THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, VII: ‘THE TEN COMMITMENTS’

Column No. 86 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 25, 2005

I have devoted the first six columns of this series to historical and analytical matters.  I have dealt with certain major characteristics of the primary opponent of US Constitutional Democracy as we have known it, the Republican Party and its current incarnations that I call the Republican Religious Right and the Georgites.  I have also dealt with the primary opponent of progressive Democratic thinking within our Party, the Democratic Leadership Council.  In my view, and the view of numerous other observers of and commentators on the political scene, it is essential that a new, consistent, Party-wide progressive purpose, philosophy, and program be developed for the Party, for two primary reasons.

First, unless the Republicans field extraordinarily weak candidates as they did in the 1992 and 1996 elections, with DLC, “Republican-lite-with-nice-rhetoric” policies and programs combined with the Republican ability to fix elections  (an issue the DLC absolutely does not take on) they will be very difficult to dislodge electorally.  Second, winning an election must mean something significant and different in terms of what will be done with governmental power and authority once it is taken back.  “Republican-lite” policies and programs might look better on paper and they might sound better from what we have now, but as far as making real change from the country’s present course, they are likely to change little, just because they are in their essence Republican. There is still much ground to cover in the arena of political and historical analysis.  But this week I am turning my attention to certain matters of practical politics.  I present some ideas on what I think the Democratic Party needs to do for 2006 and 2008, not only to win the elections but also to make them worth winning.

In the past several months there have been a number of proposals for a new basic program for the Democratic Party. Among them are Stephen Pizzo’s “10 Pledges to Demand from Democrats” (available through AlterNet) and “A ‘Real’ Contract with America” that Bob Borosage, Co-Director of the Campaign for America’s Future (http://www.ourfuture.org/) published in The Nation on Oct. 24, 2005. Inspired by the form, not the content to be sure, of Newton Gingrich’s famous 1994 “Contract on America” (oops, sorry, it was actually entitled the Contract With America) with which I will deal in some detail next week, they have often been put forward in a group of ten.  I have come up with my own list of ten as a proposal for what I think the Democratic Party should go into the 2006 and then the 2008 elections with.

You will see that these are all about matters of political and governmental principles and over-all policies.  They are not specific programs or proposed pieces of legislation.  This is not because I do not think such new programs as national health insurance, supporting the preservation and restoration of the environment at all levels, real Federal support for education at all levels, and so on and so forth, are not important.  I surely do.  But since the time of the John and Robert Kennedy, time and again the Democratic Party has put forward Christmas-tree ornament wish-lists of specific legislative proposals as their platform and Platform.  Principles, broad brush-strokes of what government should and should not be doing, what indeed government is for, for the society in general, not in the first instance in the specifics, have been for the most part absent.  Strangely enough, Edward Kennedy, as great and important for progressive Democracy as he is, is one of the worst offenders in this regard.

My primary list for the most part eschews specific legislative proposals.  Rather, for the most part it looks at principles.  With apologies to the wonderful Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun for the title of my list (http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/ten_commitments), I put forward my proposed Draft “Ten Commitments.”

Henceforth, the Democratic Party will be committed to:

I.  A full, planned withdrawal from all military activity in Iraq, including the construction and maintenance of bases, by a date certain, accompanied by a reactivation of the Israel/Palestine peace process along the lines of the proposed Geneva Accords, further accompanied by a return to the multi-lateral foreign policy that worked so well for our country from the time we entered the Second World War until the advent of Georgitism, and a return to abiding by the UN Charter, which forbids “pre-emptive war” of the Georgite type.  (A specific plan for achieving that withdrawal can be found in my column of Sept. 1, 2005.)

II. Making the protection and promotion of Constitutional Democracy, in accordance with the plain language of the Constitution including the Preamble, the center of the Party’s approach to governing.  A return to the Constitutional System of checks and balances and the requirement that the President fully abide by the Constitution is essential.

The Preamble to the Constitution states: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

III. A vision of government that is defined by the Preamble, which understands that big problems require big solutions, that when necessary for the common economic good, government needs to be big, that the Norquist Doctrine of Bathtub Government needs to be flushed down the toilet.  On the other hand, in accord with the prescriptions of the Constitution, when it comes to matters of personal such matters as belief as to when life begins, freedom of expression, and adult personal behavior, government needs to be small.  This is the exact opposite of the Republican, anti-Constitutional view, which wants government to be overwhelmingly big when it comes to such matters of personal belief, rights, liberties, and freedom, and overwhelmingly small when dealing with the economy.

IV. A return to totally free and fair elections, and a full-scale assault on the Republican strategy of Grand Theft Elections.  (See: the recent GAO analysis, the Report of the Carter-Baker election reform commission and Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, Fooled Again.)

V. A Pledge of honesty, integrity, openness, and a return to the traditional arms-length relationship between government and the private sector for all elected and politically-appointed government officials.  A specific pledge to which all Democratic candidates for elected office and Democratic nominees for political appointments will be asked to subscribe will be developed.

VI. The broad and forward projection of the most important Values that define a civil society: pluralism in matters of religion in accordance with the First Amendment; tolerance of difference; the promotion of compassion and sharing the burden, leaving behind the Doctrine of Every Man for Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost; the full promotion of human rights at home and abroad; the understanding that healthy sex is healthy and unhealthy sex is not and that for adults sex is a private matter; and the end to the promotion of the criminalization of personal belief in matters of morality and adult sexual identity and behavior.

VII. A taxation policy designed to support Commitment III, with the sharing of the burden in accordance with ability to pay.

