Comment Thread of the Week

At The Blogging of the President, liberal activists discuss how "to get rid of all the dorks in Young Democrats."

Comments

[E-Rock]

So being a Democrat isn't cool, and they're pissed that these YDs won't stop reminding people that they represent the Democrats?

Good lord, no wonder they can't mount a successful campaign for anything.

[Neb Okla]

The fun starts when you give these kids bullhorns.

The ensuing shouting matches in the days before the election boiled down to "You're ugly! - No YOU're UGLY!!!"

I decided to chat with a few about actual issues. The responeses were genereally along the lines of "We haven't been told what to think about that..." and other drivel.

As a college student, it cemented my decision to vote for neither.

Of course, when I was engaging some of my fellow students on their way to a Kerry rally, a guy started hanging around and summarizing Badnarik's "a vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil" quote by screaming at people "VOTE LIBERTARIAN! IT'S NOT EVIL!!!"

Everyone has their dorks I guess.

[Lewis]

These dorks are just one component of the democrats. The repubs have just as many, if not more, and tend to be more patsy in nature. The failure of the democrats lies at the top, not at the bottom. Kerry was a great hack with a message of "I'm not him." I was looking more for a message of, "this is what I can do and will do." The old democratic guard is now the patsies getting whipped by the GOP movers and shakers. If they can grow a back bone and a productive agenda, they can grow more votes.

[Jawbreaker]

ROTFLMAO...

"The Progressive Philosophy - I really don't know what it was, I thought it was that dems were these great technocrats."

[Rachel]

Oh, man. So, I used to be a Democrat. I used to be a Young Democrat. I was an officer in my high school club. A leader among Young Democrats. Then I saw the light and all that, and now I consider myself a libertarian.

So here's my question: Was I a dork because I was a Young Democrat, and now I'm suddenly no longer a dork? (Nevermind that my new affiliation brands me a freak) Or, more likely, did I become a Young Democrat because I was a dork, and then just realized that my dorkdom was better suited for classical liberalism?

(Makes welcoming converts from the left a little bittersweet, doesn't it? "Great... another dork.")

[dlc]

Modern young democrats hear the ghost of JFK say "Ask not what your country can do for you..." and respond by forming multiple infighting factions of composed of the exact same type of people with the same stale ideas, argue about "top down and bottom up" strategies, organize hip-hop voter drives, and use phrases like "Generation Dean."

Does anyone doubt JFK, LBJ, or any of the old D's would absolutely fucking kill these jokers if they were alive today?

[Curtis]

I'm uncertain what these "liberal activists" are actually advocating. Maybe they oughta tell somebody.

[Ken Shultz]

I have to confess that I don't know anything about Young Democrats. Are they something like the Jaycees?

...'cause the Jaycees are definitely dorks.

[spur]

from the lead of an AP article:

"The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20041210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_ukraine_election_2

$65 isn't chump change, even in American politics.

from jesse's article:

For another, the U.S. government is hardly the only institution that has aided the uprisings. (When Otpor was fighting Milosevic, it posted all its donors on its website, in real time, to demonstrate the international breadth of its support. The diverse list undermined the claim that it was a tool of a foreign power.)

from the AP:

No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations like the Carnegie Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.

But officials acknowledge some of the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate ? people who now call themselves part of the Orange revolution.

For example, one group that got grants through U.S.-funded foundations is the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, whose Web site has a link to Yushchenko's home page under the heading "partners." Another project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development brought a Center for Political and Legal Reforms official to Washington last year for a three-week training session on political advocacy.

So yeah, they don't get a check directly from Uncle Sam.

How many people could the anti-war movement get out on the street for $65 million? In areas that are dark blue around the country, easily millions and millions.

Why did the Ukranians in Kiev stay in the streets so long under freezing conditions? The opposition already had the resources and logisitics in place to start feeding, heating, healing, housing, entertaining hundreds of thousands of protestors, this takes a lot of work and money -- this was a pre-arranged 'revolution'. The so-called establishment, russian facing forces looked like amateurs even though they certainly represent the views of millions and millions of ukrainians Sure, I prefer what we have done in Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia to what we have done in Iraq -- but the idea that the US only played a tiny role is ridiculous.

[Jesse Walker]

I'm not sure why you're posting that in this thread, Spur, but I said in the discussion that followed the story that the U.S. funnelled in money via NGOs. I'd love to see a full accounting of what money went to what people for what activities (as well as a comparable accounting for the far greater intervention by the Russians). I think you'd see a lot more cash going to exit polls than to maintaining tent cities. Unless you can show that people were being bribed to join the encampments, to refuse government orders, etc., you're not going to demonstrate that the revolution wasn't a popular uprising -- just that the U.S. had a stake in its success, something we knew already.

The U.S. gave a lot of money to Solidarity, too. That doesn't mean it created Solidarity, that it sustained Solidarity, or that it was ultimately responsible for the Polish revolution of 1989.

[deron]

Rachel,

They're all dorks. This thread is focusing on young democrats, but I think it'd be difficult to find a young republican who's on the cutting edge of "cool". Young politicos seem to be the kids who never reached band-fag level of coolness.

Full disclosure, I'm not cool, but I've never confused about that either. RepubiCrats young and old can bite me.

[Prefect DaGara]

I don't think it's an unfair statement to say that anyone who's ever volunteered for, studied the platform of, or indeed voted for any political party gets at least 10 points added to their dork evaluation. The difference is of course these people already had quite a few points to begin with.

And Rachel, you weren't a dork, until you copped to being a former YD in front of God and all these fine people. Nobody cool would ever own up to that;)

[norbert]

There is a nice article on how much US funneled into Ukraine election!

Check out
Ukrainian Toronto.com Has the latest news in English about this topic.