Every Senator or Rep who voted against America's best interests on the FISA bill should be met with a credible primary challenge.

Anyone out in comment land with Blue Dogs or other DINOs in your state or district? Are there worthy challengers who need a boost?

The campaign to oust Lieberman as the Democratic nominee was successful. The election against the mighty Connecticut for Lieberman party was not.

I look at the episode as progress. Holy Joe squeaked by due to a poor campaign by Lamont, lots of powerful DLC-type enablers, and help from Republicans who didn't field a viable candidate.

Given the complete valuelessness and corruption of today's Republican Party, it is unconscionable not to vote for their most credible opponents.

Lest that philosophy be taken as a blank check by DINOs and other lousy Democrats, we have to instill fear into them by challenging them in the primaries.

Recent votes in Congress show that having so-called Democrats does little good. We need genuine progressives, who will bring this country back from the brink.

And CD's question is a great one -- shouldn't this be one of netroots' "primary" activities right now? Any A-listers want to help lead the charge?

... "we" can control anything, including the Blue Dogs.

Why am I suddenly reminded of LOTR?

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Lamont lost because the national party told him to focus on positive campaigning and let them worry about going negative on Lieberman. The only problem was the national party never actually went negative on Lieberman, because they backed their friend over their party.

And no, more Democrats will not help matters. That's why I've all but given up on both the blogosphere and the party in general. I don't know if they are just co-opted hacks or if they are just too politically dense to understand this, but you only have the option of voting for someone or not voting for them. You don't have a magical third option of voting for them no matter what and somehow not being taken for granted. If the blogosphere were serious about change, they never would have gotten as cozy with the party as they are. This belief by Atrios and Kos that they can get what they want by never demanding anything or issuing "or else" statements is either foolish or corrupt.

At some point, the only way to make people understand your power is to hurt them. The blogosphere is clearly unwilling to cause pain, and as such they are nothing but useful idiots.

On the theory, see Shystee on the Overton window, especially the tug-of-war metaphor.

On the practice, I agree. Apparently, besides money--of which I have none--there's only one way to get these guy's attention, and that's to inflict pain on them.

And to say "it's Kos's job to elect Democrats" is not to dismiss him. I would, for example, really rather have Jim Webb than George Allen in the Senate, because people who stuff dead deer's heads into black people's mailboxes are the essence of what it means to be Republican, and that was George Allen. And Kos does actually raise money effectively, and did so in a way that did push the Overton window, if only slightly, in the direction of sanity. More power to him, literally.

And I agree with KB that there is a difference. It's like the difference between, oh, Sauron (Reptilican) and Saruman, back in the Shire (the Democrats). Both are evil, no question, but which'd ya rather? (And remember it was Denethor, before he set himself on fire, who said that if he couldn't have what he wanted "then I will have naught: neither life diminished..." Not a good role model, eh?)

It's really plank 2 of my platform: Plank 1 is a return to Constitutional government; Plank 2 is a return to "honest graft". Boss Tweed I can deal with; the K Street Project I can't.

So I guess.... For us to try to inflict pain on Republicans will never cause them to change, since, as reptiles, they don't have the appropriate nerve endings. (But it's important to do, so that the persuadable see what they are.) But we can inflict pain on the Democrats, and so far as I can see, it's the only thing we can do. So, again, structure the discourse to our advantage.

(Incidentally, if by pain, you mean physical pain, I'd advise against it. We can't very well be advocating forcefully for animal rescue, and then advocate physical pain for the human animal. There needs to be, there must be, there must be, an open, transparent, effective way forward, beyond Kos, and not toward adolescent fantasies of rage and revene. I keep thinking Ghandi, sit down strikes, MLK... Something that doesn't have what we're fighting incubating, Alien-like, at it's core...)

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

I expect to refer back to this often.

It seems we agree that the pain should never reach the level of organ failure or the election of Republicans.

And would like to get in touch with the author directly to talk about doing some cross-posting with the blog I work for. But I couldn't find a working contact page on your site. Feel free to email me back to discuss collaborating, and you're welcome to delete this comment after you've read it.

The contact link at top right doesn't work unless you are logged in (otherwise, we'd be overrun with spam). Try that, and let me know).

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

we need some Saul Alinsky style direct action. Electoral politics is not going to move unless we insert some creative confrontation.

The Orange frat house is useless for this sort of thing, indeed I think Open Left is not clueful enough. I don't know who or what to suggest, but the Free South Africa movement should be the role model, not electoral politics.

I can Google, but testimony is more useful and interesting.

The thought that keeps running through my head, from the open source software movement, I guess, is that a transparent movement can't be infiltrated. If you see what I'm saying.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Really?

I think not.

As to why the awesome blogosphere is 'doing nothing...' you must have missed this:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?dia...

now it is true that Stoller is 'gasp' white guy but he and Bowers have done some great work in moving dat ol' Overton Window.

And on the 'FemBlog' side you got:

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/10/bl...

and I would be willing to bet that more pushback against 'Blue Dogs' and ReThugs is on the way.

I think there's this guy they call 'The Great Orange Satan' who stays at this sort of thing pretty much full time.

I will be doing what I can on my blog with my correspondent in CA-04 to make things better with a Blue Majority by getting rid of Doolittle.

Feel free to join in.

Is this Make Up Shit Day?

Who's whining about Lamont? Even though he lost the election, which is a painful outcome given the party parity in the Senate, I'm holding up his ousting of a DINO as a paradigm for future action.

Also, thanks for the links. Please share with us updates on these kinds of plans/actions.

the woman who complained about tailhook," but i agree with your basic point, lb. still, as unpopular as he is, i understand soullite's bitterness. i agree with alice: sustained action is the way to go for those of us tired of electoral baseball.

i'm doing some action later today, it's going to feel good. i'll get back to you all about it later.

Soyez sage!

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan