Salon.com has a piece up urging Democrats to dump Obama and go with a candidate who will restore their party to its New Deal era politics. According to the column by Matt Stoller, there are a number of reasons why they should, including:

If would be one thing if Obama were failing because he was too close to party orthodoxy. Yet his failures have come precisely because Obama has not listened to Democratic Party voters. He continued idiotic wars, bailed out banks, ignored luminaries like Paul Krugman, and generally did whatever he could to repudiate the New Deal. The Democratic Party should be the party of pay raises and homes, but under Obama it has become the party of pay cuts and foreclosures. Getting rid of Obama as the head of the party is the first step in reverting to form.

This is an institutional crisis for Democrats. The groups that fund and organize the party — an uneasy alliance of financiers, conservative technology interests, the telecommunications industry, healthcare industries, labor unions, feminists, elite foundations, African-American church networks, academic elites, liberals at groups like MoveOn, the ACLU and the blogosphere — are frustrated, but not one of them has broken from the pack. In remaining silent, they give their assent to the right-wing policy framework that first George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama, cemented in place. It will be nearly impossible to dislodge such a framework without starting within the Democratic Party itself.

In other words, party inflexibility has a price. If the economy worsens going into the fall, and the president continues as he has to attempt to cut Social Security, Democrats might be facing a Carter-Reagan scenario. Reagan, at first considered a lightweight candidate, ended up winning a landslide victory that devastated the Democratic Party in 1980. Carter wasn’t the only loss; many significant liberal senators, such as George McGovern, John Culver and Birch Bayh, fell that year.

Stoller nails it by pointing out the extreme inflexibility inherent in the Democrat Party today. Its leaders have decided that they want it to be the party of Big Business, and they don’t care what base voters think — so long as the Republicans are content to be the party of overt extremists, as opposed to the Democrats’ “covert” extremism, they reason, voters will at the end of the electoral season either shut up and vote for them anyway or else not vote at all. Either way, that suits Democrat Party leaders just fine, wanting all the perks of power but none of the responsibility. Stoller continues toward the end of his column by writing:

Obama has basically endorsed every major plank of George Bush’s administration, yet Democrats still grant their approval. What we’re finding out is that Obama’s pathologically pro-establishment and conflict-averse DNA was funded by party insiders and embraced by liberal constituency groups in 2008 for a reason.

Political parties need to be flexible enough to allow for new ideas to come into the process, or else third parties or civil disorder are inevitable. All it would take to provide this flexibility are well-known Democratic elders who understand that rank and file Democrats deserve a choice, and a few political insiders who realize that they can increase their own power by encouraging a robust debate. I don’t think this will happen.

Stoller rightly points out that the disastrous presidency of Grover Cleveland necessitated the removal of him as the Democrats’ candidate in 1896 in favor of William Jennings Bryan, who pressed for many populist reforms and began laying the groundwork for both the Progressive Era of the early 1900s and the New Deal Era of the 1930s and 1940s. But for that to happen, there had to be widespread acknowledgment within the party that the path being taken could only lead to its ultimate collapse — self preservation instinct had to take over in order for the party to save itself, and in the 1890s, that realization rose and was accepted by party leaders.

Many disaffected Democrats still presume to think that they can take back the party from the corporate interests that have seized it. But not one of them has dared come up with any serious roster of candidates willing to risk political suicide by running against Obama next year. Corporate money, and therefore corporate influence, is so entrenched within the Democrat Party that it is now beyond all hope of repair. Thomas Hartman does offer advice for retaking the Democrat Party from the corporatists>, but it’s probably far too late for that. The party has so alienated and disillusioned voters with its pro-war, anti-labor, anti-civil liberties, pro-corporate, anti-democracy nature that it is now highly unlikely that enough citizens trust that their activism will result in any significant reforms.

A serious effort to build a strong, viable third party organization can send the needed message to Democrat leaders that they can no longer take voters for granted, that we do have alternatives and we will turn to them if Democrats keep refusing to live up to their obligation to represent the public interest. In 1992, H. Ross Perot’s strong showing of nearly nineteen percent of the vote in that year’s presidential election demonstrates that it is possible within our own era to gain significant votes to fundamentally alter the political landscape. Progressives, laborers, and traditionally oppressed citizens can and should begin building that third party effort now, while the iron is white hot. While we are doing that, remaining progressives within Democrat ranks can begin their takeover of the party by gaining precinct committee seats, especially executive committee seats, to obtain more control over the candidate-nominating process. Sun Tzu admonishes students of warfare not to fight on multiple fronts, but to instead force the enemy to do so, thereby dividing his forces. In World War II, Nazi Germany lost because it faced the dual military threats of the Allied forces in the West and the Soviet forces in the East, each of which operated in tandem with the other to close in around their mutual enemy and destroy him. In politics, the same strategies and tactics apply.

