Resistance wants to really succeed, to really make the US a better place, it must learn the lesson of those who fought and failed before. If you succeed at getting rid of Trump without changing the trajectory of US economy, foreign policy, and disrespect for civil rights, you have done little more than kick the can down the road.
Changing what Democrats WANT to do, who they want to be, and what sort of country they are actually willing to vote for and work to build, is what matters. Objectively, Obama and Bill Clinton contributed massively to the ills which lead to Trump. That needs to stop. There needs to be a Democratic President who rolls back what has been done, and then moves strongly to the left. Who dismantles the legal, regulatory, and institutional framework for tyranny, and who actually reduces inequality and increases prosperity for all Americans in a clear way they can feel.
Failure to achieve that, and, in tandem, to achieve a Congress which would work with such a president and oppose the inevitable future Republican presidents, will equal failure for the Resistance, no matter how many small successes they have, or even if they are able to remove Trump through impeachment or loss in 2020.
Slowing the rate of the downward spiral the US is on is good. Stopping it from getting worse is better. Reversing it and making it better is best and is necessary for long-term success and long-term security against leaders like Trump.”
REV… about that Carney budget meeting – What was the format for taking public questions/comment? Who was moderating? Did Carney take questions directly? Were there rules or guidelines for public comment? How did they decide who could comment? Was there a deficit-scare presentation to kick things off? I should be able to make both Hockessin meetings.
No moderator. Informal. Carney does about 10 minutes on background and explains the revenue streams and expenses at a high level. Some detail given specific to education. There are a few handouts.
Then he just takes questions for 20 minutes. Questions weren’t prescreened or anything. They just asked that there kept on the budget topic.
Sorry I missed you last night REV.