VIII. Regulation of the market for goods and services designed to insure that it is both free and fair.

IX. The development of an Energy Policy that will deal with the potentially disastrous and very real problem of global warming, as well as ensuring that ample energy will be available to support modern human life after the petroleum runs out.

X. The establishment of nomination and hiring standards for political appointees designed to ensure competence in government.  A specific list of standards will be developed.

We shall return to the list, of course.  Rather different from that of the DLC for the most part, no?  (Note that the full, free, and fair entry of military recruiters to college campuses, one of the DLC-touted ‘wedge issues,” is not on my list.)  This is a list, I think, that arises from a reality-check on what is important now in the history of our nation and what is not.  It is a list that envisions an all-out assault on the major harms being done to our nation, our Constitution and the world at large by the Georgites, with a positive perspective.  It is a list that can easily be used to mobilize our base, educate the people as to what is really happening under the Georgites, and bring masses of new voters into play.

Next week I shall take a look in some detail about the fraud that was Gingrich’s Contract on America (he never does talk about the details) and then I shall begin looking at some specific strategic and tactical steps that can be taken to start pointing the Democratic Party in the direction it needs to go if the Georgite Juggernaut (yes, I do like that one) is to be derailed.

THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, VI: AN ORGANIZING PROPOSAL FOR PROGRESSIVES

Column No. 85 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 17, 2005

For the better part of the past two months I have been running a series of columns on what I and many other progressive Democrats see as the major issues facing our Party, and also see as issues that our Party should be facing but for the most part has not yet faced. (In recent weeks, this situation has begun to change for the better, it should be noted.) There are several reasons why these issues must be dealt with.  First, there is the matter of the role of government in promoting an ensuring a positive present and future life for all Americans.  Second, is the matter of the role of the US government in affecting the lives of people all around the world.  Third, there is the matter of being able to win elections here, so as to be able to achieve positive outcomes both for the people of our nation and of the world at large.  Fourth, related to all of the above, is what the posture of the Democratic Party should be in relation to this range of issues.

In a column published on October 17, 2005  entitled “Get It Together, Democrats” Bob Herbert of The New York Times said:

“What the Democrats have to do is get off their schadenfreude cloud and start the hard work of crafting a message of hope that they can deliver convincingly to the electorate - not just in the Congressional elections next year, but in local elections all over the country and the presidential election of 2008.  That is not happening at the moment. While Americans are turning increasingly against the war in Iraq, for example, the support for the war among major Democratic leaders seems nearly as staunch and as mindless as among Republicans. On that and other issues, Democrats are still agonizing over whether to say what they truly believe or try to present themselves as a somewhat lighter version of the G.O.P.  I wonder what Harry Truman would think about today's Democratic Party?”

Harry Truman, a Democrat who at least up until the time of Joe McCarthy  knew that a) there were real differences between Republicans and Democrats, b) knew what they were, and c) knew how to fight for what Democrats who know the difference believe in, indeed.

I think that it is clear from our writings in TPJ that Steve Gheen, our Editor/Publisher, Michael Carmichael our European Editor and I know the differences.  We know that these differences are not of degree, but of kind. We also know that the leadership of the Democratic Leadership Council, the principal group representing the right-wing of the Democratic Party, believes that what differences there are, are for the most part of degree, not kind.  Therefore, although the DLC professes that they would like to have the party win elections, they think that the way to do this is just to say to the electorate: “if we get in, we’ll just do ‘it’ differently, but really our ‘it’ doesn’t really differ from their ‘it’ that much at all.”

There are numerous Democratic Party organizations that agree with the positions taken in TPJ, perhaps not in every detail, but certainly on the principles.  Among them are for example in a non-exclusive, incomplete list: Progressive Democrats of America (http://www.pdamerica.org/), Democracy for America (formerly Dean for America, http://www.democracyforamerica.com/), The Campaign for America’s Future (http://www.ourfuture.org/), 21st Century Democrats (http://www.21stcenturydems.org/), Moveon.org (www.moveon.org), and Democrats.com (http://democrats.com/).

These groups have in common a number of important features.  They develop and articulate policies.  To a greater or lesser extent they engage in both on-the-ground and internet-based organizing work and small-donation fund-raising.  They may become involved in particular election campaigns.  They generally oppose the direction followed by the DLC.  They believe that a Democratic Party re-oriented in the progressive direction can: a) win elections and b) equally as important, once in power, lead the nation away from the disasters in which the Georgites and the Republican Religious Right have already plunged us and worse disasters to come, and towards a bright, Constitutionally-based future that will benefit all Americans.  (See III and last week’s column in this series, and especially next week’s column for more detail on what in my view the “progressive direction” is.)

This column is devoted to organizational issues for achieving these ends.  Within our Party there is this impressive list of organizations, and others not named as well, that are pointed in what we consider to be the right direction.  Could not one or more of them by itself simply do the job?  I think not.  I think not because the Party has been lead rightward over the last 30 years by an organization, the DLC, which does not look anything like any of the above-named organizations.  Organizationally, the DLC has three defining features: it focuses on policy-development and making, not on organizing at the grass-roots level and not, directly, on elections (although it indirectly supports its candidates at the national level and for important state posts).  Second, it has the adherence of a number of major elected officials at the top levels of government who generally agree to follow its policy and program recommendations.  Third, it is a major behind-the-scenes fund-raiser for the Party from major donors that support its policies.