Now, Democrat Party loyalists will cry foul, claiming that any attempt to run a primary opponent against Obama or draw voters to third parties will almost certainly result in a Republican victory next year. But the way their party is doing things now, that result is practically inevitable regardless of what progressives do. Obama and corporatist Democrats at the top are leading their party off a cliff, and no amount of hope will cause them to deviate from their chosen path. What’s more, Republican vote-rigging is already well underway with highly restrictive ballot access and voter ID laws to prevent poor and minority voters from exercising their right to vote. By running as the party of continuation with George W. Bush’s extreme right-wing policies, Obama and his sycophants are guaranteeing a close enough electoral result that Republicans will easily be able to steal 2012, just as they did in 2000-2006. That they have such enthusiastic help from Democrats themselves makes GOP electoral “victories” all but inevitable.

Earlier this spring, the Miami New Times published two articles about a teenage runaway who posed as a then-nineteen-year-old stripper from Nevada for Internet porn giant Reality Kings. According to news reports, last year the then-fifteen-year-old stole the identity of Tyler Chanel Evans, who had helped her out only to have her identification card — and her entire identity — stolen. The runaway delinquent then proceeded to rack up a criminal record using Evans’ name, causing the victim to be arrested several times for crimes she did not commit.

To make matters worse, the teenager, under the stage name Bieyanka Moore, starred in a pornographic video for Reality Kings’ sub-site, Cum Fiesta. Although the fake ID and other information Moore provided was intricately created and succeeded in fooling the company’s ID verification system, which witnesses have stated is well within compliance of the law, the girl’s mother has nevertheless filed charges including the making of child pornography against Reality Kings. (The video was pulled the same day it was originally uploaded, after a tip from an anonymous source who recognized the girl from a missing persons photo.)

The case of an underage performer is but one of the most recent examples in an industry that has demonstrated an incredible amount of neglect toward “talent”. Last October, ABC News reported that yet another actor tested positive for HIV, prompting a temporary shutdown of production until costars could be informed and more tests done. It was the latest in a string of high publicity HIV scares that have cropped up within the last decade. Performers in the porn industry have higher overall statistics of HIV and other STDs in America, largely from laxness in practicing safer sex habits including the use of condoms. What’s more, the industry is infamous for pressuring female talent to “augment” their breasts with implants. One web site that came up during my research seemed to positively promote implants as a career-booster. But as Fox Noise Channel sensationally reported back in January, a German porn actress died on the operating table during her sixth implant surgery!

These and other abuses have led one porn performer to mount a campaign for sex workers’ rights. Another has launched her own personal crusade to inform people about the abuses and “rescue” fellow performers. The pandemic of STDs including HIV has become such that the Los Angeles Times reported late last month that Adult Performer Health and Safety Services (APHSS) is trying to revive a database of porn performers with STDs to provide industry workers with information they can use to help protect themselves from transmission of these very preventable diseases. Jenna Jameson’s book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, was quoted in an anti-pornography blog that gave twenty-five reasons not to go into porn.

The porn industry, like any other, puts profit above the well-being of the people who work for it. Human beings are treated as resources to be exploited, degrading them in ways that often dehumanize them. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are things the industry can and should do to ensure the safety of its workers. Among them are:

1.) Improve age-verification methods so that it is more difficult for underage people to get into the industry. As the Reality Kings scandal proved, two forms of identification may not be enough. Three or four forms of ID, including a certified copy of one’s birth certificate, can help reduce the influx of minors.

2.) Implement the mandatory use of condoms and other contraceptives to help prevent the spread of STDs, and allow performers to have tests done by certified medical facilities, such as hospitals and clinics. Make testing mandatory and have it done weekly to ensure that STDs, especially HIV, are caught early — before they can be spread to others. If condoms and other contraceptives aren’t mandatory, performers should be free to decline to work with people they suspect of having STDs without fear of reprisals from directors and producers. Reprisals should be considered retaliatory just as they are when Wal-Mart, for example, threatens to fire employees for not working off the clock or for refusing to work in unsafe conditions, and subject to lawsuit.

