"Grannyhelen", my blogging alias, is a tribute to my Great Grandmother Helen. Grannyhelen was a life-long Democrat, married to a union organizer and she first got me interested in politics. As for me...I'm an almost-40-year old mom of two, a rabid John Edwards supporter and I am working on a fictional book which I hope to have published.
Paul Krugman's piece today is already being derided by some vocal Obama supporters, as it makes the real world argument that any Democratic President will be attacked by the GOP. Although that may sound like a given to those of us here in the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party, to the post-partisan hopedacious crowd this is new to them.
What a hoot.
Krugman, being the realist that he is, feels that the best way to weather these attacks is through a well-formulated platform of detailed policies (and not half-baked compromises right out of the box):
"...I have colleagues who tell me that Mr. Obama's rejection of health insurance mandates -- which are an essential element of any workable plan for universal coverage -- doesn't really matter, because by the time health care reform gets through Congress it will be very different from the president's initial proposal anyway. But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn't arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed..."
And although Krugman observes that this primary season has gotten "terribly off track" due to the politics of personalities and celebrity, he does have kind words for the one candidate who has tried to make his campaign about the things that actually affect all of our bottom lines:
"...What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues -- a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign -- and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward..."
Will Americans wake up in enough time to realize that the politics of personality does nothing to help themselves or their families?
Okay, let me just objection-handle for a couple of moments. From all appearances Edwards is over 15% in South Carolina, meaning he will earn delegates from this thing when everything's said and done.
Now, before the punditry and the Clinton campaign start spinning all of the various reasons why John should drop out, let me address these concerns now.
*Objection One: The Sore Loser*
To reiterate talking points from a "senior Clinton advisor" this week:
The former first lady's allies say the longer Edwards stays in the race, the more problems his candidacy will cause the party down the road.
One senior adviser to the Clinton campaign said Edwards was "angry" because the primary race isn't turning out the way he had hoped. Now, Edwards just wants to make life miserable for everyone else.
Some think Edwards is playing the role of a spoiler, prolonging the day of reckoning between Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic front-runners. They fear the longer the Clinton-Obama battle goes on, the harder it will be to heal the inevitable wounds in the Democratic Party. It's time for Edwards to drop out of the race, they say.
1. As seen by what is widely being acknowledged as a retaliatory vote by African Americans *against* the Clinton campaign tactics in South Carolina, it's pretty damn clear who in this race has already "caused more problems for the party down the road"...and that ain't John Edwards. By playing a cynical race game to try to downplay a defeat in South Carolina, the Clintons have thrown the fragile and often abused relationship between the Democratic Party and African Americans under the bus to achieve their own political aspirations. And they have the temerity to suggest that it's John Edwards who is causing the party problems?
Hillary, puh-leeze. Talk to the hand, girlfriend, cuz we ain't listenin'.
2. "Prolonging the day of reckoning between Clinton and Obama". Cute. As if we're spectators at some type of live computer game where Hillary and Barack are both Death Ninjas.
Uh-huh.
John Edwards being in this race is the tether to Hillary's attacks. She can't go too far out on that limb for fear of alienating folks and sending them his way. An all out flame-war between the Clinton campaign and the Obama campaign does nothing but give the GOP fodder for the general election. *This* is not in the best interests of the party. Edwards has consistently made his campaign about this issues, and his staying in this race is the best hope we have for the primaries to continue to *be about the issues*. Hate the flame wars? Keep Edwards in this thing.
3. John Edwards is "angry" and a "sore loser". Sigh...well at least we know how the Clintons are going to attack *his* character. No, John Edwards is not "angry". Edwards supporters are not "angry". We just want this election to be *about the issues*. And yes, we're in this to pull the debate to the left.
'Nuf said.
*Objection Two: If Edwards Pulled Out Obama Would Win This Thing*
This is the culmination of arguments I've read in threads, and diaries, and all over the place.
*Why this is a false meme*
1. There is no evidence that *all* or *most* of Edwards's supporters would vote for Obama.
2. If Edwards pulls votes from Hillary this only helps Obama in a brokered convention. Edwards has already made several declarations that he and Obama are closer on the issues to each other than they are to Hillary. He has already very publicly called her the "status quo candidate". Therefore, one could reasonably assume that if Edwards were to support anyone in a brokered convention that person would be Barack Obama. Edwards's support may be the deciding factor in such a scenario, and breaking toward Obama would give him the win.
So, Hillary folks: "Edwards is a loser and is hurting the party" won't fly. Obama folks: "Edwards pulling out would give Obama the win" isn't actually the case.
Y'all chill. Edwards is - and should - stay in this thing to the convention.
This is an absolute hoot! From today's San Jose Mercury News:
The former first lady's allies say the longer Edwards stays in the race, the more problems his candidacy will cause the party down the road.
One senior adviser to the Clinton campaign said Edwards was "angry" because the primary race isn't turning out the way he had hoped. Now, Edwards just wants to make life miserable for everyone else.
Some think Edwards is playing the role of a spoiler, prolonging the day of reckoning between Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic front-runners. They fear the longer the Clinton-Obama battle goes on, the harder it will be to heal the inevitable wounds in the Democratic Party. It's time for Edwards to drop out of the race, they say.
Okay, so let's break this down a little. The Hillary Clinton campaign doesn't want John Edwards to say in the race because it "prolongs the day of reckoning between Clinton and Obama". And the "longer the Clinton-Obama battle goes on, the harder it will be to heal the inevitable wounds in the Democratic Party."
Heh.
Let's cut through the butter here. Hillary Clinton desperately wants this to be a two-way race. We saw it in the last debate. By tossing out the word "Rezko", and getting Obama to go down in the mud she's trying to take away his biggest asset. She's trying to change Obama's persona from the "transcendent figure of hope and change" to one of "just your average Chicago pol". Not squeaky clean. Gets just as dirty as everyone else.
And once she has Obama on that level, now she can talk about the choice between one politician or the other one. Now the talk of "experience" and "being vetted" becomes suddenly more relevant. If the choice is between two politicians acting like politicians...well, wouldn't you want to choose the politician who's better playing that game?
And she would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that pesky John Edwards:
And, what's worse? Check out this notable quotable:
At Monday night’s debate, Democratic front-runners Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) repeatedly engaged each other in their sharpest, most contentious debate exchanges yet.
“I’m thinking, ‘I’m John Edwards, and I represent the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party,’ ” Edwards said. “At times like these we need a grown-up.”
Edwards has just boxed Hillary in on her knock-down-and-take-Obama-out strategy. The more she insists on flinging the mud and encouraging Obama to respond in kind, the more Pappa John can call back from the metaphorical driver's seat, "Do I have to pull this car over?" Edwards has put Hillary in the position of making him look better - more adult - every time she engages in the poo fight, and even running third that's something that the Clintons (given Bill's own history of only winning his first primary in Georgia) are pretty loathe to do.
No wonder Camp Hill feels like John is "making life miserable for everyone else." I'm sure to them he probably is.
Here's what you need to know from the Nevada debate tonight: if you want a great, wonkish policy hound, vote for Hillary. If you want a professor who can literally see (and sometimes take) all sides of every issue, vote for Obama.
But if you want a strong leader who will fight for you, your neighbors and the rest of the working folks that you know and love, vote for John Edwards.
With question after question tonight, John stayed on message. The civil rights movement? It was about ordinary folks - just like you and me - who stood up and fought to correct a gross injustice. The economy? The core problem is that there are large, monied interests who are subverting our economic stability, making it harder and harder for working folks to get ahead. Health care? All of us (and I can testify to this from my own personal life) are paying more and more and getting less and less, and we are all one catastrophic illness away from financial ruin.
