None of us have all of the answers. But what is clear is that we are not going to crash the gates with Cindy Sheehan or Ron Paul. The fact of the matter is that given her latest rant in which she would gut the fabric of the New Deal, Cindy would not crash the gate for us, but would gut the Social Contract that our forefathers bled and died for so that we could have freedom and prosperity today.
There is more at stake here than Iraq or Impeachment. The entire framework of the New Deal, which brought us 30 years of peace and prosperity and which created a stable economy that would not go into cycles of boom and bust is at stake.
We all share the goal of Cindy Sheehan and Ron Paul supporters of impeaching the President and of getting out of Iraq. But the fact of the matter is that Rusty1776 in his diary has a fundamental misunderstanding of what is needed to crash the gates. The goal is not to rip the government to shreds. The goal is to restore the values and the promise of the New Deal that our forefathers fought and died for around the turn of the 20th century and that Franklin Roosevelt used to lift us out of poverty and out of Boom and Bust.
And gutting the IRS is not going to achieve that end. Breaking away from the Democratic Party and trying to form a third party is not going to achieve that end -- it will only split us and allow Rudy Giuliani to appoint more right-wing judges. And if you have trouble thinking that the Democrats are not that much different, think about the fact that Giuliani appointed Norm Podhoretz, one of the fathers of neocon thought, and an advocate of attacking Iran on his team.
A lot of the problem is that we are like sheep -- we are buffeted and push around to the point where we are not firmly grounded in the esssentials of the values we claim to have. We vote, not because of our values, or what we believe and why we believe it, but out of expediency and the spur of the moment.
What we need is a firm grounding in the values that built our party up in the first place. We take a stand based on our proven track record of success -- 30 years of record growth and prosperity from the 1930's to the 1960's and the eight years of prosperity that we enjoyed under the leadership of Bill Clinton. Whether in the workplace or the home or in sports or in government, ideology does not matter -- results matter. And the Democrats are the ones who have a proven track record of success.
And there has been a similar track record of success everywhere our plans and our values have been replicated -- the UK created 10 years of prosperity under Tony Blair's version of the New Deal, in which he created a minimum wage twice that of ours and dramatically expanded help to the elderly, education, and job retraining along with a progressive policy on immigration. In Canada, the left-wing New Democratic Party is the most powerful party. This is evidenced by their ability to force the ruling party in power to accept a good chunk of their programs or be toppled; most of the time, Canada is ruled by a minority government. They have some of the most progressive policies in the world on civil rights and healthcare. And Scotland is creating a new society that will be based on the socialistic governments of Norway and Sweden thanks to the recent election victory of the Scottish Nationalists.
And our values are based on the Four Freedoms that were laid out for us long ago:
In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
The second is Freedom of worship. That is, freedom of every person to worship whomever (be it God, or any other deity/deities) in his own way — everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
And Ron Paul and Cindy Sheehan's positions are totally incompatible with the values expressed by the Four Freedoms. First of all, they and their followers share a low tolerance for any opinions other than their own. It is their way or the highway -- get out of Iraq their way or they will not vote for you. That is the sort of childish behavior we see from people who, if they do not do what they want, will not do any more business with you. If we disagree with them, we are somehow being mean and intolerant and hateful of Cindy or Ron. If we ask basic questions about where Cindy stands on the issues that matter to the people of her district, her defenders can't answer simple questions on these issues.
That is a basic difference between Democrats and purists like Naderites, Ron Paul supporters, and Cindy Sheehan supporters -- we allow for a lot of room on disagreement. We have candidates all over the map -- from people like Mike Gravel who would abolish the IRS and privatize Social Security, to Dennis Kucinich and his plans to replicate the WPA through his creation of the Green Progress Administration, to mainstream candidates like Edwards and Clinton and Obama, who all have articulate defenders of their positions on Iraq. We welcome those who are Greens or Libertarians or Republicans but who are here to help Democrats win because they see us as the best people to get us out of the mess in Iraq.
And there is a classic example of the intolerance of Cindy's supporters, based on remarks like Rusty1776's:
So maybe it's time for you Cindy mockers to STFU about her mistakes.
No, we will not "shut up." I will not take lessons from someone who throws a Bill O'Reilly style tantrum about criticism of Sheehan. Perhaps if Rusty1776 would care to read the front page or the numerous recommended diaries, he would see for himself that we as a community take on the DC power establishment on a daily basis.
Secondly, there is the matter of Freedom of Worship. Cindy Sheehan is pro-choice, so this does not apply to her. But this does apply to Ron Paul. The fact of the matter is that we all have our assumptions about when life begins. But the fact of the matter is that Ron Paul would radically impose his own anti-choice agenda by gutting Roe in the name of "States Rights." But it would not stop there, as he routinely states that life begins at conception and that he is not going to rest until his radical, theocratic antiabortionism is the law of the land. Peoples' freedom of conscience does not matter anymore -- the only values on this issue that matter are Ron Paul's -- he is The Decider. Therefore, a vote for Ron Paul is a vote for a different brand of authoritarianism.