3.) Encourage couples to work exclusively with one another to help reduce the spread of STDs, and put a more positive light on monogamy.

4.) End the practice of pressuring women to get breast implants. Women are already made to feel inadequate in society at large if their bodies aren’t naturally built like supermodels. In the porn industry, it’s even worse. Women should be encouraged to keep the bodies they’re born with, rather than forcing them to scar themselves with bags of toxic substances (such as silicone) bolted onto the insides of their chests.

5.) Equal pay for equal work is a concept that has helped drive the feminist movement, but in porn, it is the male performers who are underpaid in comparison to women. If we’re going to demand equal pay for women in every other industry in America, shouldn’t men in the porn business enjoy wages that are as high as their female counterparts? This should not be taken by directors and producers to mean that women’s wages should be lowered to reflect those of men — just the opposite, in fact: men’s wages in the porn industry should be elevated to be equal to those of women.

6.) Discourage the use of drugs and alcohol both on and off set. Current and former sex workers, including Tanner Mayes, have described the environment on porn sets as encouraging the consumption of drugs and alcohol, often with the idea of loosening up nervous talent. If alcohol and guns are a bad combination, as every law enforcement agency and bar owner in Ohio agrees in the face of legislation allowing guns in establishments that serve alcohol, alcohol and porn can be downright devastating in the long term for performers.

7.) Allow porn performers to unionize so they can better protect their rights.

8.) Counsel newcomers to help them decide if getting into the industry is something they really should be doing. Most performers enter, do a few scenes, then leave, often failing to note that once a video is online or on DVD, it’s out there for years. All it takes is one prudish employer or set of coworkers, and it can result in the loss of one’s job. What’s more, porn performers can be targeted for harassment by entities such as Porn Wikileaks, which ruffled a lot of feathers earlier this year by divulging the personal information of performers. Given these and other concerns, it’s a good idea to make sure that people seeking to enter the adult film industry know exactly what they’re getting themselves into and if they shouldn’t find some other career path.

The eight suggestions listed above are not comprehensive, nor do they include all the reforms that the porn industry should implement. But they are a good step in the right direction that can help protect people from exploitation and, most importantly, protect lives.

Cross-posted from Progressive Independence.

The responses to my previous entry were, to put it mildly, energetic. It seems that the entrenchment of the desire to kill democracy by making it even easier for right-wing politicians currently dominating Congress to ram their agenda down all our throats runs very deep indeed, past the point of reason. And then there are others who, having wasted their time and energy on fantasies that have been shot down by Democrat Party leaders, are now content to go on the attack merely for the sake of being contrary.

But the most eye-opening comment came from powwow, who added an informed mini-post of his own that is worth adding to the debate. He also pointed to an entry of his from December that goes into the underlying problems facing the Senate. If I understand powwow’s argument correctly, the filibuster rule now being debated by the left and the pretend-left isn’t actually about the filibuster itself, but the cloture rule used to shut down debate. Here are three paragraphs excerpted from powwow’s comment in my last thread:

Also, overlooking how the daily business of the Senate floor is now routinely suspended by both Parties, without benefit of formal recess, by way of the quorum call in an empty Chamber that doesn’t call the quorum – a convenient, but insidious and abused practice that the Majority Leader alone can end at any time, except that it would reduce his power – misses how the Senate’s operations have been increasingly corrupted by Party-driven secrecy, without benefit of any rule changes, or even predetermined purpose. [A crucial fact: If there isn't a fake quorum call suspending the Senate's business (unless and until waived by unanimous consent, or by the Majority Leader giving the Clerk the sign to return to live quorum calls), only ongoing floor debate can prevent the Presiding Officer from putting the pending question, including pending amendments, to a simple-majority vote of the Senate.]

Underscoring Michael’s point that “Each and every [recent] argument made [by Democratic Senators] in favor of abolishing the [so-called] filibuster has been nothing short of total dishonesty” is the fact that no Democratic Senator can publicly admit that “filibuster” as they’re using the word actually means “cloture,” because the Democrats, as the current majority Party, are responsible for filing the record-breaking number of cloture motions in recent years, in the absence of debating filibusters. [Those of us not invested in shielding the Democratic Party from the consequences of its actions, on the other hand, should try to avoid employing such deceptive and confusing word play; we can say "cloture" when we mean "cloture," and "filibuster" when we mean that long-lost parliamentary tactic of physically-taxing floor debate (or some form of minority objection(s) to majority requests to waive regular order).]

