Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning
Anti-war sentiments today are strikingly similar to what they had been in March 1968 when Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) challenged fellow Democrat and incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. In March 1968 only 41% of Americans said “no” when asked whether we made a mistake in sending troops to Vietnam. Today six out of every ten Americans surveyed (70% of Democrats) favor an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan. Another 59% oppose our involvement in Libya.
While opposition to war is similar, the “democracy deficit” — what Prof. Noam Chomsky refers to in Failed States as the significant gap between the policy positions of the electorate and their elected representatives — is much wider today than it had been in 1968.
Medicare, the centerpiece of President Johnson’s Great Society, like Social Security, the centerpiece of FDR’s New Deal, remains immensely popular with the American people. As revealed by a recent Washington Post poll, 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare. 72% favor raising taxes on incomes over $250,000 and only 17% oppose raising taxes on those making more than $250,000.
Yet, the political elites of both major parties, operating, as they did during the Wall Street bailout of 2008, under a contrived crisis mode, are advancing alternative deficit reduction proposals that will, in the words of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (see video below) “do just the opposite of what the American people want.”
While third parties are an option, today we sorely need an option that was available in 1968: a Eugene McCarthy…
Compromise with a revolutionary movement is a fool’s errand
While it has been and remains this writer’s opinion that our incumbent President never intended to be the promised “change we can believe in;” that, from day one, his selection of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner reflected that Wall Street and corporate America were his true constituency, if one were to assume that the President had better intentions but simply is inclined towards compromise, the results of an incremental surrender of liberty, equality and democratic governance to a movement bent upon the replacement of constitutional democracy with a feudal autocracy is a fool’s errand.
It was a point which Paul Krugman recognized in The Great Unraveling where he quoted from Henry Kissinger’s doctoral thesis, “A World Restored.”
Krugman observed that the passage “sent chills down [his] spine” because it explained how the Bush administration was “able to push radical policies through with remarkably little scrutiny.”
The latest effort to offer up some fraction of Social Security and Medicare which the GOP denigrates as “entitlements” but are, in fact, a form of old-age insurance that working Americans have paid for their entire lives, will not appease billionaire sociopaths like the Koch brothers or Rupert Murdoch or the pseudo grass-roots ‘Tea Party’ movement they fund and control.
The exacerbation of an already obscene wealth disparity carries with it an erosion of democratic power and an extension of plutocratic power. From the perspective of the very survival of democracy and the vast majority who make up the working class, the choice between a Tea Party fanatic and an appeasing, corporate-pleasing Democrat is a choice between a swift death and a slow one.
Sen. Sanders exposes absurdity
While the full video of his speech is posted below, a partial text is in order.
The Democratic leadership didn’t listen to Sanders when he spoke out against extending the Bush tax cuts. They are not listening now. We should!
In need of a 21st Century Eugene McCarthy
As this writer observed in “‘Nowhere To Go’?: Nader’s Short-Sighted Tactics Reinforce ‘Lesser Evil’ Paradigm”, while Americans can and should display the wisdom and courage to select a Third Party Presidential Candidate where those offered by the two major parties amount to no choice whatsoever, progressives must come to grips with the reality of the lesser evil paradigm.
It is not enough for groups to tell the President that they will not support him if he betrays the core values of the Democratic Party by compromising Medicare and Social Security; not to mention his expansion of the so-called “War on Terror.”
Irrespective of whether a progressive describes him or herself as an independent (e.g., Sanders, Nader) or is already registered as a Democrat, what this nation needs is someone who truly represents the interests of the vast majority of our citizenry to immediately challenge our incumbent President in the Democratic primaries.
Some groups are already pushing in that direction, circulating petitions to draft Bernie Sanders and to draft former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). This writer has signed both.
UPDATE 08/13/11: Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said he would take part in a primary challenge to President Obama if his supporters could raise $1 million to fund the effort.
Senators Bernie Sanders’ speech explaining why the American people are angry…
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
One thing I wish everyone would stop doing, especially the media is relying on “polls”.
I frankly do not give an ratz arse what the “Merikan People” think. By & large they are always dead wrong on most every important issue.
What we need is a strong VERY progressive REAL Democrat majority that will do what needs to be done regardless what the ignorant Merikan public think. Just do the right thing.
Most ‘Merikans” opposed ending slavery, most opposed starting Medicare, most opposed women voting, most opposed mixed race marriage.
Most today probably do not have a clue what the reality is concerning the debt ceiling.
What we have today is almost 40% of the country are stark raving insane, so 40% are already out of play as far as asking them to answer a question intelligently.
If you ever get above 60% of the country agreeing on ANYTHING today it is rare because 40% are totally crazy religious nuts.
By definition in a democracy, what the majority wants is the definition of sanity, in a constitutional democracy the constitution is the basic definition of sanity.
It does not always work well because one person’s truth is another person’s lie.
Is that why we have the science police I wonder?
Nunyabiz writes:
Most political scientists, and one of this nation’s most prolific and brilliant political writers, Noam Chomsky, would disagree with that sentiment.
Polls expose the scope of the “democracy deficit.” They expose the lie in the corporate media engendered claim that Americans are “conservative.”
In Failed States, Chomsky notes, for example:
The poll I cited in this piece underscores the ongoing democracy deficit. It provides an appropriate tool for educating average Americans about the extent to which their elected “leaders” have betrayed them.
Knowledge is power. Polls aid in cutting through the corporate BS to provide the knowledge that the public must have if we the people wish to be our own governors.
BTW: It is somewhat incongruous for you to suggest that we ignore polls on the one hand and then claim, without a link to any source, that 40% of Americans are “stark raving insane.”
It it was your intent to say that 40% of Americans support the billionaire funded and controlled collective madness that is the ‘Tea Party,’ your numbers appear to be greatly inflated. A recent Gallup poll revealed that only 28% of Americans support the ‘Tea Party’ agenda.
Research has shown that 78.4% of the time, statistics are made up on the spot.
Davey
Want to provide a link, Davey, or are we to assume that, as usual, you made this one up from whole cloth?
Ernest, I can only guess that you live such an unhappy life that you do not appreciate a little humor. IT WAS A JOKE! Cheer up, laugh a little. Geez!
But it wasn’t funny, Davey!
Another great article, Ernest. Thank you.
And FWIW, I thought Davey’s joke was pretty good!
It’s clean, it’s on topic, it’s non-partisan –
and it’s just whimsical enough to lend him an air of humanity.
That’s progress, Ernest!
Thank you Jeannie!
Perhaps on the upcoming “Talk like a Pirate day” we can all join together, liberals and conservatives, and just “Talk like Pirates!!”
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
Smile everyone…life is too short not to.
Davey
Staying with the “poll” topic one moment longer…you should all read this brilliant piece by Stanley Greenberg.
Sage advice for Democrats (written by a Democrat who is married to a Democratic Congresswoman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/tuning-out-the-democrats.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Kudos to Ernest Canning!
I don’t think that putting up a progressive candidate to oppose Obama will hurt a thing. But don’t think the real problem is being addressed.
As an example of the real problem. The democrats control the WH and the Senate.But a tiny group formed by Fox News enthusiasts calls the shots. NOT democracy. But everybody says that is the problem.The tea party. How many people say the problem is the system?
Another example of the real problem is Rupert Murdoch. He is being hammered in the UK. But so far the Justice Dept. is looking into allegations here in the US. Not really doing anything.
Justice Dept. would move swiftly against Bradley Manning. The media would move just as fast on Anthony Weiner. How about with Mark Foley?
Google 14 points of fascism for the elephant in the room.We are so like Germany . They didn’t talk about the Nazi problem then and are discouraged to talk about it now. Form of control over our thoughts and words. We won’t have true reform until we use the corrects words for our problems.