Uh-oh. The Bernster is pissed. Which means the finger waggling won’t stop any time soon!!
Even though there’s a real issue here to consider we’re not going to be able to make sense out of the party positions and statements in the midst of a presidential election. Bernie doesn’t have to walk the tightrope of public opinion any more because he’s not going to be a candidate in the fall, Hillary still has to continue the game, we’ll have no idea where she stands, if she stands, on any issue not guaranteed to bring in votes for her.
The next problem to face is the growing length of election seasons, as they begin to run one into another like the retail holiday sales we’ll lose any chance to find out where the politicians and parties stand on issues as they remain in non-stop election mode.
Lets be clear. The voters want change, but they want someone else to pay for it. Free college - wonderful. Free college if my taxes go up - ummmm…maybe not. Universal Heath Care? Great. What, I’m going to lose my employers plan and have to pay more in taxes? - I don’t think so. Fracking - its horrible - but so are high energy and gas prices…maybe a little fracking in parts of the country no one cares about if it keeps my bills low.
So Progressives want to tax the rich - the problem is that the rich are rich - they can move to low taxation countries and never return.
Yes. Often a person wanting “change” means they want things to change for the better for them, personally. But in the long run educating those who cannot afford it, protecting the environment, and providing universal health care …those ideas are all in the best interest of most people. But big change means overcoming small but stubborn ideas. These changes will eventually come about, but it is going to take time, and new generations to get us where we need to be. I wish we could alter those things today, but I think we are going to have to get there in increments. Never lose the vision or despair that it takes so long to achieve it.
We’re not getting centrism though, we just get opportunists wearing the cloak of centrism. The two sides keep trading places as the party of no ideas and the party of bad ideas, and no progress is made. Neither party ca maintain power on a centrist platform, so each election is a puppet show.
Agree, but pragmatism is important - you don’t need a platform that the GOP will nail down as tax and spend. “Elect Hillary and she’ll raise YOUR taxes!” is not the way to win over the middle class and get into office so you can make incremental change.
[del]Right.[/del] Uh, make that ‘correct’ instead.
Each party wants to pull things its way and can’t get elected by saying so too overtly, so it postures a more centrist position during election years and strains mightily to change things while it’s in power. That’s just another facet of what I said.
I can’t think of a case where I would want - or begin to trust - a truly radical platform, with “truly radical” meaning 20% of its points were contrary to the st-t-s q–. It indicates a party and platform that do not understand either high-level politics or the American people. (When said radicals have an accomplished track record of zero, like, uh, one recent candidate of note, I’m even less inclined.)
Who cares? Nobody reads the platform except for opposition researchers, nobody pays attention to it after the election. Does anyone take Obama to task for not sticking to the 2008/2012 platforms? Really, all the platforms do is give some work to the delegates before the speeches begin at the conventions.
It’s an opinion piece backed up by a peer reviewed academic paper, but in case you are too lazy to look for the link, here’s the paper itself (pdf).
I agree, trade is good for everyone. TPP, however, was horrible. It was literally treated as a national secret, written by industry lobbyists promoting corporate sovereignty, signed with minimal debate, and with negligible benefits.
Support free trade. Reject TPP.
Pitting the Democratic Party … now that’s imaginative …
Rest assured that on those exceedingly rare occasions where d’Anconia has a legitimate point, he’ll always find a way to make it stupid.
As liberal as I am, I’m for winning more than ideological purity. I think those platforms, with the exception of fracking, appeal to more people than nothing. We shouldn’t be mad at the Dems for moderating their positions, we should spend our efforts trying to liberalize people
OK.
Why don’t you tell us which specific provisions from the actual agreement are bad, and why they are bad? I ask this because it just seems like an article of faith on the part of many casual progressives that TPP is bad, usually backed up only by an appeal to authority.
Yes, I know Elizabeth Warren and other progressive heroes were against the deal while it was being negotiated and afterward. She and others started to lose me when, instead of staying current on the negotiations and advising the Executive (a role which was quite sensibly limited to lawmakers instead of the general public), they bitched about the “secrecy” of the talks, as if they were just as ignorant of the details and the US negotiating positions as their constituents. (And as if the non-public nature of such multinational negotiations were at all unusual or dangerous.)
So, if you could, please tell me where the bad stuff is in the agreement, and explain your reasoning. You may very well convince me with a good argument, but as of right now, I see nothing to concern me enormously about TPP.
Thanks in advance for your reasoned response.
Uh oh. Now Rick Kitchen will block you and you’ll be sad.
Despite assurances to contrary, intellectual property covered asset for TPP ISDS mechanism
TPP has provision banning requirements to transfer of or access to source code of software
From Doctor’s Without Borders (MSF), Statement by MSF on the official release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement
Despite claiming to demand “nondiscriminatory treatment of digital products” and “cross border transfer by electric means” of information – an anti-censorship/blocking provision, Malaysian carve-out for internet blocking:
Copyright, intellectual property, and patent maximalists will all be happy with the agreement, because those are the people who were negotiating and drafting the agreement. Everyone else, not so much. Thanks to TPP:
Ever use a torrent site, or share/listen to an album on YouTube? Be ready for jail time if you are in a signatory country:
One last note - while initially it appeared that the tobacco industry would be carved out from the TPP ISDS mechanism, but it is actually voluntary on a country’s part.
Good enough start for a global trade agreement negotiated in secret (meaning that unless one was invited, one had no input on potentially harmful provisions, and those invited were only from a few select industries) and rushed into signing? By the way, my quote on the negligible benefits was from the United States International Trade Commission.
QFT!
I would expand it even further:
Every member of a group of humans larger than, like, four has to learn to accept the reality that other good faith opinions exist about our complicated world. Not everyone who disagrees with you is evil or a shill.
By the way, the OP calls the actions in question those of the “platform committee,” which of course it isn’t. That committee has yet to meet. This was the work of a drafting committee, which serves in an advisory capacity. The actual committee may, or may not, choose to go with the positions decided on by the majority of this group.
I don’t blame the OP for making this error, especially; the headline on the “article,” after all, refers to the “DNC Platform.” You have to actually read the text to realize that this isn’t a done deal. (Not that the text exactly emphasizes it either.) Yet another way in which “Films for Action” chooses to avoid being reality-based. Ah well.
Is there a reason you’re being an asshole, or is it just your default?
Yeah, you’re right, Ulf, I should have clarified what I had posted. The actual platform committee meets to vote on planks at the convention, but this is the committee that is drafting the platform.