If the significance of that last paragraph escapes anyone, it’s probably because they don’t realize (since the media apparently doesn’t know it, or won’t report it) that only the majority Party files optional cloture motions in the Senate (and yes, they have their unspoken reasons for doing so – avoiding public debate high among them). In turn, only cloture motions can impose a supermajority threshold (and debate-free delay) on the Senate, in place of its simple-majority regular order, for the passage of legislation or confirmation of nominees.

Powwow argues that as long as Democrats can get away with pulling the wool over people’s eyes, they will continue to shield themselves from serious criticism that they have abandoned their responsibility to their constituents, secure in their knowledge that we will never hold them accountable for their misdeeds. It’s the cloture motion, which powwow says was instituted in 1917 so as to avoid making senators actually extend debate (thereby preventing an up-or-down vote), which is at the heart of this debate. Since no real filibusters have taken place — Bernie Sanders’ much-hyped action on the Senate floor last month in the run-up to the vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for the super-wealthy was, contrary to what some over-enthusiastic supporters claimed, not a filibuster, though it was closer to one than the side show theater put on by Republicans since 2006 that is routinely coddled by Senate capitulation leader Harry Reid — the issue then becomes one of whether or not we want to allow senators to continue the practice of keeping from the public the nature of legislation that directly affects us all.

In powwow’s own words:

“parliamentary deliberation” or public debate in Congress, however “disorderly” or slow, is not some pointless form of “litigating,” or “relitigating” – as President Obama dismissively termed it early in November [President Barack Obama, in his news conference said, "I think we'd be misreading the election if we thought that the American people want to see us for the next two years relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years"] – but rather a core, indispensable function of the legislative body of a self-governing, democratic Republic. An indispensable function of democratic, good government that Obama, and other short-sighted, or self-serving, proponents of a presidency that’s both Chief Executive and Chief Backroom Legislator, evidently fail to appreciate or to publicly acknowledge.

Also, from powwow’s December post:

Meantime, desultory floor speeches – often amounting to little more than Party finger-pointing exercises (especially in the House) by members of the House and Senate, which frequently serve only to mark time while the backroom deal-making between Party leaders generates the product of Congress – have these days by and large supplanted the deliberative, democratic public debate for which the House and Senate Chambers, and the public committee rooms of Congress – the “sanctuaries” of the ideas and will of the representatives of the people of our self-governing nation – were designed and intended to be used.

Take that away, remove that deliberative debate, and you truly have tyranny in this country from a tiny minority of legislators acting on behalf of a tiny yet extremely powerful minority made up of large business interests. And that tyranny, shielded from all criticism by those who have warped the concept of democracy to maintain that the rights of the minority — even if that “minority” is half or most of the nation itself — don’t matter, is what is the true threat to democracy. It isn’t the Senate, and it isn’t the filibuster. The threat is, as I have written and as the founders wrote centuries before me, the heat-of-the-moment mentality that strips away essential liberties.

Think about this: If proponents of eliminating either the filibuster or the Senate had their way in the run-up to the Civil War, slavery would still be in existence today, for a chief reason for abolition’s failure in the halls of Congress at that time was political gridlock by a “majority” that refused to end the profit-making institution that kept an entire class of people in bondage and served as a tool for keeping poor White farmers from obtaining decent wages and working conditions, for even many members of the Whig Party opposed abolition, which is one of the reasons Abraham Lincoln and his fellow politicians broke away to form the pro-abolition Republican Party. But if today’s pretend-leftists (who are only left-wingers when it’s convenient for them to be) lived and had their way in the late 1850s, there never would have been a third party effort in the first place. Instead, they would have talked about primarying the leaders of the Whig Party while not actually doing anything to challenge its power structure, and failing to identify and nominate serious candidates. And the institution of slavery would not have ended because, well, because damn it the majority MUST have its way and those whiners in the “minority” can go screw their undemocratic selves!

Fortunately, today’s pretend-leftists do not have their way, and there is no serious effort on the part of Democrats to end a procedure that is not only Constitutional, but not even close to being the obstacle to progressive legislation pretenders claim it is. So it’s a moot point. What is not moot, however, is the nature of Washington politics that allows for shady back room deals to go on behind closed doors barred to the public. Without vigorous public debate, legislation destructive to the nation is passed without public scrutiny, and therefore without adequate public pressure on politicians to oppose it. “Leaders” treat us, the public, as though we are children and that they know better than we do what is best for us. It is precisely this sort of mentality that proponents of ending democracy insist on coddling. But look at the fruits of that coddling:

The USA PATRIOT Act,

The Military Commissions Act,

Revisions to FISA that let telecomm companies off the hook for helping the executive branch spy on us illegally,

Guantanamo Bay,

The wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and other Muslim countries,

The coups and attempted coups of South American governments,

The propping up of dictators friendly to our interests that leads to violent retaliation by subjugated peoples,

The passage of health insurance “reform” that was written by for for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, negotiated in secret with Obama and Democrat Party leaders, and never truly subjected to honest public debate, ultimately rammed down our throats via reconciliation and all of it during a drawn out kabuki show that put advocates of real reform in the kiddy corner.

The list of the consequences goes on and on. It is no coincidence, by the way, that those who oppose democracy might once have criticized laws such as the USA PATRIOT Act, yet by their own arguments now happily support its passage as it happened without the tedium of extended debate, which had it actually taken place might have led saner heads to block its passage. But let it not be said that anti-democracy zealots dwell on such “stupid things” as facts or objective interpretations of history.

I’m loathe to make a habit of using my entries to give lengthy responses to other peoples’ diaries, but this one by Jon Walker was so heinous that I feel it necessary to make the case (again) for why eliminating the Senate (or even the more short-term agenda of getting rid of the filibuster) is a horrendously bad idea. There are three chief reasons why arguments in favor of abolishing the filibuster or the Senate are both dishonest and frighteningly dangerous.

FIRST, the Constitution of the United States grants each chamber of Congress the right to write its own rules so as to be able to effectively carry out its legislative function. Section Five determines that “[e]ach House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” In keeping with the function of the Senate, the filibuster is eminently constitutional, being a rule designed so as to allow the Senate to fulfill its role of slowing down legislation for lengthier and more cautious consideration. Those who argue that the filibuster is unconstitutional are being deliberately dishonest, choosing in their moment-only thinking to ignore this fundamental part of the Constitution itself.

SECOND, those who argue that the filibuster, and indeed, the Senate itself, are an impediment to getting work done in Congress refuse to acknowledge (because it undermines their entire argument) that when the Republicans controlled the Senate during nearly the entirety of the first six years of the Bush-Cheney regime, they were able to pass their agenda without a filibuster-proof majority. If the filibuster is really an impediment to getting things done, then by all rights the GOP should never have been able to pass anything, since it never had enough votes in the Senate to overcome a Democrat-led filibuster. Yet it did just that on numerous occasions. The Bush tax cuts for the super-wealthy, for example, were passed via reconciliation, which allowed them to pass with a simple majority vote. In this manner the Republicans were able to get around the threat of a filibuster. It also helped that far too many Democrats were not willing to filibuster bad legislation when they had enough senators to mount one.

Yet obstacles that proved nonexistent when Republicans controlled the Senate are now insurmountable with the Democrats nominally in charge. Harry Reid, ever the accommodationist, long ago abdicated his responsibilities as majority leader in order to coddle the minority. By allowing the Republicans to phone in their filibuster threats, without ever making them show up to actually do it, he has allowed a lie to be promulgated: that the Democrats can’t pass legislation because of a procedural tactic he won’t even force the opposition to use, and which said opposition was able to overcome when it held the majority position even by one senate seat.

This applies equally to political appointments submitted by the executive branch. There was never a point during the first two years of the Obama regime when the executive was unable to use recess appointments in order to get political appointees into positions that needed to be filled. The Shrub did this on several occasions, most notably in appointing John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations. Whereas Bush was willing to go to great lengths to ram his agenda and appointees through Congress using and all too often abusing his executive powers, Obama now abuses the excuse that he cannot use those same powers to overcome filibusters. Yet absolutely nothing changed between the time Bush left office and the time Obama took office that changed those executive powers.

So the filibuster has not been the obstacle to legislative accomplishments Obama and the Democrats claim it is. That proponents of ending democracy, who once argued how bad an idea it was to eliminate the filibuster when the GOP wanted to do it, now embrace the notion wholeheartedly, and based on nothing more than the false rationale of convenience of the moment, is disturbing.

THIRD, the founders were quite wary mob rule, so much so that when the Constitution was drafted, a bicameral legislature was created so as to help guard against the kinds of abuses wherein the slimmest of majorities might impose its will upon the largest of minorities, in violation of the civil liberties of the public. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton wrote in his introduction to The Federalist Papers:

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

Hamilton was writing about secessionist movements driven by greed and ambition, but in truth, such a description can apply to virtually any political agenda driven by less-than-noble purposes, which that to eliminate the filibuster or even the Senate itself may be labeled. And James Madison wrote of the dangers inherent in allowing any one branch of government too much power when he wrote:

On the slightest view of the British Constitution, we must perceive that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are by no means totally separate and distinct from each other. The executive magistrate forms an integral part of the legislative authority. He alone has the prerogative of making treaties with foreign sovereigns, which, when made, have, under certain limitations, the force of legislative acts. All the members of the judiciary department are appointed by him, can be removed by him on the address of the two Houses of Parliament, and form, when he pleases to consult them, one of his constitutional councils. One branch of the legislative department forms also a great constitutional council to the executive chief, as, on another hand, it is the sole depositary of judicial power in cases of impeachment, and is invested with the supreme appellate jurisdiction in all other cases. The judges, again, are so far connected with the legislative department as often to attend and participate in its deliberations, though not admitted to a legislative vote.

If it is destructive to liberty for executive power to come to dominate the legislative and the judicial, how much more destructive is it for unchecked legislative power to be usurped by the slightest of majorities in a proportionately very small governing body such as ours, relative to its population? It was either Hamilton or Madison who wrote:

The third charge against the House of Representatives is, that it will be taken from that class of citizens which will have least sympathy with the mass of the people, and be most likely to aim at an ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.

The author went on to dismiss such concerns, but in Federalist #62, then defended those same concerns in making the case for a senate.

[I]t may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.

Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger. But as the larger States will always be able, by their power over the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of this prerogative of the lesser States, and as the faculty and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable, it is not impossible that this part of the Constitution may be more convenient in practice than it appears to many in contemplation.

So here we see that one of the more generous advantages to having a bicameral legislature is that one house of Congress may serve as a check upon the excesses of the other. In a unicameral legislature, what is there to prevent legislative excesses but the dubious whims of the majority, which by way of its superior numbers would be free to ignore the wishes of the public through the minority party? Once again, Federalist #62:

First. It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. In this point of view, a senate, as a second branch of the legislative assembly, distinct from, and dividing the power with, a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people, by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient. This is a precaution founded on such clear principles, and now so well understood in the United States, that it would be more than superfluous to enlarge on it. I will barely remark, that as the improbability of sinister combinations will be in proportion to the dissimilarity in the genius of the two bodies, it must be politic to distinguish them from each other by every circumstance which will consist with a due harmony in all proper measures, and with the genuine principles of republican government.

Secondly. The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions. Examples on this subject might be cited without number; and from proceedings within the United States, as well as from the history of other nations. But a position that will not be contradicted, need not be proved. All that need be remarked is, that a body which is to correct this infirmity ought itself to be free from it, and consequently ought to be less numerous. It ought, moreover, to possess great firmness, and consequently ought to hold its authority by a tenure of considerable duration.

Even Hamilton and Madison recognized the dangers inherent in a unicameral legislature — the heat and desires of the moment can and all too often does lead to legislative acts that usurp the power of the people to the benefit of those whose ambitions are diametrically opposed to the common good. See Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Spain, and other dictatorships of the 20th Century that sought to destroy democratic government through the use of arguments in favor of political expediency. A more recent argument, however, on the dangers of political expediency was written last October in the Lanka Gazette:

Although the two main parties continued to blame one another they often lured this Federal Party when it suited them politically, conceding to their rabid racial demands thereby strengthening and nurturing the separatist agenda.

Does that seem familiar to you? Granted, the Lanka Gazette op-ed deals with Sri Lanka’s propping up of what the writer calls a terrorist organization, blaming the machinations of the two major political parties in trying to one-up each other for the growth of a radicalized, racist minority. But here we can see parallels in American politics, for aren’t the extreme right-wing policies of the Republican Party and its counterparts in the Democrat Party the greatest source of terroristic acts against the people? Does the far right not pander to the basest fears and prejudices present in humankind in order to deceive and bully the public into acquiescence? And do you truly desire a legislative body dominated by these savages to have unfettered power to ram its plutocratic agenda down the throats of the public? If so, then go join the Republican Party, because you’re in no way progressive — you’re not even remotely liberal.

The bottom line is that for the sake of shortsighted and dubious political convenience, some alleged members of the left are willing to embrace a far right position, and their arguments for doing so are dishonest. Worse, if they get their way, they will have handed the far right yet another victory in its war against America.

Glenn Greenwald has written up yet another damning critique of Democrats’ dishonest attempts to claim public support for a public option while doing everything they can to kill it.

I’ll quote three paragraphs, the first ones, in Greenwald’s column. It’s revealing how the distraction and circus that is the furor over eliminating the filibuster provided cover for senators looking for any excuse they can muster to prevent real health care reform, and for Democratic partisans falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats: all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster: sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted. Democratic pundits used that claim to push for “filibuster reform,” arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents. In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation — where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required — but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal, insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.

But all those claims were put to the test — all those bluffs were called — once the White House decided that it had to use reconciliation to pass a final health care reform bill. That meant that any changes to the Senate bill (which had passed with 60 votes) — including the addition of the public option — would only require 50 votes, which Democrats assured progressives all year long that they had. Great news for the public option, right? Wrong. As soon as it actually became possible to pass it, the 50 votes magically vanished. Senate Democrats (and the White House) were willing to pretend they supported a public option only as long as it was impossible to pass it. Once reconciliation gave them the opportunity they claimed all year long they needed — a “majority rule” system — they began concocting ways to ensure that it lacked 50 votes.

All of that was bad enough, but now the scam is getting even more extreme, more transparent. Faced with the dilemma of how they could possibly justify their year-long claimed support for the public option only now to fail to enact it, more and more Democratic Senators were pressured into signing a letter supporting the enactment of the public option through reconciliation; that number is now above 40, and is rapidly approaching 50. In other words, there is a serious possibility that the Senate might enact a public option if there is a vote on it, because it’s very difficult for these Senators to vote “No” after pretending all year long — on the record — that they supported it. In fact, The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim yesterday wrote: “the votes appear to exist to include a public option. It’s only a matter of will.”

The questions that advocates of killing democracy ignore whenever asked are:

“What will Democrats do when the GOP returns to power and finds itself newly endowed with the ability to ram its legislation and appointees down our throats with a mere 51 votes?”

“How is it that the Republicans managed to pass a number of bills, including Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, got their nominees such as John Bolton around filibuster threats on political appointees using recess appointments, and do it without eliminating the filibuster?”

So clearly the problem isn’t the filibuster, and as Greenwald points out, it is merely one of countless excuses the Democrats make for actively preventing legislation that might actually help people. As Greenwald points out, “If only 50 votes were required, they’d just find ways to ensure they lacked 50.” And then the GOP, benefiting from no longer having to worry about filibusters when they return to power in the Senate and maintaining rigid party discipline at most times, will finally have what it has always wanted: unfettered ability to force its extreme right-wing agenda down all our throats. The shortsightedness and inherent dishonesty in the eliminate-the-filibuster crowd’s pathetic arguments simply do not hold water, and they know it. The most they can do in response to effective arguments against killing democracy are to ignore these counter arguments completely, hoping they’ll go away, or stoop to insult and ridicule.

That’s not the way to get anything done, and it doesn’t accomplish anything except to make it even easier for the supposed opposition while alienating supposed allies on the left.

According to an article in the New York Times, the Vermont state senate has voted to shut down a nuclear plant with a history of safetey problems.

In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block a license extension for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.

Actually, no, they were not simply “misstatements” by company stooges; they were outright lies, as reported in Times Argus. But the act itself, sickeningly rare in an era of deregulation, in which government officials who are supposed to be protecting the public interests instead serve the private interests they’re charged with regulating, is noteworthy.

The vote came barely over a week after President Obama declared a new era of rebirth for the nation’s nuclear industry, announcing federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to assure the construction of a twin-reactor plant near Augusta, Ga.

Obama, ever the shill for corporate interests, made the same mistake on nuclear energy policy that he made on health care: people are distrustful of private enterprises’ willingness to regulate themselves and they do not want their tax dollars going to pay for dubious and often dangerous business schemes.

The Times article reveals that a vote of both houses of the Vermont legislature are required to keep the Vermont Yankee plant open past March 2012. Whether the state senate remains committed to blocking an extension of operations remains to be seen, but this move should be counted as a victory for concerned citizens. Where nuclear radiation is involved, public safety must always trump profits.