I believe that if the Democratic Party is to be lead back towards its progressive roots of the first two-thirds of the 20th century, what is needed is a counter-weight to the DLC that happens to look very like it in terms of its organization, role, and function.  I propose as a working name the “Council of Progressive Democrats (CPD).”  To establish it and get it up and running would require a good deal of money.  If this were to happen, it is obvious that one or more wealthy progressive democrats (and there are more than one of them out there) would have to provide a significant amount of seed money.  But the key point here is that what is to be formed is not simply another organization like those already in the field, but rather a DLC-type organization, with a radically different agenda.

I propose organizing that agenda around a phrase borrowed from Rabbi Michael Lerner of the Jewish national organization Tikkun: the Ten Commitments.  I will be detailing my list (you have seen its major elements already) in next week’s column.  All of the existing progressive Democratic organizations would be asked to affiliate, of course.  Key would be the adherence to the agenda of as many elected officials as possible, from the national (like the DLC) down to the local level (differing from the DLC in this regard).  Once the Council of Progressive Democrats were to be formed (and the sooner the better) I would propose the convening of a national convention, not of the Democratic Party as a whole yet, but of those organizations and elected officials ready to make the commitment to progressive change for the party.  I have in mind something along the lines of a very exciting convention that I attended in 1967 as the representative of the New York Medical Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the National Conference for New Politics.  That particular effort was not well-organized and nothing much came of it directly, although it did give a major boost to both the anti-war and the civil rights movements.

To be successful in this endeavor, egos will have to be checked at the door.  It will have to be clear that the new organization will deal with policy development and proposals for implementation only, leaving the direct action area to the many fine progressive Democratic organizations already on the field of play.  However, it would not be simply a think tank.  It would as well focus on the policy of politics and politics itself: how to win with progressive thought; and why the DLC must be opposed within the Party and eventually replaced in the leadership position by the CPD, for the good of the Party, our nation, and the world.

Next week, I will begin dealing in more detail with what a “progressive” Democratic Party would look like, based on my own past work as well as that of the many progressive organizations and individuals concerned with the same issues.

THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, V: THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND

Column No. 84 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 10, 2005

After last week’s excursion into a little pre-indictment indictment-analysis, in this week’s column I am returning to a consideration of how the Democratic Party needs to be transformed if it is to become a true opposition and governing alternative to the Georgite juggernaut.

It should be noted that while many outside observers presently see the Georgites as politically wounded, on issues ranging from Iraq to Katrina to the Libby indictment to the crimes-and-corruption scandals involving both Administration and Congressional Republicans, to the continuing low poll numbers, Bush doesn’t see that picture at all.  He sees that he sits in the White House and will do so for more than three more years.  He sees his party in power in the Congress with at least a 50/50 chance of keeping power following the 2006 elections, if for no other reason than that the Democrats are so weak, politically.  He sees his party, that of the  Republican Religious Right, fully taking over the Supreme Court through the Alito nomination – unless  the Democrats are able uncharacteristically to find some strength and mount a successful filibuster.  And so George II proceeds with governing the only way he knows how: by following the dictates of the middle-finger school of political science.

How to act against this is the big question we all keep asking ourselves, as the Democratic Party has done for years, and as outside observers have done for years.  I have examined repeatedly the Collaborationist-DLC approach to the problem (see TPJ , “Future of the Democratic Party III,“ for my take on Carville’s latest).  Another recent DLC version of “what to do” comes from Rahm Emmanuel, a former Clinton White House operative now in Congress from Chicago and head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  According to the November 2005 issue of The American Prospect (p. 14) Emmanuel, aided by a variety of top Congressional Democrats from both Houses, have come up with this agenda for “going to the people with a unified program for 2006:” making college universal in the 21st century, getting the federal budget under control, achieving energy independence, creating a new national institute for science and technology, and providing health care to all working Americans.

Now that’s a winner, isn’t it?  Really exciting, no?  A total turn-on for the voters, don’t you think?  Goes for the Georgite weaknesses?  Takes what the Georgites are giving us and turns it on them?  Really addresses the major harms being done to our nation, our Constitution, and the world at large by the Georgites?  I wonder.  Nothing on Iraq.  Although something on energy policy, nothing on global warming.  Nothing on the fundamentalist attack on science.  Nothing on the “Bathtub Theory of Government” and the “Reverse Robin Hood Theory of Taxation.”  Nothing on Grand Theft Elections.  Nothing on the attack on the right to freedom of belief as to when life begins as well as the attack on a woman’s right to choose.  And so on and so forth.

I am sure that that Collaborationist-DLCers do not for a moment see themselves as collaborators, enablers, and enhancers.  I am sure that they truly believe that there is some “middle-ground” on many key policy issues and that a large group of “middle-ground” voters can be won over by some “middle-ground” program.  As we proceed to examine where the Democratic Party must be going, and soon, if Constitutional Democracy is to be preserved, let’s briefly take a look at this “middle-ground” theory, on the major issues.

Is there a “middle ground” on Iraq?  No.  It’s either “get out” or “stay the course.”  Each of those needs to be defined further by their advocates.  What “Course” is being talked about, at what cost in lives and materiel, for what end?  “Getting out” can be done in a variety of ways; my specific proposal appears in TPJ, “An Iraq Solution”.  But on overall policy the two are mutually exclusive.  There is no “middle ground” on global warming.  One either accepts the evidence or one doesn’t.  If one accepts the evidence, there is certainly much worthy debate on how to go about dealing with the problem, but the evidence-deniers are not part of that discussion.  “Intelligent Design” either is science or it is isn’t.  No middle ground there.  One either believes that human life begins at the moment of conception or that it begins sometime later. If one believes in the former one then also believes that the latter belief should be criminalized.  No middle ground there either. For a summary of my position on the whole “values” question, see TPJ, “Bill Frist’s Declaration of War”.

Now the DLC-ers apparently deny this reality.  They thus tell us that the only way for Democrats to win is to trim our issues-sails and go after that large pool of “middle-ground,”  “moderate,” voters projected to be out there.  They tell us that the reason that Democrats lose is that we have been “too liberal” (see the analysis of the Carville position in TPJ , “Future of the Democratic Party III,”).  Several problems here.  As discussed at some length in the latter column, there is simply no evidence that the Democrats have been running radical or even “very liberal” candidates in national or even state-wide races, who have then lost.  Do they mean Tom Daschle?  As to the House, a significant chunk of the RRR majority there is the result of the unconstitutional Delaymandering in Texas (not challenged by the DLC, to my knowledge).  As to the pool of “middle-ground” voters, there is no evidence that it is either very large or that it would be won over to the Democrats by running on Emmanuel-type platform. Current evidence that this is so?  Current Bush approval ratings and poll numbers on the Iraq War (see Steve Gheen’s excellent analyses of same in recent issues of TPJ).

Third, and I dealt with this one over and over again in the run-up to the 2004 election, there is a rich vein of potential Democratic voters to be found by the huge number of elgibles who just don’t vote because they see no reason to do so, for they do not see their issues being addressed.  How do we know the latter is true?  First, see a book entitled The Vanishing Voter, by Thomas E. Patterson.  Second, if it weren’t, why would the Republicans spend so much time, effort, and money trying to keep the voting totals as low as possible, especially in non-white, other poor, and youth-dominated areas of the country? Third, some proportion of them (not enough, but some) were mobilized by the efforts of Move On, etc. Finally on this point about “going after the middle ground,” the DLC makes the assumption that the Democratic Party should not place the real issues facing the country before the voters because people cannot grow, change, be educated.  Now that’s creative, isn’t it?

Three columns ago I set forth the following as the Big Four, top-tier of problems facing our country now:

I.                     Achieving an end to the US War on Iraq, with a return to the multi-lateral foreign policy that worked so well for our country from the time we entered the Second World War until the advent of Georgitism, and a return to abiding by the UN Charter, which forbids “pre-emptive war” of the Georgite type.  A specific plan for achieving that withdrawal can be found in my column of Sept. 1, 2005.

II.                   Making the protection and promotion of Constitutional Democracy, in accordance with the Preamble to the Constitution, the center of the Democratic Party’s approach to governing.  A return to the System of Checks and Balances and the requirement that the President abide by the Constitution is essential

III.                  A vision of government that understands that big problems require big solutions, that when necessary for the common economic good, government needs to be big, that the Norquist Doctrine of Bathtub Government needs to be flushed down the toilet.  On the other hand, when it comes to matters of personal belief in such matters as when life begins, expression, and adult behavior, government needs to be small.  This is the exact opposite of the Republican view, which wants government to be overwhelmingly big when it comes to such matters and overwhelmingly small when dealing with the economy.

IV.                A return to totally free elections, and a full-scale assault on the Republican practice of Grand Theft Elections.  The recent GAO analysis of ballot corruption (to view the full report: http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20051021122225-53143.pdf.) and the Report of the Carter-Baker election reform commission, http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/a/203832.htm, are good places to start.  See also Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, Fooled Again.

The DLC wants to have nothing to do with any of the above.  Let me add to that list now the “second-tier,” key issues with no descriptions (most of which the DLC also wants no truck with):

A.                  Managing the economy.

B.                  Taxation policy.

C.                  Export of jobs.

D.                 Corruption.

E.                  Competence.

F.                  Energy policy and global warming.

We shall return to them, of course.  A rather different list from that of the DLC, no?  A list that arises from a reality-check.  A list that envisions an all-out assault, as I noted at the outset, on the major harms (in the plural) being done to our nation, our Constitution and the world at large by the Georgites. A list that can easily be used to mobilize our base, educate the people as to what is really happening under the Georgites, and bring masses of new voters into play. Next week shall begin looking at what specific steps can be taken to start pointing the Democratic Party in the direction it needs to go if the Georgite Juggernaut (yes, I do like that one) is to be derailed.

ON THE (POSSIBLE) INDICTMENTS

Column No. 83 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 3, 2005

As I finish the writing this column on Oct. 25, “the indictments” (if any) have yet to come down.  Rumors swirl, from “Fitzgerald is going only with perjury/conspiracy indictments” to “Fitzgerald is going to issue indictments on such matters are the forging of the Niger-Saddam/yellowcake documents” to “Fitzgerald will go after Cheney.”  At this time, I will believe that there are indictments when I see them.  Nevertheless, I am taking a week off from my series on the future of the Democratic Party.  I am offering instead a few thoughts about the events and the people who are involved in what may be anything from the greatest scandal and political earthquake in the history of our country to a relative tempest in a teapot that the Rove Spin/Smear Machine at the service of the Republican Religious Right will handle with ease.  If it turns out to be the latter, please do be prepared for the deluge of gloating that will pour from O’Rhannibaugh and the rest of the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda for more months than you want to think about.

First, in his absolutely brilliant column of October 23, 2005, in the New York Times (“Karl and Scooter’s Excellent Adventure”), Frank Rich laid out the time-line of the Georgite plot-for-war.  At the outset and then at the end of the column, he asks the question “why?”  The poignant cartoon that accompanied the column asked the same question.  Mr. Rich hazards a few guesses, as have many other commentators.  However, there is an authoritative answer.  It was provided by one of the principal war-plotters before the Selection of George W. Bush.  Just listen to what Richard Perle had to say on the subject, in his chapter “Iraq: Saddam Unbound” that was published in Present Dangers (Encounter Books, 2000) from the Project for the New American Century, edited by Robert Kagan and William Kristol, (original date, June, 1997).  (The other authors in the book, from Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams on up [or down, depending upon your point of view] form a neocon all-star team.)

“Saddam Hussein threatens American interests in the [Persian] Gulf to a degree that cannot be over come by diplomatic accommodation. . . .  [A]n Iraq without Saddam would best serve our interests. . . . If the next administration is to protect America’s interests in the Gulf . . . it must formulate a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam . . .  Accordingly, the United States should move to recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the [Ahmad Chalabi’s] Iraq National Congress. . . .”

This is why Bush was totally focused on removing Saddam from Day I of his Presidency, as both Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill, who both experienced that focus up close and personal, have both told us.  It was all about those “American interests in the Gulf.”  Just wonder what black viscous substance might be at the center of those “interests.”

As for Perle himself, not much to be seen these days, Maureen Dowd did refer to him in her demolition column on Judith Miller that appeared in the Times one day before Mr. Rich’s (“Woman of Mass Destruction”).  Dowd wrote: “Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq . . .”  I wrote to a friend: “to be totally accurate, one might speculate that that sentence should have read: ‘She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was feeding back to the neocons the stories that Richard Perle had instructed Chalabi to tell back to Perle himself and his fellow neocons, to knock out Saddam so they could get their hands on Iraq . . .’ ” and, one might add, large supplies of that black, viscous substance.

As for Miller, even before the at-first-within-the-Times and then most-public (viz. Dowd’s column) contretemps over how she conducted herself as a Times reporter, when she went to jail for 85 days, supposedly over a freedom of the press issue, I was wondering what the real matter was.  Libby had given her permission to reveal his name as a source for the Valerie Plame identity leak a year before.  And she was protecting him as source of that information?  Didn’t make sense.  What did make sense to me, given the prominent role that Miller played as a Times reporter in the run-up to the War, and the role she tried to play afterwards in showing that there were WMD in Iraq when indeed there were none, was this: my speculation that Miller herself was an integral part of a criminal conspiracy to get the country into a war based on lies.

If my speculation was correct, 85 days in the slammer made sense.  It wasn’t that she was protecting Libby on the Plame-identity leak matter.  She was waiting, and communicating with him (by back channels, not through her public attorney Floyd Abrams), rather, in an attempt to get their stories straight on a much larger matter (I speculated): how they all conspired to lie our nation into the Iraq War.  After all, it is possible that a Presidency is at stake here, along with the career of George W. Bush.  Speculation?  Absolutely.  Maybe by the time this column sees the light of print we will know more.

Speaking of bringing presidencies down, as a final subject let’s look at some of the differences and similarities between what started out as “Plamegate” and the Grand Gate that initiated the whole contemporary vocabulary for political scandal.  Watergate was indeed a “third-rate burglary,” as Nixon himself described it.  Like PlameGate it was plotted in the White House.  Like Plamegate, it was immoral, unethical, and illegal.  Like Watergate, in the grand scheme of things for their respective Presidencies’ political survival, if the deeds had not been done, both were entirely unnecessary.  Watergate was about trying to find out information about the Democratic Party that Nixon didn’t need for his re-election.  PlameGate was about taking revenge on someone who told the truth about the Georgite War. Yet if PlameGate hadn’t occurred, who would now be talking about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame-Wilson?  If in the end PlameGate brings down the current Presidency, the two events will be similar in that regard too.

Not every feature is similar, though.  The Watergate burglary itself hurt no-one.  The Valerie Plame outing has had and will continue to have, in and of itself, many negative consequences.  A life-long career in the service of US national security was ended.  Plame’s life as well as the lives of every person with whom she ever had contact in her undercover CIA role has been put at risk, for the rest of their lives.  A very important set of assets for the US in the fight against illegal/ criminal nuclear proliferation has been destroyed.  But the much larger plot, of which the Plame outing was a minor part, had much more serious consequences.  Comparing the war that in part engendered Watergate with the war-then-to-be that engendered PlameGate is instructive.

The infra-structure of Iraq has been virtually destroyed, as was the infrastructure of Vietnam.  The lives of many American service people were lost in both.  Many, many more civilians living in the country invaded by the US have been killed. The US has been immersed in a military quagmire halfway around the world.  The diplomatic disaster created for our country by the policy is even worse in the case of Iraq than it was in the case of Vietnam.  Watergate brought down a President.  PlameGate may just possibly do the same.

If the third-rate burglary had not occurred, Nixon likely would have finished his term in triumph, and then who knows what history would have looked like.  If Libby and Rove had just let Joe Wilson be and not gone after his wife in a case of school-yard revenge, the Iraq disaster would have been the same, to date least. But at this juncture, if indeed there are indictments, they could eventually bring down another Republican Presidency.  Nixon’s “gotta get some dirt” thing.  Rove and Libby’s (and Cheney’s?), “gotta extract revenge” thing.  Indeed, minor events, accidents of history if you will, that did, and could, lead to monumental events – just as have other accidents of history..

On the morning of June 18, 1815, one of the most famous generals in history woke up with diarrhea.  What happened later that day ended his career and would, six years later, lead to the end of his life.  Supposing Napoleon Bonaparte had not had tummy trouble that morning? Who knows what might have happened.  An accident of history.  On June 5, 1944, another one of history’s most famous generals left his assigned post, at which nothing much appeared to be happening, to be with his wife for her birthday.  If Erwin Rommel had been on the scene on Hitler’s Atlantic Wall on June 6, 1944, it might well have been the case that on that evening yet another of the most famous generals of history, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would have given the second of the two speeches that he had prepared in advance for delivery on that fateful day. Ike had prepared the ‘other one’ just in case, to announce the failure of the Normandy invasion under withering and totally well-organized German firepower, rather than its success.  An accident of history.