While Hillary was framing the debate around "black and brown issues" (yes, her words, not mine) and Obama had moments of brilliance tarnished by a tenacious verbosity, John Edwards was short, sweet and to the relevant point: we need to change this country. We need to fix the system to make it work for working people. And we need to do that now.
Anyone who's reading this - the netroots are having a historic drive to raise $7 million dollars for John Edwards this Friday, January 18th. This is unaffiliated with the campaign. It is a people powered push.
If you can, please help us. Whatever you do is greatly appreciated. Visit this link for more details: http://www.johnedwards.com/action/contribute/mygrassroots/?page_id=Mjc2MDc
Together, all of us working folks fighting strong, we can win this thing and take our country back.
I'm sitting in my tiny dining room/children's play area/throughway between the living room and the kitchen, listening to The Wiggles sing the virtues of olive oil intermingled with the occassional soft murmurs from my four year old as she plays with her collection of stuffed animals, while my son draws in a Charlie Brown coloring book. Outside a heavy, wet coating of snow weighs down tree branches and gives the world the appearance of being covered in so many cotton puffs, hastily glued by an overly-enthusiastic pre-schooler who just didn't know when to stop.
We are a small family of small means, living our small lives in the small rooms of our small, cozy bungalow. Soon I'll have to fix lunch and start nap time, but before I do I just wanted to share some quick thoughts, ramblings really, about who I am and why our family supports John Edwards.
Of primary importance for us is healthcare. Even having decent health care insurance through my husband's work, we are still paying an exorbitant amount of money. Our premiums just rose this year, and there's no reason to not expect they will rise again. Our health care costs are going up faster than any "cost of living" raises we expect to see. Because of this we just can't get ahead.
John Edwards has the best universal health care proposal, for my money. He is also the candidate that I feel wouldn't quit until it got passed. His plan lowers rates through a combination of mandates and subsidies. By allowing government to compete, families like mine could choose to either keep our insurance or opt for the federal government's plan. This helps my kids stay healthier, and helps me if we choose to have another child, and helps our family by stopping the trend of skyrocketing premiums. This is a central issue for us, and one of the main reasons we support Edwards.
Second on the horizon for me is our foreign policy, which stops our country from addressing the pocketbook issues of working folks by funneling billions of dollars away from domestic programs and into things like bigger and better bombs that one hopes are never used. I feel confident all of our Dems would stop the madness in Iraq, and John has called for our troops to be out in ten months. But beyond that, I want to know what type of foreign policy will stop this nonsense from happening again. John has made ending the Bush doctrine of preventive war a central part of his campaign, and has stated clearly that the neoconservative doctrines that pulled us into this war would have no safe haven in his administration:
George Bush's "preventive war" doctrine was crafted by a radical group of neoconservative Bush administration aides. The doctrine holds that America should shoot first and only ask questions later. It rejects the historic grounding principle of America's national security policy, which is that military force should always be an option of last resort. This radical doctrine was a stunning departure from the policy that kept America safe during both World Wars and during the Cold War. The doctrine led directly to the disastrous war in Iraq and is driving the Bush-Cheney approach today to Iran, including Senator Joe Lieberman's resolution declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
As president, Edwards will get rid of the dangerous "preventive war" doctrine and instead rely on proven national security strategies including overwhelming deterrent strength and retaining every option to address imminent attacks.
For me, it's not enough to talk about how the Iraq war was a mistake, or talk about how we need to get out, or talk about who was right and who was wrong at which moment in history. *For me the important question is: what are you going to do to prevent another Iraq from happening.* And again, for my money, John Edwards has issued the clearest statements and most detailed policies to stop another Iraq from looming on the horizon.
Finally, the overarching issue that is important to me and my family is the economy, and here John Edwards has consistently led. He was the first candidate to correctly evaluate our economy not by who the winners are but by who it leaves behind. He was the first one - even before George Bush - to recognize the tell tale signs of our drift into recession and the first one to put forward an economic stimulus package to address it. And he is the only candidate to look at economic policy holistically, not as a series of tax breaks here and there but how it affects so many aspects of our lives, from energy to health care to education and so many more.
If you want to know more about John and his policies, his issues page really lays out how he will govern as President. The link is here: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/
As a country we're heading for troubled times, times that will call for strong leadership that doesn't just govern by laundry lists and feel good, but that tackles our problems holistically and tells us the hard truths, even when we don't want to hear about it. None of the other candidates in this race hit this right balance for me. That is how John Edwards earned my vote...
...and regardless of how many folks declare his campaign dead, or write him off, or ignore him, he'll continue to have my vote and my support until we decide our nominee.
Okay, I'm gonna borrow a phrase too often used by the folks across the aisle: this is beyond the pale.
The NY Post, under an article titled, "Edwards' Evil Insurance Plan" defends Cigna, calls Edwards - in so many words - a political ambulance chaser and in the process degrades the Sarkisyans and their fight for justice after the death of their daughter from what appears to be unfair claims practices on the part of their insurance company.
Here's a gem quote right here:
But he's [Edwards] too smart not to know that in this case (at the very least) it's dishonest and ignores important public-policy concerns: Cigna didn't kill Sarkisyan, her disease did.
Based on that false premise of blame the sick patient for dying of their disease (instead of blame the multi-billion dollar health care insurance company for denying life saving treatment that doctors said was both necessary and not experimental), the article then goes on to berate Edwards for using these folks as political pawns in his nefarious scheme to become president and give folks universal health care.
The logic - or lack thereof - is astounding in its pretzel-like twists and turns:
Edwards' grandstanding was irresponsible. Livers are scarce, life-saving resources. Far too few are available; thousands of potential recipients die awaiting a transplant. A transplant for Nataline would have doomed another potential liver recipient to death for want of an organ - or subjected a live donor to risky surgery for little likely gain.
Should one potential recipient be jumped over others because John Edwards has found it politically expedient to champion her cause? Should an organ be used for an unproven indication when it's far more likely to save other possible recipients?
We can't expect parents and even the treating physicians to decide that the prospects of success are so slim or uncertain that their daughter or patient shouldn't receive a scarce, life-saving liver. But public officials, particularly ones who aspire to overhaul the health system, must be able to.
Get it? Those pesky doctors and families of sick and dying people are standing in the way of those "responsible" public officials who need to overhaul the health care system. And if you're sick and dying and need a liver transplant, tough. You can't have one because of the next sick and dying person in need of a liver transplant.
The health care battle has already started, folks, with people like John Edwards being painted as the irresponsible public servants trying to fix the system, and folks like - oh, I don't know, your next Republican congressmen in the pocket of the insurance lobby - as the good, honest public servants riding in on their white horses to save the day.
I'm an Edwards supporter, in no small part due to his stance on health care. This is a fight, the fight has already begun, and we're seeing right now how compromised media outlets like the New York Post are going to be waging it.
That's why I firmly believe any attempt at giving these folks a few bought seats at the table will fail. They won't just eat up all the food, they'll blame the rest of us hungry folks for not having enough food to feed ourselves.
There's a revolution happening this first day of the New Year. It isn't on your television screens. You can't read about it in the New York Times or the Washington Post...yet.
But it's all the rage on the blogosphere.
From laptops, and desktops, clad in PJ's and sweats, downing aspirin as they're recovering from New Year's Eve, the political blogosphere is quietly asserting itself against the New Hopeism of Barack Obama.
Let's start with Markos Moulitsos of Daily Kos, who is far from a fervent supporter of John Edwards:
"...Not being blinded by candidate worship, it's easier to sniff out the bullsh**. And you have to have your head stuck deep in the sand to deny that Obama is trying to close the deal by running to the Right of his opponents. And call me crazy, but that's not a trait I generally appreciate in Democrats, no matter how much it might set the punditocracy's hearts a flutter."
Kos is referring to Obama's recent attacks on trial lawyers, unions, and even Al Gore and John Kerry. Add that to the earlier gaffe of having Donnie McClurkin, a gospel singer and proponent of the controversial "ex-gay" movement, sharing the stage with you at a campaign concert fundraiser, and you have a candidate who is running to win the Democratic Party's primary who is simultaneously able to alienate some of its key constiuents.
Politico covers the outrage that unions are feeling against the New Hopeism:
"...I'm taken aback that somebody like Obama would think that Oprah Winfrey has a greater right to participate in the political process than the 4 million people I represent," Edward J. McElroy, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has spent $799,619 on New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's behalf, said, referring to the television host's high-profile support for Obama. "It's sour grapes. It sounds just like the charges the Republicans make."
Gerald W. McEntee, the president of the other major union supporting Clinton, wrote on The Huffington Post that "the Obama campaign's criticism of our political action committee and some of the so-called 527 efforts, such as the one organized in support of [John] Edwards, is troubling because they are suggesting that workers are somehow a special interest, just like insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry..."
"...Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.
How would you react? You could concoct a 'theory of change' and argue that all of this is just deceptive, and the candidate is worth supporting anyway..."
Ian Welsh in Huffington Post does a full frontal assault on the technical aspects of the New Hopeism:
"...Then there's Barack "Consensus" Obama. It's hard to even take this seriously. In 2007 the Republicans in Congress killed, through technical filibusters, almost twice as many bills as any Congress ever has. For the last 7 years, George "I won the vote that matters 5-4" Bush has ruled the country by running rough-shod over the opposition party, giving them essentially nothing. There has been no consensus-driven voting or decision-making in the U.S. in 7 years, and there wasn't that much in the '90s, either. Oh, sure, I understand that Obama and many Americans would like to go back to the land of consensus-driven politics, where there's a center and where everyone works for what is best for America by splitting the difference. It's a pretty picture. But there's no middle left..."
Ezra Klein shrewdly observes that the trend of New Hopeism is actually veering away from anything progressives or liberals would embrace as a victory:
"...But Obama's comfort attacking liberals from the right is unsettling, and if he does win Iowa, it will not be a victory that either supporters or the media ascribe to the more progressive elements of his candidacy. Instead, they will search for the distinctions he's drawn, and, sadly, a number of those distinctions point away from the heart-quickening progressivism of much of this race, and back towards the old politics of centrist caution and status quo bias..."
Finally, the New Hopeism has unfortunately lead Obama to embrace the Harry and Louise talking points that helped to successfully torch universal health care in the 1990's:
So, let's review. The New Hopeism uses right wing talking points against unions and trial lawyers. It calls out Nobel Peace Prize Winner Al Gore and Senator John Kerry for being too divisive (link: http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/lo ngisland/politics/blog/2007/12/obama_gor e_kerry_alienated_hal.html).
And it's willing to alienate the LGBT community by embracing a troubled man pitching a troubled and harmful philosophy of "curing" homosexuality.
On policies it embraces the Harry and Louise arguments against mandates for universal health care and calls social security a "crisis".
This isn't Clintonian triangulation. It's actually worse than that. It's unilaterally disarming before the first shot's been fired.
In the face of the New Hopeism, John Edwards's fighting words are drawing new praise. To quote Ian Welsh:
"...It's time for a new approach, and amongst the three front runners in the Democratic field, that means Edwards. As with FDR, if his approach works, he will be both the most loved and most hated man in America, and some will wring their hands about how divisive that is. But if "unpleasantness" is what is needed to stop going to war illegally, to end the shredding of the Constitution and to stop the destruction of the Middle Class, so be it. An unwillingness to really fight means that those who will, the Republicans, will walk all over those who won't.
The time for the failed politics of compromise is over.
As long as he's opened that door, The New York Times has decided to step right on through it. And you'll be amazed - in the Illinois senate he reversed himself from his current track record.
He showed up.
The problem is, he didn't want to make a decision once he got there.
From the article: (link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22335739/)
"In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature — to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate.
In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted “present,” effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator..."
Now in fairness, Camp Hope has tried to defend this record, saying it was part of a strategy. The article points to 36 times Obama voted "present" alone or with a group of less than six. Fifty-plus times it looks like he was "acting with other Democrats as a part of a strategy".
At issue, really, is whether he abused the "present" vote. From the article:
“...If you are worried about your next election, the present vote gives you political cover,” said Kent D. Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. “This is an option that does not exist in every state and reflects Illinois political culture.”
And that seems to be what he did on the bill highlighted that would allow juveniles to be tried as adults.
I'm bringing all of this up because it seems that Camp Hope HQ is trying to insinuate that John Edwards's entire life experience - from litigating multinational corporations and big insurance companies in the cause of making injured people whole, to speaking out against Bill Clinton's impeachment, and even his personal battles of dealing with the death of his child and having a spouse with terminal cancer - amounts to nothing. Nada. Zilch.
"What have you done?" Arrogantly echoes through the halls of Camp Hope.
Well, when the going got tough what did Obama do? Chose a political duck-and-cover, assisting the bad by not helping the good. And he continues that courageous tradition of caving by voting to fund the war he so valiantly talked about opposing, and selling out working people by being a vocal proponent of the Peru Free Trade Agreement.
In the age of obfuscation and signing statements, that's the last kind of leadership we need in the White House.
Give me a leader who will at least stand up and take responsibility for all of his decisions, even the wrong ones. Give me a leader who can admit when he's wrong and work like heck to right that wrong.
I'll take that any day of the week over someone who wants to hold hands by the campfire, vote "here" when the tough decisions need to be made and who will *actively work* to continue an injustice that he knows is wrong.
These are trying times that call for a tough leader, not a political compromise.
John Edwards is that tough leader. Let's get him into that oval office. Now.
Nonviolence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave. Exercise of nonviolence requires far greater bravery than that of swordsmanship. Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with nonviolence. Translation from swordsmanship to nonviolence is possible and, at times, even an easy stage. Nonviolence, therefore, presupposes ability to strike. It is a conscious deliberate restraint put upon one's desire for vengeance. But vengeance is any day superior to passive, effeminate and helpless submission.--Mohandas Gandhi
And I am sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightists of our nation—the people on the wrong side—have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
King and Gandhi understood the importance of addressing injustice at the moment injustice is occurring. Both advocates of nonviolence, moved by the forces of Satyagraha and Agape Love, they were fighters to the end. Their weapon of choice was nonviolence, but not a passive, meek, "work within the system" nonviolence. King and Gandhi wielded nonviolence as a precise instrument of war for systemic change. All wars - violent and nonviolent - end at the negotiating table. What King and Gandhi understood was that nonviolence allowed someone to approach the negotiating table from a position of strength, and that the use of nonviolence would pave the way for a true peace, a lasting cessation of tensions that could be built on over time because the goal of nonviolence was to redeem both the oppressed and the oppressor.
Some folks like to think of Gandhi as a grandfatherly figure in traditional homespun garb. Some folks like to remember King saying "I have a dream" one day out of the year.
For me, I remember these men as fighters, warriors dedicated to the cause of justice.
I'm not going to put John Edwards - or indeed any presidential candidate - on the level of these two men. But my point is that when Edwards is talking about fighting insurance companies to address the massive injustice of millions of Americans going without healthcare, or making decisions between food and medicine, he's approaching that same path that was trailblazed by these two men years before.
Watch this interview - King was also criticized for his "aggressive" tactics, for not "biding his time, taking it step by step as it goes":
King's response? Privileged classes do not give up their privileges voluntarily. They do not give them up without strong resistance. All of the gains received in civil rights were because folks stood up aggressively in the cause of civil rights. There is an initial response of bitterness, but in the end there is redemption and reconciliation because justice has been achieved.
Now listen to what Edwards is saying about fighting to fix our broken system:
Regardless of who actually gets the Democratic nomination, or indeed who ends up being elected President, Edwards has one thing right: these folks are not going to give up their power voluntarily. It will be an epic battle to get our country back on track. With John Edwards in the White House those of us who want systemic change to fix our country will have a powerful ally.
This isn't about just electing one guy or gal to the job, packing up our stuff and watching American Idol re-runs for the next four years. This election is just one of many salvos in the fight for justice.
For me, a part of that fight is supporting John Edwards for President. Obviously, I'd like anyone reading this to consider supporting him as well.
But regardless of who you support, let's just be clear: after the elections we will have a fight on our hands, and let's joyfully join that cause.
There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?"
snip
We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. (Yes) But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.--Martin Luther King, Jr. "Where Do We Go From Here?"; August, 1967
"With an increase in Americans without health insurance by two million to 47 million, nearly 37 million Americans still living in poverty and continued high levels of inequality, the need for fundamental change in our government is obvious.--John Edwards, Statement on New Census Data On Poverty in America, August, 2007
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a holistic thinker, and someone who saw the problems plaguing mankind through the prism of the inter-related, triple evils of racism, poverty and war. In speaking out against the Vietnam War, King called for the United States to engage in one, final systemic change which he called a "revolution of values" ( http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html ):
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.
All of our Democratic candidates have great ideas and policies to help us right the ship of the nation after eight disasterous years. But for my money - and more than that, for my time, support and dedication - John Edwards has the holistic vision that can help us achieve that revolution of values that King called our nation to embrace over forty years ago.
Civil rights leaders, from Martin Luther King III, to Jesse Jackson, to Harry Belafonte, have praised Edwards for concentrating on the poor. This isn't because this is just one more issue in governance by laundry list. What these civil rights leaders realize is that when you focus on poverty it forces you to view our society in a fundamentally different way. Indeed, it makes you question the *ediface that produces poverty*.
In making poverty a central issue of his campaign - against advice from pundits and advisors and all of those smart folks who feel that this is just a downer issue - Edwards has shown his commitment to this revolution of values by laying out detailed policies on how we can reach this goal:
Creating a Working Society Edwards has outlined a Working Society initiative to lift 12 million Americans out of poverty in a decade and beat poverty over the next 30 years. In the Working Society, everyone who is able to work hard will be expected to work and, in turn, be rewarded for it. The initiative includes major new policies in the areas of work, housing, education, debt and savings, and family responsibility.
If you visit his issues page, Edwards outlines specifics behind this vision, including increasing the minimum wage, creating stepping stone jobs and making it easier for workers to unionize: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/
Our country needs a change of direction, but more than that we are still in need of a revolution of values. By addressing the issue of poverty, Edwards is putting us on that road. Harry Belafonte expressed this last week when he endorsed Edwards for President:
"I also happen to believe that had he not so forcefully and precisely put the issue of poverty into this campaign, I don't think we'd be talking aobut it as much as we are," Belafonte said.
Our revolution of values shouldn't start next year, next decade or in the middle of someone's second term. It needs to start today. For me, that's why I'm supporting Edwards and volunteering for him in the following weeks. I'd like to invite folks to take a look at Edwards and if you agree, help him win the nomination and then the Presidency.
It isn't class warfare to talk about this - this is the truth. --John Edwards, DNC Winter Meeting Speech
But story, or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain, the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls resounded with the dread word of treason and its price -- the gallows and the headman's axe. As the day wore on the issue hung in the balance, and then, according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had brought them to this moment he said, “Sign that parchment. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope, to the slave in the mines -- freedom.”--Ronald Reagan, The Shining City Upon A Hill
John Edwards is delivering the long-overdue Democratic response to Reagan's speech, The Shining City Upon A Hill. Long lauded by conservatives as one of Reagan's seminal speeches, it interlaces an American nostaglia steeped in mysticism with concepts now foreign to the GOP, things like "even a land as rich as ours can't go on forever borrowing against the future", and a reverence for the Constitution as "probably the most unique document ever drawn in the long history of man's relation to man", and "never again will young Americans be asked to fight and possibly die for a cause unless that cause is so meaningful that we, as a nation, pledge our full resources to achieve victory as quickly as possible." Talk about the party of flip-flops!
But I digress.
Reagan also presents in this speech the case for trickle-down economics being in the best interest *of working men and women*:
Standardization means production for the masses and the assembly line means more leisure for the worker -- freedom from backbreaking and mind-dulling drudgery that man had known for centuries past. Karl Marx did not abolish child labor or free the women from working in the coal mines in England – the steam engine and modern machinery did that.
snip
One-half of all the economic activity in the entire history of man has taken place in this republic. We have distributed our wealth more widely among our people than any society known to man. Americans work less hours for a higher standard of living than any other people. Ninety-five percent of all our families have an adequate daily intake of nutrients -- and a part of the five percent that don't are trying to lose weight! Ninety-nine percent have gas or electric refrigeration, 92 percent have televisions, and an equal number have telephones. There are 120 million cars on our streets and highways -- and all of them are on the street at once when you are trying to get home at night. But isn't this just proof of our materialism -- the very thing that we are charged with? Well, we also have more churches, more libraries, we support voluntarily more symphony orchestras, and opera companies, non-profit theaters, and publish more books than all the other nations of the world put together.
Reaganomics was always framed in terms of the benefit to the *common man*. Reagan himself pitched people on its acceptance as choosing "freedom over security".
Recent history has proven him wrong. In all aspects of the abject failure of "small government", ranging from the failure to rebuild Iraq, the still-muddled response to Katrina, the mortgage crisis, the almost-weekly announcement of another toxic substance in your toddler's apple juice or lead paint on his beloved toy, history has shown us the problem of pursuing Reagan's myth-filled vision to its logical conclusion.
Now is the time to deliver the Democratic response to Reagan's flawed policies. This past week, John Edwards did exactly that, both at the DNC Winter Meeting and at the Heartland Presidential Forum:
Edwards is answering nostaglia with reality. The Shining City Upon A Hill has become a gated community, excluding most Americans from its promise:
There's a wall outside Washington and we need to take it down. The American people are on the outside. And on the other side, on the inside, are the powerful, the well-connected and the very wealthy. That wall didn't build itself or appear overnight. For decades politicians without conviction and powerful interests gathered their bricks and their stones and their motar, and they went to work. They went to work to protect their interests, to block the voice of the American people, and to stop our country's progress. They went to work to protect, and defend, and maintain the status quo.
snip
Every single day, working men and women see that wall when they have to split their bills into two piles, pay now and pay later; when they watch the factory door shut for the last time; when they see the disappointment on their son or daughter's face when there's no money to pay for college. Every single day they see that wall when they have to use the emergency room as a doctor's office for their son because they can't afford to pay for healthcare.
And the Republicans, the party of Reagan who once at least at one time connected with working men and women? Where are they now?
In denial. They've been living inside that gated community for so long they've forgotten there's a world that exists outside its walls:
Now isn't the time to only ask ourselves, "who can beat the Republicans". Don't get me wrong, I would like to see a win for the Democrats in 2008 just as much as many other people in our party.
There's a deeper, more fundamental question that we have to confront: who can undo the harm that the Republicans have left us with? Who can reverse the extremist philosophies that have eroded the promise of America for so many of its citizens?
John Edwards is showing a clear, competing vision to extremist neocon doctrines that have ruled the GOP and our country:
We have a choice in this election. We can keep trying to shout over that wall. We can keep trying to knock out a chink here and there, to punch little holes in it and hope to get our voices through. We can settle for baby-steps, or half measures and incremental change, and try and inch our way over that wall or toward a better future.
What does a candidate who takes strong positions, tells folks he won't back down and whose campaign is fueled by a progressive populist agenda get?
Votes.
He also wins over Republicans after they watch *their own party's* debate:
Someone like Jim Geraghty at National Review may whine, saying "where do they find these people?" ( http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTM4Y2ZiY2MyMTZjMTI5OGM3NWE1OTRjNThhMjY0YzE= ) but it's clear that even older Republicans are ready for someone to stand up and finally lead this country.
I'm an Edwards supporter. I've written my fare share of diaries praising him when he's given great speeches or hit home runs at Democratic debates.
But I've never been given the opportunity to do some candidate cheerleading after a debate where the candidate didn't even show up.
Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured. --Martin Luther King, Jr. "Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution"
Many researchers, led by scientists like NASA's James Hansen, now agree that an increase in global average temperature beyond 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit could constitute a "tipping point" leading to irreversible, extreme climate changes. If global carbon emissions continue to rise, principally from coal-fired power plants and cars, the Earth could easily reach that point by 2050.
In ominous tones, the report agrees: "Human activities could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts. The risks are related to the rate and magnitude of the climate change." -- "A Little Time Left On Global Warming", New Jersey Star Ledger, November 16th, 2007
Martin Luther King, Jr. is known for many things: his leadership of the civil rights movement, his outspokenness against the war in Vietnam and even his support of unions and advocacy of the poor. What he is less known for is the way that he looked at things, how he saw all life as interconnected.
And how he eschewed the "drug of gradualism" and incremental change.
Take for instance his response to a group of local clergy in Birmingham, Alabama, which was later published as the "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". The clergy had argued to King to push for small, incremental change. Why couldn't King just quietly negotiate? King outlined for them the attempts at negotiations:
Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises Rev. Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. Like so many experiences of the past we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us.
Basically, King is telling them: we met, promises were made, and nothing happened. And instead of waiting, and talking, and meeting some more, we need to push for change now. This doesn't mean "don't negotiate". What it means is negotiate from a position of moral strength. As King continues:
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
Nonviolent direct action doesn't always mean literally taking to the streets. The King Center's online guide to the Six Steps of Nonviolence lists several different ways to take direct action (link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/prog/non/6steps.html ). They can be as large and visible and strikes or walk outs, or as individual as letter writing campaigns...or as public as proposing legislation to remove a basic human right like access to health care from members of Congress until universal health care for all is achieved.
But I digress.
The politics in Birmingham that King mentions at the time are relevant. The City of Birmingham had just held elections, and the new administration was more tolerant, more forward-looking than the last. Why, oh why, Dr. King, couldn't you just restart the negotiations with this new administration?
Here is King's response (my emphasis added):
The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.
So, negotiating small incremental change with individual people of good will does not result in the course correction needed to address an injustice. As King wisely noted, even though some key players may be on your side, groups are more immoral than individuals.
Fine. So, what do we do? Throw up our hands? Not at all...
You go back to the Six Steps of Nonviolence - I'll outline them for you here:
1. Information Gathering 2. Education 3. Personal Commitment 4. Negotiations 5. Direct Action 6. Reconciliation
And you ask yourself: did I gather all of the information I needed to understand both the dynamics of the problem, the root causes of the problem and is my proposal going to address these root causes, or will it just be a simple band-aid? Have I educated others regarding what the problem is, and what I intend to do to fix it? Have I broadcast my intentions loudly enough so folks know what I want to do and how I plan on doing it? Am I committed enough to my cause? Am I prepared for any slings and arrows coming my way? Have I tried to dialogue with my opponents, and confront them to discuss the problem and the solutions? Have I understood where they are coming from, and is it possible to find common ground? And finally...how effective was my direct action? Did it apply the pressure needed to get the parties back to negotiate?
If you go through these steps, King believed, you will find reconciliation. This is a true peace, where the ultimate outcome is removing the systemic problem that created the injustice.
This is systemic change.
You use systemic change when you have a systemic problem...and ain't no bigger systemic problem today on the planet than global warming. It touches every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, how we get to and from work, how our children are educated, what our foreign policy is, and even what each of our domestic household budgets look like.
You can't solve a systemic problem like this with incremental change. You can't just tweak the status quo a little here, and a little there, and expect to deal with the *root causes* of this issue. It's too massive to be dealt with incrementally.
That's why, in my humble opinion, Senator Clinton is *dead wrong* when she says "incremental change is the way to go" to handle this issue:
Incremental change is the only way to go unless there’s some major event like Pearl Harbor or 9/11: if Al Gore had been president, we would have had an energy and climate change program after 9/11. But ultimately, it’s imperative we get something passed and implement it, so that we can persuade Americans that it won’t be disruptive or lower their standard of living, but will actually create jobs and do good. We'll have to put together a smart coalition to withstand the attacks that will come. I'm aware of the difficulty, but I feel confident.
Link and a nod to thereisnospoon, as I have been unable to find a transcript of Senator Clinton's remarks independent of the one he provided from live blogs: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/19/62124/121
King's admonition of the fierce urgency of now could not be any more relevant today then when he spoke these words almost forty years ago when he delivered his "Beyond Vietnam" sermon at the Riverside Church:
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out deperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..."
I've been cruising the blogs for some time now, and I've always been intrigued at the ardent Hillary Clinton supporters I've found on the web. I'm intrigued because, frankly, they're some of the angriest people out there.
My purely anecdotal experience in talking with some of these folks is their number one, big, huge, over-riding reason for supporting Hillary Clinton is not that she will push for the changes necessary to address things like Iraq, health care and global warming. It is not that she will address the gross economic inequities that have lead to working folks barely able to get by. It isn't that she'll even do anything about our outrageous gas prices or halt the spread of the Iraq war to neighboring states like Iran.
It's that...she'll rub the Rethuglican's noses in it. Yes, I am using the term "Rethuglican" because more often than not this is how these folks refer to our fellow human beings who register themselves with the GOP. While Hillary Clinton herself speaks of the wonders of compromise, and incremental change, and How Lobbyists Are People, Too, her most ardent supporters are pinning their hopes and dreams on the day that they can turn to their conservative coworkers at the water cooler and give them the glare that says "we beat you, stuff it!"
Forget issue oriented politics. Forget the fact that you might actually need the support of some of these folks in order to govern.
Forget the fact that it is our system that is the problem: the lobbyists who corrupt it; the corporate media who acquiesces to it and the politcians who have a vested interest in business as usual.
No, let's all turn our hatred and ire on our brothers and sisters who are struggling to make ends meet, who also have a vested interest in fixing global warming and who also want us to get out of Iraq like it was yesterday. Let's engage in the same politics of division that we've been doing for the past eight years, but this time let's put a Democrat in office. That'll show 'em.
And while we're so busy "showing 'em", the artic ice cap will continue to melt, soldiers and civilians will continue to die in Iraq and possibly Iran, millions of families will not be able to get the health care we need and our corrupted system will still let in lead-enhanced toddler toys and toxic apple juice in the name of unfettered, unregulated free trade.
Democrats: we are better than this. Yes, it is right to be outraged at the state of our nation right now. But let's direct the outrage at the folks who deserve it: the corporate lobbyists who have corrupted our democractic system and the politicians that have let them do it. Don't be horn-swaggled into thinking that one-upping Bob at the office will make your life any better. Bob ain't your problem.
The problem lies with politicians who excuse the corrupt system, who think that small, incremental change and protecting the status quo is the way to make our country better.
We are better than this. We can elect politicians that are better than this. We can elect folks like John Edwards, who understand that you can't accept big money and expect big change.
What a difference some pre-planning makes. During the last debate the last five minutes were actually pretty darn interesting, filled with discussions on issues...or at least trying to sort out exactly where the front runner stood on the issues.
And tonight? What was The Final, Great Question of the Evening, the One On Everyone's Minds? Why, it was...
Does Hillary Clinton favor diamonds or pearls?
Oh, my!
I have a nasty internal cynic. It jumps out at me from time to time, regardless of how well I try to squelch its gleeful moroseness. Tonight it was in full force.
Before listening to the debates I heard an interesting rumor floating around the blogosphere that John Edwards was going to participate in the Writer's Guild of America strike tomorrow. Wow, I thought to myself, that's really walking your talk. How great to have a Presidential candidate walk off of a debate and onto a picket line.
And then...the debate started. Edwards shoved to the far corner of the floor. Hillary and Obama front and center. The thunderous applause for Senator Clinton as she walked in the room.
My internal cynic pounced:
"Look!" It cried, mouth agape. "He's supporting the writer's strike, and CNN is owned by Time Warner. The fix is in!"
"No." I reasoned with it, stroking its forehead. "That's just random. Bad luck of the draw. There's nothing untoward happening."
And then the debate went on. And on. And on. No real interaction between the candidates. Edwards using the brief time he was allotted to make stunningly transcendent statements about the need to make this debate about something greater than who got whom, and focus on the folks out there who need our help. To finally get some backbone and fight for what's right.
As the minutes dripped away my internal cynic groused around, kicking the cobwebs in my head as it complained about the lack of time given to Edwards, and Wolf Blitzer's failure to follow up to get clarity on anything from the Democratic frontrunner.
Finally, my internal cynic and I sat and listened with rapt attenion as Barack Obama was able to corner Hillary Clinton on an upstate-New York, Westchester County elitism that holds that someone making over $90,000 is "middle class", when that defines only 6% of the folks living in this country. Hillary started to try to say that this was really about her constituents and then -
We cut to commercial. A commercial about a hedge fund protecting the wealth of a fictional woman who owns multiple luxury properties in multiple countries.
"But wait just a little while longer." I insisted, as my internal cynic writhed in the painful irony of it all. "The really important part of the last debate was in the last few minutes. There's still time."
And then, in the last few minutes, a young girl in the audience asked...if Hillary Clinton Preferred Diamonds or Pearls.
Don't you hate it when your internal cynic is right?
Millions of people have no health care insurance in our country right now. Millions more have "junk insurance", that doesn't cover what they need to have covered when they get sick. Millions more are holding off on retiring because they can't afford the health care coverage on their own.
And then there's working folks like my husband and myself who are seeing our net pay decrease, even after cost of living raises, due to ever increasing health care costs.
That's the problem. Here's John Edwards's solution:
"...When I'm president I'm going to say to members of Congress and members of my administration, including my Cabinet: I'm glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009, in six months, I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you. There's no excuse for politicians in Washington having health care when you don't have health care."
And here's Big Media's Retreat From Our Health Care Debate:
"...While a President Edwards could mount public pressure based on the 47 million Americans who lack health insurance, Congress is, to put it mildly, unlikely to relinquish its own coverage. In fact, some experts argue that such a law would violate the 27th Amendment's ban on "varying the compensation" of members of Congress without an intervening election. Schultz said Edwards would ask senior administration officials to voluntarily give up their health coverage if he fails to pass universal coverage..."
So, let me get this straight. There's an injustice of epic proportions happening in this country, because millions of our citizens can't get the health care they need.
And we can't fix that because...proposing legislation to Congress to remove their own health care coverage until the rest of us poor schlubs have it is unconstitutional?
Run that past me again?
Didn't we have a little thing in this country called a revolution? Wasn't a part of that whole thing addressing the denial of basic rights and freedoms for everyone, not just protecting them for the very few in charge of the government?
Isn't access to health care a basic right? Shouldn't that be protected by our Constitution?
When our Constitution was unjust in the past, or failed to address an injustice, we changed it. And if you're telling me that the Constitution currently promotes an injustice - by allowing some folks to have access to a basic right that is simultaneously denied to others - isn't it time to change the Constitution?
When our country was comprised of small printing presses, folks like Thomas Paine used them to promote the radical ideas of freedom and liberty, and the idea that you don't have to be a member of the ruling class to have access to basic rights.
Now our country's media is run by megalith corporations who distribute their news and opinion pieces via broadcast, cable, satellite and the internet, in addition to the good, old fashioned printing press. And instead of using this power to argue for basic rights and freedoms, they are now arguing exactly the opposite: that those in charge of our government should have access to a basic right that ordinary citizens do not have guaranteed access to...because they are in the government.
The in-tuned blogosphere already knows a lot about John Edwards: the endorsements he's received by state SEIU chapters including the important states of Iowa and New Hampshire; the endorsement by Friends of the Earth and the most recent endorsement by Iowans for Sensible Priorities. Folks are also aware of his calls for an end to the corrupt system in Washington, D.C., a system he defines as being "rigged" against all of us people who work for a living.
At first blush, this may seem like smart politics. Appealing to the base. Riding the wave of middle class anger. But there's something a lot more profound going on here, something that is an anti-Bush, Rove-free approach to democratic politics.
Come follow me and I'll tell you what I mean...
If you're going to try to fix a problem or address an injustice, there's a few ways to go about it. You could, for instance, focus on the immediate problem at hand and do a lessons-learned analysis (for instance, not putting a well-connected but incompetent fellow in charge of FEMA, and just hope that disaster doesn't strike). You could also do some investigations to try and examine the immediate causes of the injustice (for instance, holding hearings on how billions of dollars were just misplaced in Iraq, never to be heard from again). Or, you could try to look at the whole mess holistically, peel away the layers and get to the core issue. You could also look at where we are, where we need to be and set out a roadmap for how to get there.
That's what Edwards is doing, and that's what makes him a truly unique candidate...especially if you want *change*.
Peruse the Edwards website and you'll come across the issues page: http://johnedwards.com/issues/ . On that issues page you'll see the following three main areas, with links to specific policy proposals:
1. Standing up for Regular Families, including links to policy proposals for universal healthcare, poverty, policies to improve the quality of life in rural America, strengthen food safety and other policies and programs that reach out to and improve the quality of life for the individual.
2. Restoring America's Leadership Role In The World. Here you'll find Edwards's foreign policy and proposals that shape how our nation is viewed across the world, including the areas of Iraq, Iran, terrorism, civil liberties and global poverty (for my own analysis of Edwards's foreign policy, including his firm stance against preventive war, please see this diary: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/6/17523/4824 ).
3. Investing In Our Future And Our Communities, an area which addresses policies and proposals that impact health and well-being of the community at large, including the areas of global warming, education, open media, veterans and civil rights.
All three of these main areas affect each other, and all of the policies inside of these three areas also impact other policies. Everything is inter-related. All of the pieces and parts of the proposals need to work together in harmony in order to create the systemic change we need to reclaim our country.
Finally, none of this can happen, none of this systemic change can take place unless we remove the influence of lobbyist money in politics. Bill Bradley outlines in this in this June, 2007 talk on how the influence of lobbyists can corrupt these policies through an "unstated connection" between the contribution and the result of that contribution:
Sure, John Edwards is a great orator, and there's wonderful speakers across the field of Democratic presidential candidates. But to get systemic change you need more than just speeches: you need well thought-out policies and proposals so you can hit the ground running and start creating that change as soon as you're elected. You need a roadmap, and Edwards provides an impressive one that shows us the steps we can take to fix our problems, take care of our citizens and become a respected member of the community of nations once again.
Here’s what they mean by preventive war—if we see a possible threat, we go to war; we don’t exhaust diplomatic, political, and economic options, we go straight to war. Under this Bush doctrine, military force is no longer the option of last resort.
snip
Now, I want to be very clear about something. I believe very strongly that any commander-in-chief must retain the right to respond with appropriate force when there’s real intelligence about an imminent threat to America.
But there is a difference between doing everything in our power to keep America safe and a reckless, belligerent policy that actually makes us less safe. The preventive war doctrine was a stunning departure from the policy that had kept America safe during both world wars and during the Cold War. It is wrong on the merits, wrong on the morals, and wrong for America.
From John Edwards's "Learning the Lesson of Iraq: A New Strategy for Iran". Link: http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/11/5/122520/049
I've seen a number of diaries lately question what John Edwards's foreign policy vis a vis Iran would be. Would he invade Iran? What does "leaving all options on the table" really mean in our post 9/11, post-Bush the Younger world?
The purpose of this diary is to discuss Edwards's foreign policy, both in broadstroke and specifically with regard to Iraq, Iran and terrorism. The purpose of this diary is not to play "gotcha". No other candidates will be "called out". These are literally life and death issues as they deal with war and peace, and my hope is that we treat them with the proper amount of gravity and respect that they deserve.
Removing the Bush Doctrine of "Preventive War"
That being said, let's start with broadstrokes. Edwards is a multilateralist, which basically means he favors a "concert of nations" approach to international conflict resolution. Whether discussing Iran, Iraq or terrorism, or indeed other transnational issues like Global Warming or poverty, Edwards leads with statements like the one he wrote in his essay for Foreign Affairs:
Rather than alienating the rest of the world through assertions of infallibility and demands of obedience, as the current administration has done, U.S. foreign policy must be driven by a strategy of reengagement. We must reengage with our history of courage, liberty, and generosity. We must reengage with our tradition of moral leadership on issues ranging from the killings in Darfur to global poverty and climate change. We must reengage with our allies on critical security issues, including terrorism, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation. With confidence and resolve, we must reengage with those who pose a security threat to us, from Iran to North Korea. And our government must reengage with the American people to restore our nation's reputation as a moral beacon to the world, tapping into our fundamental hope and optimism and calling on our citizens' commitment and courage to make this possible. We must lead the world by demonstrating the power of our ideals, not by stoking fear about those who do not share them.
This is in contrast to the Bush administration, which favors a unilateralist approach in any conflict they really want to take on (note that the glaring exception of this is North Korea, which the Bush administration in my opinion has just simply placed on the back burner, in favor of utilizing their time and resources in trying to clean up Iraq, escalate the conflict with Iran and deal with all of the known and unknown knowns and unknowns that arise along the way).
In September, 2002, President Bush put on paper his administration's policy of "preventive war". This doctrine holds that the United States can take action against threats "before they are fully formed", which flies in the face of years of international jurisprudence regarding the right of a State to defend itself from imminent attack. As the Brookings Institute explained:
The concept is not limited to the traditional definition of preemption—striking an enemy as it prepares an attack—but also includes prevention—striking an enemy even in the absence of specific evidence of a coming attack. The idea principally appears to be directed at terrorist groups as well as extremist or "rogue" nation states; the two are linked, according to the strategy, by a combination of "radicalism and technology.
As quoted in "Preventive War and International Law After Iraq", link: http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm
It is this doctrine of preventive war that Edwards railed against in his Foreign Affairs article when he called the "War on Terror" a "bumpersticker":
But I believe we must stay on the offensive against both terrorism and its causes. The "war on terror" approach has backfired, straining our military to the breaking point while allowing the threat of terrorism to grow. "War on terror" is a slogan designed for politics, not a strategy to make the United States safe. It is a bumper sticker, not a plan. Worst of all, the "war on terror" has failed. Instead of making the United States safer, it has spawned even more terrorism -- as we have seen so tragically in Iraq -- and left us with fewer allies.
He has also specifically stated that the doctrine of preventive war has no safe haven in an Edwards administration:
First and foremost, we need to ensure that the preventive war doctrine goes where it belongs—the trash-heap of history. As he has done with so much else, Vice President Al Gore got it right about the preventive war doctrine. In 2002—the same year that George Bush introduced his preventive war doctrine—Gore made a speech at the Commonwealth Club in California. He said, and I quote, “What this doctrine does is to destroy the goal of a world in which states consider themselves subject to law, particularly in the matter of standards for the use of violence against each other. That concept would be displaced by the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the President of the United States.”
These are especially chilling words to read five years later—after Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and the president’s refusal to condemn torture, and they are particularly relevant to the situation with Iran.
The only instance Edwards would use force in a pre-emptive strike is in the instance of imminent threat, and he would therefore return the United States to the norms of accepted international law with regard to the use of force.
Terrorism
So, how would an Edwards administration deal with an issue like international terrorism? By using a multilateral approach to deal not just with security and counter-terrorism, but also with systemic issues like poverty that help terrorism to take root. He plans to implement this multilateral approach through a newly formed organization, the Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization (CITO):
Every nation has an interest in shutting down terrorism. CITO will create connections between a wide range of nations on terrorism and intelligence, including countries on all continents, including Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. New connections between previously separate nations will be forged, creating new possibilities.
CITO will allow members to voluntarily share financial, police, customs and immigration intelligence. Together, nations will be able to track the way terrorists travel, communicate, recruit, train, and finance their operations. And they will be able to take action, through international teams of intelligence and national security professionals who will launch targeted missions to root out and shut down terrorist cells.
The new organization will also create a historic new coalition. Those nations who join will, by working together, show the world the power of cooperation. Those nations who join will also be required to commit to tough criteria about the steps they will take to root out extremists, particularly those who cross borders. Those nations who refuse to join will be called out before the world.
It's important to note that CITO is not a panacea, nor will it be perfect. But it would represent the first step in a new direction. As President John F. Kennedy observed when he signed the treaty that first limited the testing of nuclear weapons, we must begin with the common recognition of a common danger. President Kennedy said then, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." Today, this new anti-terrorism organization would be such a first step.
Think of CITO as a NATO that is specifically tasked to fight global terrorism. Is it needed? Absolutely. Global terrorism is our generation's Cold War - it probably won't go away within our lifetimes and it is a big enough and - with enhanced global communication technology - a new enough threat to warrant an international organization of people who live, breath and eat how to combate it within the rule of international law (instead of leaving it up to the next belligerent superpower to sort out on their ownsome).
For the snapshot of Edwards's full plan to combat terrorism, visit his issues page here: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/terrorism/
Iraq
In-tuned and hep bloggers are probably most familiar with this part of Edwards's foreign policy, so I'll be brief: immediate draw-down of 40,000-50,000 combat troops, a cessastion of combat missions and a standing force to protect the embassy and humanitarian endeavors in country.
For more of Edwards's Iraq policy, visit his issues page here: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/iraq/
Iran
The main thing that sticks out for me in Edwards's approach to Iran is his insistence on including Russia and China in dealing with Iran as part of his consistent multilateralism:
We must work with China and Russia on the problem of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Both nations have economic relationships with Iran on trade and energy. But both nations also have a strong interest in stability in the Middle East. And neither nation wants the nuclear club to expand. In the first year of my administration, I will convene a conference with my Secretary of State and representatives from the “E.U. 3”—Great Britain, France, and Germany—Russia, China—and Iran, to discuss a way out of the stalemate of the Bush administration.
The problem with the current sanctions authorized under Kyl-Lieberman and implemented by the Bush administration is that they are practically unilateral in nature. Couple this with the Bush doctrine of preventive war, and you have a number of our European allies uncomfortable in backing them, Russia and China not supporting them at all and Iran defiantly saying they will have no effect on their nuclear program (check out news articles on this here: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL3051339620071106 and here: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=182484&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17 ).
Indeed, John Bolton, the Mighty Moustache, the Guy Who Roots for Diplomacy to fail, gleefully opined in today's New York Post:
I believe it was obvious from the outset that Iran wasn't going to renounce its quest for nuclear weapons voluntarily because it was part of a much larger strategy. The stakes were and are high: whether Iran and its radical Shiite version of Islam become dominant throughout the Muslim world, whether largely Persian Iran achieves effective hegemony in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East and whether a nuclear, terror-financing Iran emerges on the global stage as a real power.
snip
Regime change in Iran is the preferred option, and a feasible one given the regime's weakness. Rampant economic discontent caused by 28 years of economic mismanagement, the desires of younger Iranians to be freed from the mullahs' theology and dissatisfaction among Iran's ethnic minorities are all fertile breeding grounds for discontent. If we had supported and encouraged this dissent for the last four years, we might now be on the verge of regime change.
Absent regime change, the targeted use of force against Iran's program is the only option left. Risky and unattractive as it is, the choice may well be between the use of force and a nuclear Iran, which is really not a choice at all. Iran is already asserting itself in ways profoundly hostile to our interests and those of our close friends. Imagine adding Iranian nuclear weapons to that equation. That's why surrender is not an option.
The issue with regard to Iran is this: do you really believe the Bush administration is willing and able to use sanctions in order to competently pursue diplomacy that results in peaceful conflict resolution? If not...don't give them the ability to escalate this conflict through practically unilateral sanctions, as it gives guys like Bolton just more air in their lungs to pronounce the Death of Diplomacy.
For more on Edwards's policy regarding Iran, visit this link: http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/iran/
Bottom line: a multilateral approach to conflict resolution, that removes the doctrine of preventive war and returns the United States to operating within the standards of international law is sorely needed right now, and this is the foreign policy Edwards is proposing. As Edwards stated in his recent speech on Iran:
In his first inaugural speech, in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt rejected the failed Republican policy of military intervention in Latin America and Europe. Instead, he told the nation, we should “dedicate this Nation to the policy of the Good Neighbor . . . the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.”
Was it over Kyl-Lieberman? Iraq? Hsu? Fundraising? Corporate influence?
No.
It was over...driver's licenses.
Specifically, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
Here's the short version: Elliot Spitzer, the firebrand Governor of the State of New York, is proposing that illegal immigrants be granted driver's licenses in the context of his state trying to deal with the many, many illegal immigrants living in the shadows and away from the law.
Hillary Clinton stated she supported this legislation...until...Chris Dodd called her on it, saying that a driver's license is a priviledge, not a right. Senator Clinton then did her standard backpedal:
1. It's all George Bush's fault
2. I'm for this in theory but I don't agree with the specifics
Edwards then went in for the knock out punch: we need to have a President who says the same thing regardless of who she - or he - is saying it to.
It's about being in truth-telling mode all the time.
Not wanting to be left off the bandwagon, Obama joined in with his ten seconds of "me, too"...but this moment belonged to the tag team of Edwards and Dodd, who got Clinton on the ropes and didn't let her recover.
It revealed Clinton's main weakness: she dissembles, trying to carefully craft her messages so specifically to different audiences that eventually she just ends up completely contradicting herself until you're really not sure where she stands on anything.
And here's what I have to say about all of that: Edwards/Dodd 08!
This feels like Part 2 of an untitled series on rural America and John Edwards. This time coverage of rural Purple State America comes to you via the Rocky Mountain Times.
...In this far-flung, northwestern corner of Iowa, it's "almost kind of scary" to be anything but a Republican, she said.
Lyon County, which touches South Dakota and Minnesota, gave President Bush 78 percent of the vote in 2004. It's part of the big, red, rural block that Bush used to eke out the narrowest of victories in the Hawkeye State that year.
In these parts, "A lot of times you don't brag about being a Democrat," said McCarty, 72, of Larchwood, Iowa. "But it's getting better."
That could explain the elbow-to-elbow crowd that greeted Edwards at the firehouse - and the grin Edwards had when he was talking to reporters afterward.
"I do have to say, I was remembering the last time I was up here," Edwards said, thinking back to the 2004 campaign. "We had five, seven people. . . ."
Things are definitely happening among the Bush believers of rural America. After Katrina, after Iraq, after their homes values have dropped and their dollar just doesn't buy as much as it used to, a lot of them have just stopped believing.
My gauge on this one is my dad. My dad is your prototypical Republican voter. White. Male. Protestant. Small town. The breed of working American who somehow can't bring himself to use the phrase "working class" when describing his economic status.
Before Katina, he almost exclusively watched Fox News (I remember a discussion we had in the time share where we all were staying where I negotiated the MSNBC Compromise). He listens to Rush...and actually enjoys the experience!
But then, after Katrina, something happened to my dad. A fervent believer his whole life (in both Christianity and conservative values) he started to question his beliefs. To illustrate, let me share with you my paraphrased recollection of an instant message we had one night a few weeks back:
Dad: What is KOS?
Me: KOS? What do you mean, KOS?
Dad: They're talking about it in the news. KOS. What is that?
Me (really not getting it): KOS? Do you mean K.O.S.? Or like cuz - because?
Dad: No. They're saying KOS uses bad words and lies about people. What is it?
Me (when the light dawns): Do you mean Kos, as in Daily Kos? The blog?
Dad: Yeah.
Me: Dad, I blog over there. They don't use words that are any worse than any other blog. Here, check out the link right now: www.dailykos.com.
Dad (after a few minutes): Yeah, I don't see anything wrong over there.
Me: Exactly.
Dad: That's not right. When they're reporting stuff they should let you know the whole story.
At which point my head exploded and I launched into a very nice rant about Fox News.
My point in bringing up this story is this is just one of many times recently where my dad has questioned Fox, and Rush, and Bush, and basically the whole God, Guns and Gays agenda of the far right (although my dad's never been much of a gun nut - he just hangs out with them sometimes). If you've ever met someone like my dad, seeing the propaganda shell he's hid himself in cracking right before your eyes is a beautiful thing.
But it's not just my dad.
A lot of rural Americans are questioning what used to be the unquestionable assumption that just like going to church and rooting for the local college football team, they were just going to vote for whatever Republican was on the ballot. More than that, they're starting to question why they've been doing that for so long.
It's almost like they're starting to feel that the GOP has been taking them on a for-granted ride since Reagan first uttered the phrase "Government is the enemy".
Democrats are poised to pitch these folks on a different path. A Competing Big Vision. Edwards is wide and deep down this road already, talking to folks about the things that are important to them: their pocketbooks, their health and their livelihood. Economic populism had its roots in the rural communities of the 19th Century, and every few generations it comes back again in the form of a William Jennings Bryan or a Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Edwards isn't the only one trying to harness this potential power. Obama has just released an agricultural plan that's pretty darn good reading, and Richardson talks a good huntin' game.
But for my money, Edwards is the one whose strategy includes focusing on these folks and bringing them back to their populist roots. Such a strategy, if successful, could garner Democrats a landslide, the reverberations of which could last for years to come.
