From an article1:
If you have decided that you will vote Republican in 2004 no matter what comes out about the use of "cooked" intelligence to deceive the American people and to justify the invasion, and if you will vote for George Bush even if the deficit reaches $600 billion and unemployment hits 8 percent, then please stop reading.
Stop reading because I want to talk to Democrats, Greens, progressives and independents. Anyone not afraid to be labeled as a "liberal" or "progressive." It is time to get serious and to start planning. (
link)
This isn't my usual sort of Clipboard post, but I thought the article made some good points that Democrats and liberals should keep in mind.
Complete text of the article,
Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004, by Ed Garvey
If you have decided that you will vote Republican in 2004 no matter what comes out about the use of "cooked" intelligence to deceive the American people and to justify the invasion, and if you will vote for George Bush even if the deficit reaches $600 billion and unemployment hits 8 percent, then please stop reading.
Stop reading because I want to talk to Democrats, Greens, progressives and independents. Anyone not afraid to be labeled as a "liberal" or "progressive." It is time to get serious and to start planning.
Why? Because George Bush is in meltdown.
I think it is safe to say he is now or soon will be the underdog in 2004. Everyone who is reading the newspapers knows that he lied about Iraq in the State of the Union address. They know that he lied about the economy in order to pave the way for his tax break for the wealthy.
Six months ago it seemed like a cakewalk in 2004 for the Bush team, but now he has exposed himself as a man who has trouble dealing with the truth. That is fatal in a political figure.
Truth is, there is no chance of getting Bush's numbers below 50 percent until there is a Democratic alternative, but once the primaries are over and there is a nominee, the polls will change.
If we work like hell between now and next January, we will have nominated Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean or John Kerry. (Let's face it: Joe Lieberman has no charisma and talks like a Republican. While Dick Gephardt is a good, solid, liberal congressman, there is no fire in the gut, or if there is, he has an internal sprinkler system to put it out more effectively than Tums.)
Now each of the three has faults, because we all do. Believe me, those faults will be exploited by right-wing talk show hosts and people who would like to see those of us on the left divide in three different directions.
My plea to those of us who believe that stopping the Bush-Cheney march to disaster is imperative: Get ready to win. Translated, if Kerry is the nominee, let's not start bashing him as if he were an enemy of progress. If Dean wins, let's suppress the negatives that someone will dredge up. If Kucinich wins, let's get behind him.
In the meantime, support one of the three but don't dump on Kucinich, Dean or Kerry in the process. It won't affect the outcome in any event. And once the process is over, we must work together if we want to win.
And I want to win.
As for a Green candidate, I would urge the party to take a break. Not from activist politics but from naming a candidate for president. While the major parties are way too similar for my taste, there is a difference. We need to defeat Bush because we are one Supreme Court vote away from catastrophe on a whole range of issues. Visualize a Chief Justice Scalia. That's the splash of cold water in our face.
The federal district courts and the courts of appeal are being stacked with extreme right-wing ideologues. And with one, two or even three Supreme Court retirements coming soon, look out.
They could indeed reverse Brown v. Board of Education, not to mention affirmative action. Women's rights? Quaint idea, but back to pre-Roe v. Wade.
And with three appointments, Bush could change America not just for us but for our grandchildren.
The extreme right knows the power of the judiciary. And they are not shy about using that power. They complain about activist judges and appoint them every time they get a chance. Hypocrisy has never been an impediment.
No need for me to write about Iraq and Afghanistan, you know the drill. We have moved from the most loved and admired country in the world to the most hated and least trusted in just three years. Imagine what the next four could bring. Korea, Syria, Iran? Whoa, Nelly!
So here is my suggestion. Let's start a national dialogue with all who consider themselves liberal, left, green or progressive. Let's take the lead at Fighting Bob Fest on Sept. 6 in Baraboo, where hundreds and perhaps thousands of those desperate for change will congregate to hear great speeches and share ideas.
Someone must start the national conversation among the sensible. You know, people who want Head Start to thrive, who think we need more money flowing to our schools than our prisons, who want national health care for everyone, who believe the Patriot Act must be repealed and John Ashcroft sent back to the Phyllis Schlafly charm school.
This is an appeal to avoid defeating ourselves. We cannot get trapped in the right-wing plot to win in 2004 by getting us to fight one another. (Remember, they haven't won a presidential election in 12 years. Let's make it 16.)
And now a word to our sponsors, those who put millions into the presidential campaigns for Democrats. You were angry when some said there was no difference between Bush and Gore. OK, I understand that feeling.
But rather than condemn those folks, don't even think about forcing a Republican in Democratic clothing down our throats. Let the people decide the nominee and we will win in 2004.
I don't know about you but I don't want four more years.
reference=http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0723-01.htm
The Clipboard: Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004
Subject: Re: Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004
Unfortunately the author of that article falls into the same trap the pro-war Crusaders do--assuming that everyone who's not Republican supporter is a socialist.As a libertarian, I recognize that a Democrat winning the next election would not be an improvement, or really any different at all. Socialists may think it suddenly becomes perfectly okay to invade other countries as long as the UN approves, but I'm opposed to an interventionist foreign policy regardless of which group of thugs is carrying it out.
Subject: Re: Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004
Thanks for your feedback, Ken. Unfortunately, I find your comment to be a rather sweeping generalization as well. I have a lot of sympathy with and even share many libertarian views. I also don't think very much of many mainstream Democrats (you'll notice the author doesn't either, since he only mentioned three of the nine candidates). I do not think that Democrats would necessarily be as bad as Bush, since Bush seems to be setting new records daily and since party politics and interest groups would create a natural tension between a Democratic president and some of the fervent "pro-war Crusaders" and therefore tend to moderate their influence. However, many of the Democrats would still not be good and would have my support only as a lesser of two evils.But your classing the Democrats as "socialists" seems over the top. Socialism is an economic and political theory with certain characteristics including government control of the means of production, a centrally planned economy, and so forth. Even the furthest left candidates are not calling for either of those, much less the mainstream Democrats.
Let me tell you what my basic position is. The warmongering and fearmongering of the Bush Administration must be stopped and new policies established for dealing with other countries and for guarding our civil liberties at home. My support goes to the candidate that I feel will be best able to accomplish such a transformation and then after that to the next best, and so on. Most, although not all, of the Democratic candidates would at least be no worse than Bush, for the reasons I mentioned above. I am also a realist and I know that only the Democratic party has a chance of defeating Bush; it isn't going to be the Greens or Libertarians or any other third party. If and when the choice between Bush and the Democratic candidate offers no real choice at all on my key issues, then I would vote third party. But as long as the Democratic candidate would be at least a little better than Bush, he will most likely get my vote.
By dismissing all the Democratic candidates out of hand as "socialists" you are leaving yourself only the option of voting Libertarian and a Libertarian is not going to beat Bush, period. The choice is going to be Bush and a Democrat. Are you really sure you want to end up with Bush by default because you don't agree 100% with a Democrat?
Subject: Re: Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004
Sorry, my writing is not very clear. By "socialists," I was referring to the author of the original article, Ed Garvey, and other "progressives," not to Democrats in general. (Many libertarians do refer to the Democrats and Republicans as "Socialist Party A" and "Socialist Party B," but that's not really what I was trying to say.)
I'm not dismissing the Democratic candidates "out of hand," but based on the record. I don't just do this with Democrats, either--both parties say what it takes to get elected and then go on with business as usual once in office. For example, Bush promised (as a candidate) to end Clinton's policy of arbitrarily attacking other countries, and look how that turned out.
I vote for the candidate who represents my beliefs--I don't buy the "lesser of two evils" arguement. Yes, I know that there's no chance at all of my candidate winning, because that's how the system is rigged. But how would it be an improvement to vote for a Democrat who I disagree with 99% of the time just because I also disagree with Bush a different 99% of the time?
Suppose (for example) that Howard Dean wins the next election. If we go by what he says now, we could expect him to pull out of Iraq--and invade Liberia.
Subject: Re: Progressives Must Join Forces For Victory In 2004
In the end, of course, you need to do what you think is right. If you believe that voting for any Democratic candidate would lead outcomes that violate your principles, then you should not vote for them. What I was suggesting is that a vote for a third party candidate may in effect be a vote for Bush. Contributing to a Bush victory in 2004 is something that would violate my principles and that I therefore seek to avoid doing.As for "the lesser of two evils", what I was trying to say (perhaps poorly) is that if there are only two possible outcomes, then I will try to work for the one of those outcomes that leads to the least harm or the greatest good. This outcome may not be very good in itself, but it would be better than the other outcome and as I said above, I do not want to have contributed to the worse outcome if I can contribute to the better outcome.
But you are correct, sometimes the lesser of two evils is still too evil to contribute to; in effect it is just as evil as the other outcome.
I don't think that the two of us actually disagree about this as much as it may seem, but we hold different views about the relative qualities of the Democratic candidates as compared to Bush. To use the example you gave, I believe that Howard Dean is a better outcome than Bush, even though for me he is far from the ideal outcome. Again, this says nothing about how Dean compares with some ideal candidate, it's about how Dean compares with Bush, who is the alternative.