So we have a hissy fit leading to a revenge plot that to the plotters (maybe ignorant of the law concerning the revealing of the identities of CIA operatives and obviously unaware of the feelings of the father of the current titular President of the United States on that particular matter) seemed like an appropriate game to play.  An accident of history.  History, during the coming days, will now tell us what the consequences of this current “accident” might be.

The Future of the Democratic Party, IV: Bush, Bennett, Miers, and the DLC

Column No. 82 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH -  October 27, 2005

In this week’s column I return to a consideration of specific political issues that I believe are central to the development of the Democratic Party as a true opposition and governing alternative to the Georgite juggernaut.   Bush and Iraq.  The Miers nomination.  Bennett on race, abortion and crime.  I then briefly consider what one of the major DLC spokespersons considers to be important at this time.

On October 6 President gave a speech in which he announced a brand new major justification for his War on Iraq, his fourth.  (The first three principal ones were, you will recall, the Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Saddam-bin Laden link, and “bringing peace, freedom and democracy” to the country.)  The latest is that the “enemies of America seek to create a radical Islamic ‘totalitarian Empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia’ bent on enslaving nations and intimidating the world” (C. Gordon, Newsday, Oct. 7, 2005).  Want a holy war?  You’ve got one.  Want data-free policy-making?  You’ve got it.  (If there is indeed some pan-Islamic organization or government bent on enslaving the world, they sure have been quiet about it.) Want an example of lethal, global, psychological projection? You’ve got one.  Can’t get much more totalitarian than Bush’s Christian Rightist base that right here in River City wants to substitute theocracy for Constitutional Democracy.  (Yes, Sen. Brownback of Kansas is considering a run for the Republican nomination in 2008 on a platform of “opposition to abortion and support for God in public life” [DD Kirkpatrick, “Kansas Senator Makes Faith the Bedrock of Campaign,” New York Times, 10/14/05].) And Bush says, THEY, the “Isamicists,” want to do it to US (when it is really some of us, the Christian Right, who want to do it to us).  The Collaborationist-DLC, which takes the position that the only thing wrong with Bush’s War is that he isn’t doing it right, would be hard pressed to attack Bush on that one I should think.

Let’s move on to the Miers nomination, on which the DLCers have been pretty quiet, except for noting that she might, “might” mind you, not be qualified.  (At the rate she is going of course, by the time this column, written on 10/20/05, appears, her nomination may be a thing of the past.) Allen L. Roland (10/5/2005, great website, http://www.allenroland.com) was one of the very the first to point out that a primary reason for this nomination is that Bush wants to have a personal lawyer on the bench when the matter of Executive Privilege comes up in the Plamegate, White House crime (Savafian), and Congressional-White-House-linked corruption indictments (that is if there are indictments from Fitzgerald, about which, as of Oct. 20, I still had my doubts).

There are three other possible reasons for the Miers nomination (other than Bush’s stated reason: she is the “most qualified” of all the candidates he considered). First is a "bait and switch" maneuver on the Democrats.  Nominate someone who the Far Right of his own party won't support.  Enough of them will then join with enough Democrats voting on either "she is unqualified by experience" and/or "she won't tell us what she about" and/or she is not openly a member of the Republican Religious Right (RRR) grounds to deny her confirmation.  Then Bush will nominate an open RR Rightist, but one over whom not enough Democrats will support a filibuster.  That person, say Janice Rogers Brown or Patricia Owen, will be confirmed.  The third possible reason for the Miers nomination is that she is indeed a closet rightist.  The White House has apparently privately assured leading theocrats like James Dobson that this is the case.  However, in this formulation the Dems would be lulled into supporting her just because certain members of the RRR, like Brownback, seem to be so openly against her.  Rove, even under a cloud (which may well prove to be temporary) is very inventive.

Finally on this week’s “what the Democrats ought to consider and respond to” agenda, there is the matter of Bill Bennett and his “let’s abort all black babies to reduce crime” statement.  To be fair to Bennett, that quote was taken out of context.  In the next sentence of the radio commentary in which he made it he termed it an “impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do,” at the same time allowing that the “crime rate would go down” (“Going on the Offensive,” Newsday, Oct. 1, 2005).  Bennett has been roundly attacked as racist and hyper-hypocritical (on the matter of abortion), as he should be.  But there are a few broader points about the kind of thinking this leading Republican ideologue represents that should be considered.

First, one has to give Bennett credit.  For while he did not go into any detail about how his plan would work in practice, since he mentioned it at all he has obviously thought through the matter of exactly how one would define “black” in such circumstances.  This is a problem that haunted the authors of the mid-nineties right-wing tome The Bell Curve.  Their thesis that “blacks” were by nature intellectually inferior to whites fell afoul of their total lack of definition of the term in a book of several hundreds of pages, before one even got to their totally inept and unscientific methodology.  But Dr. Bennett is nothing else if not intelligent, as least he is so reputed to be.  Obviously he must have worked out some kind of system.

It presumably uses some kind of rating of skin color. Otherwise he would not have used the term “black,” although he must have been using that term generically, for few African-Americans actually have skin of a black color, for reasons that are well-known.  Also, he obviously must have come up with some kind of exemption system, for surely he would not want to eliminate the possibility of in the future the Republican Religious Right having in its pocket such luminaries as Clarence Thomas and Janice Rogers Brown (he of a darker hue and she of a medium one, one must note).  So, good on Dr. Bennett for solving that one.

