I don't totally agree with Frank, but I think he makes some points we'd do well to consider. Democrats' continued support of the disastrous Iraq War seems inexplicable. In addition, I was finishing up What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America last night, and thought Thomas Frank's (no relation) criticism of the Democrats for abandoning middle class economic issues in order to curry favor with business was pretty much on point. It's worth asking whether the party has really gained all that much from its journey to the right. The loss of the White House, the loss of Congress, the loss of the Supreme Court might suggest to reasonable people it's time to go left.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/061105Zeese/061105zeese.htmlInterview with Joshua Frank
Electoral politics and the war: Lessons from 2004 and what the anti-war movement should do in 2006<edit>
Joshua Frank: I learned a lot from the 2004 elections and this book is my attempt to put it all together and make sense of what went down. In "Left Out!" I shovel through the muck of our current political arrangement, where progressives and those on the left are continually told that we have real options within the so-called two-party system. Many told us during the 2004 elections that George W. Bush was so darn bad that we had to, just had to, vote for John Kerry. There was no other choice. The polluted climate, as you well know, was "Anybody But Bush." Or better put, "Nobody But Kerry." Hatred of Bush drove the support for Kerry. We had buses to Ohio, we had DVD parties, and all were targeting Bush rather than trumpeting Kerry. That should have been sign number one that the Democrats were on the wrong path. The candidacies of Ralph Nader and even that of the Green Party's David Cobb were seen as far too dangerous to support in the states that could have actually put pressure on Kerry (i.e. swing-states) to take on issues we believed in. The strategy, endorsed by so many respected activists and intellectuals on the left, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Medea Benjamin, Norman Solomon, to name just a few - was all about expediting the process of removing Bush from office. Not issues.
Their strategy was a miserable failure, however. The Democratic alternatives were grossly inadequate. The left asked absolutely nothing of Kerry and guess what? They got absolutely nothing in return. That's what you get when you give someone's candidacy unconditional support, despite the fact that the Democrats mirrored Bush on so many crucial issues—from the economy to civil liberties to trade to foreign policy to the environment. It was textbook lesser-evilism and it was a loser. The left had succumbed to the plague of ABB. Their unconditional support made Kerry worse and undermined everything the left supposedly stood for. And this is where I think we must be crystal clear as to what the costs of expedient choices are, even if the benefits seem predominant. As I argue in "Left Out!," backing the lesser-evil, like the majority of liberals and lefties did in 2004, keeps the whole political pendulum in the US swinging to the right. It derails social movements, helps elect the opposition, and undermines democracy. This backwards logic allows the Democrats and Republicans to control the discourse of American politics and silences any voices that may be calling for genuine change.
Despite all this, there are still many that are not convinced that the Democrats are virtually identical to their Republican counterparts. So to argue this point, I focus a bit on one Democrat whom many argue represents the liberal end of the respectable mainstream Democratic Party—and that's DNC chairman Howard Dean. At this time Dean, along with Barak Obama, is thought to be a beacon of hope within the Democratic establishment. He wants to transform the party. He wants to empower the grassroots. But there's a catch, and that's that Howard Dean really doesn't disagree with his party's own platform, which is virtually the same as the Republican's. So his quest for change is not grounded in any ideological divergence. No Dean's "new" path is a strategic one. He simply wants to corral all the progressives into the Democratic fold. He certainly doesn't want them to leave the party and go join up with some progressive third party. And that is really what Dean's job is now: keep the party activists in line while he cashes their checks. Take their money and don't let them stray. Because when and if they ever do, real change could be possible. And lord knows that nobody in power out in Washington wants that to happen. They like business just the way it is.
Zeese: What happened to the anti-war issue in 2004? We had developed a large base of activists, massive demonstrations, the war was going down hill—indeed all of our worst predictions were coming true during the presidential campaign—yet the anti-war issue was not on the agenda during the presidential race. What happened?
Frank: What happened was the anti-war movement supported a pro-war candidate, which, not surprisingly, was an utter disaster. How can a movement back a candidate that supports everything it opposes? There is no question that during the campaign John Kerry was a relentless warmonger, as William Safire put it. Kerry was the newest neocon who even out-hawked Bush. True enough. Most people that supported Kerry didn't support his position on the Iraq war, which was shown by a USA Today poll taken during the Democratic convention in Boston.
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/engel9.htmlHephalumps and Woozels:
A Review of Joshua Frank's Left Out<edit>
On nearly every issue, Kerry was more or less in agreement with Bush in that the "issue" whatever it was, had to be dealt with firmly, with grave war metaphors and tough talk. The only difference was the way in which these numerous "wars" would be fought – Kerry's strategy for winning wars against diseases, ideologies, methodologies, nouns, adjectives, adverbial clauses, was somehow better, less costly and smarter than Bush's.
Of course, this is nothing new. "McCarthyism" played itself out during a Democrat's tenure, as did the first years of heavy fighting/bombing of the Viet Nam war. But even Lyndon Johnson had the liberal fig leaf of the "Great Society" to balance his war mongering. The real leap of bad-faith for the Democrats, the poisoning of the well which will never yield potable water again but must be abandoned for a fresher source, began with the first term of Bill Clinton.
Clinton's "welfare reform" forced single mothers to work minimum wage jobs without the option of child-care or other crucial services. Clinton's NAFTA agreement sent millions of American jobs across the border and overseas. Clinton began the first major assault against the Bill of Rights, which would culminate in the USA PATRIOT ACT under Bush, when he signed the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" in 1996. In addition to bombing Iraq several times, bombing the Sudan, and launching the planet's first "Humanitarian War" in Bosnia, the Clinton Administration was responsible for well over half a million Iraqi deaths, according to former Secretary of State Madeline "It Was Worth It" Albright, due to lack of medicine and other necessities blocked by sanctions. More money was spent on PIS and more Americans went to prison (especially Americans of Color) under Clinton than under Reagan or Bush I.
The list of Clinton's offenses against the people and environment of the U.S. and the world is long and painful to read, but Frank explores this list of swindles and privations worthy of the most right-wing of Republicans, worthy of and indeed expanded upon by George W. Bush. The Democratic Party is not the party of "the people," it's just not the party in control, or at least, not the party with a president in office. It lost the past two presidential elections, and many House and Senate seats, by following the pro-war, pro-corporate, anti-environment, destructive lead of the Republicans while trying to maintain the charade that it's the "party of the people."
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