Thirdly, in the matter of Freedom from Want, the fact of the matter is that both Ron Paul and Cindy Sheehan would totally gut the safety net that was set up thanks to our forefathers who fought and died so that we could have a Minimum Wage, Social Security, jobs, and economic stability. Thanks to our inability to collect taxes, we would have to fend for ourselves because we have no safety net in the event that we fail in some way. All I can say is, don't get sick. Don't get fired or let your job get outsourced. Don't invest in the stock market. The whole reason for the reforms of the New Deal was so that we would not have to go through the cycles of boom and bust.
The difference between us and them is that we would not only preserve the legacy of the New Deal, we would extend the New Deal and extend the safety net so that more and more people can participate in our prosperity. All of the candidates have plans that would do that.
And fourth, there is the matter of Freedom from Fear. The fact of the matter is that Ron Paul would get us out of Iraq, but he would not create a state of freedom from fear. Instead, he would lock us up and lock everybody out. In so doing, Ron Paul is on the wrong side of history. China did something similar -- they passed laws locking everyone out of their country right as Europe was reawakening and thus lost their superpower status over a number of years. And what would Cindy do in the matter of foreign relations? Would she try to make a meaningful difference for peace, or would she follow suit with Ron Paul and lock us out from the rest of the world like the Chinese did, to their disaster?
Rusty1776, in his diary, is right that there will still be entrenched Republicanism in the government even after we win and take control of the Presidency and create a filibuster-proof majority. But that is no reason to quit supporting Democrats for office. In fact, we should only work harder to get Democrats elected and reclaim the promise of the New Deal. Instead, he follows the path of despair at the prospect of more adversity even if we were to win back the presidency.
Once we get the country back and once we win a filibuster-proof majority, our work will not be done. Next, we must keep working to get progressive Democrats elected and "Democrats" that are corrupt or that act like Republicans primaried out of office. We have to keep pushing for judges that will defend our Constitution and not legislate right-wing ideology from the bench. We need to keep electing people that understand the needs of their constituents and who are well-respected in the district.
But for people like Rusty1776 to say, "I quit" in Round 2 of a 15-Round fight is not going to win us any elections.
I am not here to mock Sheehan in any way, shape, or form. But the fact of the matter is that she has divided the community when we should be in this together even as we disagree on how best to get out of Iraq. If she had run as a Democrat, I could have cared less. But the fact of the matter is that by making repeated ad homenim attacks on our party means that she is an enemy of this party and an enemy of this community. That is not mocking or ridicule; that is simply a fact of life.
People who divide are not going to crash the gates. People who create conflict are not going to crash the gates. People who bring the community and the movement and the party together as a whole together will. I could care less about her criticisms of Israel or her visit with Chavez. What I do care about is, is she willing to work with the party and to work with people who she does not agree with all the time.
But what we get from Rusty is this:
Cindy's fought alone...
That is exactly the problem. This is not about her. This is about the party and the progressive political movement as a whole. This sort of "me against the world" crap is why we lose elections -- because we do not work together because the people who might be persuaded to work with us are not pure and holy enough for some reason. The fact of the matter, and I can say this as a long-time Kos user, is that we were in the fight against the senseless occupation against Iraq long before she came on the scene. She was not alone; this was one of the first places that gave her unqualified support when she went on her vigil against the president. Rusty1776 is not entitled to his own facts about what took place.
And then, this:
When she told the damn truth about Bush and his right wing cult, progressives praised her as a hero. But when she told the damn truth about too many enabling, excuse-making, spineless Democrats, she got stabbed in the back for it by many of the same progressives.
The truth, or his version of it? And that is simply not true -- the fact of the matter is that all of us are sick and tired of spineless, excuse-making Democrats. They are there and they must be dealt with. But the fact of the matter is that while that is true, there is also the fact that Congress was never designed to do things yesterday.
I suggest that Rusty learn a thing or two about basic civics 101 before he plays the politics of quitting and despair. Congress was designed to be a check on the power of the mob -- where the mob wants results yesterday, Congress takes weeks and months to reach the same conclusions that we already have. I am frustrated at the slow pace of Congress as well. But the fact of the matter is that they are working the way that they are designed to work.
When we have a Congress that tries to get things done yesterday, we have crap such as the Patriot Act, one of the biggest attacks ever on our Civil Liberties, passed with only a glimmer of debate. Russ Feingold was the only Senator to vote against it, because he understands what a lot of Cindy supporters don't -- that Congress is supposed to be a body of careful deliberation, where legislation is supposed to be carefully considered and people that have to be lived with it consulted so that all of the ramifications are considered. It did not get to this place overnight, and it will not take overnight to end it.