Second is the absence of facts in his presentation.  If social class-adjustment is applied, there is no evidence that the black crime rate is any higher than the white crime rate.  The black conviction and incarceration rate is much higher primarily because of the racist nature of the so-called “Drug War” that Bennett himself did so much to aggressively promote when he was the first Bush’s “drug czar.”  (It happens that 75% of drug use is among whites while 75% of persons incarcerated for drug-related offenses are black.)  So, drug-related crime for which persons are incarcerated would indeed go down if the population was reduced in size by eliminating blacks but no other forms of crime would.

Third, the Republican Religious Right, of which Bennett is a principal leader, defines abortion as murder.  I will not deal with his (and their) hypocrisy in the extreme.  Many others have, very effectively.  Perhaps even more importantly it should be noted that Bennett publicly considers killing as a way to problem-solve. In Germany of the 1930s, the first policy for dealing with “undesirables,” whether they were homosexuals, or Jews, or “mental defectives,” was simply to remove them the general society.  The killing solutions came later, after they had been under development for some time.

Finally, if killing certain members of society is a way to solve problems, even if at first the idea is rejected (and it was at first rejected in Nazi Germany) I wonder what the former tobacco-addict William Bennett (ironically he was heavy cigarette-smoker when he was the drug czar) would think about aborting the fetuses of smokers as a way to deal with the highly addictive substance responsible for close to 25% of American deaths annually.  I wonder what the overweight William Bennett would think of solving the obesity epidemic, which starts in childhood and in many cases is related to the overweight of parents, by aborting fetuses of the obese.  I wonder what the well-known compulsive gambler William Bennett would think of solving the gambling problem (so beloved by states that don’t want to tax those persons who can afford to pay taxes, but hated on religious-doctrine grounds by major elements of the Georgite base) by aborting the fetuses of known gamblers.

Hey, what’s good for the goose, is good for the gambler, I mean gander.  But I am much more concerned with the necessary Democratic Party response to Bennett than I am with the details of his thinking.  I don’t think that anytime soon the Collaborationist-DLC is going to be going on the attack on any of these issues.  They are too busy attacking progressive Democrats for promoting civil rights, civil liberties, defense of Constitutional rights, and a US withdrawal from Iraq. I guess that they just don’t have time to deal with the essence of Georgitism, as represented by the examples on these pages.

Guess what that leading DLC spokesperson mentioned at the outset, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton, was featuring in her email message of Oct. 19, 2005 (info@friendsofhillary.com; “HillaryClinton.com)?  “Hillary is working to increase the supply of vaccine to help meet the dangers of a worldwide flu epidemic and avian flu outbreak.”  ‘Nuff said.

THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, III: FIRST THOUGHTS ON DEALING WITH THE DLC

Column No. 81 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH  -  October 20, 2005

In my original plan for this series of columns I had thought to deal with the principal political issues first.  Then I would get into the specifics of Party growth and development so that it may become as a true opposition and governing alternative to the Georgite juggernaut. Given the rapid development of certain major political scenarios now on the scene, I thought in this column to present in outline my thoughts on progressive Democratic Party development.  I will return to political specifics in upcoming columns, and then further down the road consider proposals for Party strategy and tactics in more depth.  Thus along the way I will interweave consideration of both subjects, rather than trying to separate them one from the other, which is really artificial anyway.

On the subject of the development of the Democratic Party as a true Opposition, a good friend raised an interesting point regarding language that I used in the notice sent to the Personal Notification List that I maintain for family and friends for my column, this one for the October 5/6 issue of TPJ.  In that particular notice I said that “progressive Democrats, who now likely make up a majority of Democratic voters in our nation and who believe that Georgitism is wrong, dead wrong, for the country and the world, are going to have to take over the Party from the Collaborationist-Democratic Leadership Council.”

My friend wrote: “What and [whence from?] are the numbers to support your ‘who now likely’ assertion [referring to the use of the word ‘progressive’]?”  I responded that: “the polling numbers show that a majority of Americans now support withdrawal from Iraq on some sort of schedule (slow, fast, and in between), and Bush's poll numbers are abysmal (majority do not approve).  I think that it is safe to assume that a majority of those in both groups are Democrats, meaning then that it is safe from a statistical point of view to project that indeed a majority of Democrats (about half of the voting public) are anti-war/anti-Bush. However (I went on), perhaps the use of the term ‘progressive,’ which means much more than simply ‘anti-war/anti-Bush,’ was an overreach.”  My friend and I agreed that the term “progressive” needs further definition (I will be offering mine as we proceed with this series); but that we can safely say that a majority of Democrats are at a minimum “anti-war/anti-Bush.”  For the time-being then, that is the term I will use to describe the majority of the anti-Georgite Democrats.

It is fascinating that as I was putting together the components for this week’s writing on the subject of what the Democratic Party is, what it stands for, and what its public position should be, what should appear in the October 8 issue of TPJ but a summary of the latest broadside from the Collaborationist-DLC.  In his introductory comment on the content of the issue, Judge Gheen noted that:

Since 2000, Democrats have been trying to build a consensus of what the Party stands for and how to mount an effective attack on radical Republican policy.  The debate has been largely engaged between the ‘progressive’ and ‘centrist’ wings of the Party.  During the past week, James Carville and two leading centrists have separately made presentations that simply defy description. Collectively, TPJ interprets the centrist message to the Party as follows: ‘Democrats need to reject its failed progressive heritage and adopt centrist doctrines in order to attract sufficient voters to win elections.  Democrats can exemplify their new centrist policies by approving executions of a few semi-retarded prisoners, challenging Black liberal leaders in the Party and openly renouncing progressive doctrines.  In order to sell the centrist doctrines, Democrats only need field candidates that are smart, but not too smart, and strong, but not too strong.  Democrats need candidates who can convince Americans to adopt the new centrist doctrine by communicating to citizens as if telling a Winnie the Pooh story.’  It is not a joke.  Every Democrat should read: ‘Advice for the Forlorn Democrat.’

I do recommend going back to read the full article by Judge Gheen, if you haven’t already.

Perhaps the biggest shocker in the piece reproduced in full in the October 6 issue of TPJ, was that James Carville --- who used to be at least somewhat on the liberal, if not progressive, side of the Party -- is now full-bore with the Collaborationists.  Since the time he married the far-right wing political attack specialist Mary Matalin some years back, I have wondered who would finally win the ideological battle that must have occurred from time-to-time in that household.  When asked, Carville (although not Matalin) would say that they simply did not talk about politics.  I never believed him, and now we know who won.

Briefly here I will review the DLC position as presented by Carville.  What Carville says does tell us why, if Constitutional Democracy is to be restored and Civil War avoided, our side is going to have to take over the Party from the Collaborationist-DLC, or split the Party and then win electorally. The DLC is big on criticism of the anti-war/anti-Bush Democrats, apparently not so big on criticizing Bush (don’t believe me? Just check out their website: http://www.ndol.org/).  They seem to think that there is some huge pool of “undecided” voters out there that they can get to vote Democratic by abandoning certain key Democratic principles, like defending equal rights for non-white Americans, women, and homosexuals.

Carville himself is currently circulating a fund-raising mailing on behalf of the Democratic anti-choice candidate for the US Senate seat in Pennsylvania, William Casey, Jr.  Carville stresses the differences between Casey and the incumbent, the far-right wing Republican Sen. Santorum, on Social Security.  In a note to Carville responding to the fund-raiser, I told him that the issue of whether one’s belief as to when life begins could and should be criminalized was even more important for the future of our nation as a Constitutional Democracy than Social Security.  On this critical issue, the criminalization of belief, Casey and Santorum are in full agreement.  Why should any Democrat support Casey?

The DLC-ers seem to believe that there have been a series of “progressive” or “liberal” Democratic Presidential candidates who have contested national elections and lost  (when in fact all of the Democratic Presidential candidates since Sen. McGovern, most of whom lost, have been of the DLC persuasion, to a greater or lesser extent).  They seem to believe what they define as “centrism,” which seems to be “rightism but not quite so right as Bushism,” would be good for the country.  Like the Republicans, they seem to enjoy engaging in data-free politics and policy-making.

Carville and Casey are playing right into Republican hands by putting Social Security out in front, leaving the larger issues concerning the very nature of the Untied States as a Constitutional Democracy right out of the equation.  I believe that if the Democratic Party is to truly become an Opposition there are four issues that have to be out front.  These four issues are not only the most critical ones facing the country, but the development of the specifics with which to deal with them will at the same time produce that new Grand Vision for the Democratic Party that so many observers have called for, for so long.

I.                     An end to the US War on Iraq, with a return to the multi-lateral foreign policy that worked so well for our country from the time we entered the Second World War until the advent of Georgitism, and a return to abiding by the UN Charter, which forbids “pre-emptive war” of the Georgite type.  A specific plan for achieving that withdrawal can be found in my column of Sept. 1, 2005.

II.                   Making the protection and promotion of Constitutional Democracy, in accordance with the Preamble to the Constitution, the center of the Democratic Party’s approach to governing.  A return to the System of Checks and Balances and the requirement that the President abide by the Constitution is essential

III.                  A vision of government that understands that big problems require big solutions, that when necessary for the common economic good, government needs to be big, that the Norquist Doctrine of Bathtub Government needs to be flushed won the toilet.  On the other hand, when it comes to matters of personal belief, expression, and adult behavior, government needs to be small.  This is the exact opposite of the Republican view, which wants government to be overwhelmingly big when it comes to such matters and overwhelmingly small when dealing with the economy.

IV.                A return to totally free elections, and a full-scale assault on the Republican practice of Grand Theft Elections.  The Report of the Carter-Baker election reform commission, http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/a/203832.htm, is a good place to start (although not to finish).

A number of current proposals for a Democratic version of the old (misleading) Gingrich “Contract on (oops, he said “for”) America, begin and end with versions of the usual Democratic “Christmas Tree Ornaments” list of programs: Social Security, health insurance, and etc.  Those elements are of course vital, but they are not the central issues now. We need to move well beyond them if we are to get the country back from the crypto-theocratic fascists (see Lewis Lapham in Harper’s, at http://www.harpers.org/LewisLapham.html).   We also need to develop a viable alternative to the Democratic Leadership Council.  Very briefly, there are a number of progressive Democratic Organizations now in the field, such as the Progressive Democrats of America (http://www.pdamerica.org/), 21st Century Democrats (www.21stcenturydems.org) and Democracy for America (http://www.democracyforamerica.com/, formerly Dean for America).  They do both policy development and political organizing.  I believe that what we need to successfully go up against the DLC is an organization similar to it, policy-only, not connected with the electoral campaigns of any candidates, but hoping to attract Democratic office-holders to sign on.  How does Council for Progressive Democrats sound?

Of course I will be returning to these subjects in more detail down the line.