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Today's
Stories
January 8,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old)
January 7,
2008
Chris Floyd
There
Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities
John Blair
Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana
Uri Avnery
The Case of the White Bird
Andy Worthington
Who Are the Gitmo Saudis?
Binoy Kampmark
Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court
David Macaray
Women on Strike
Ralph Nader
Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood
Michael Donnelly
It's the War Vote(s), Stupid!
Ron Jacobs
Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough?
Gideon Levy
The Hostile President
Dave Lindorff
A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb
Website of
the Day
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
January 5 /
6, 2008
Douglas Valentine
Good
Guys in Black Hoods
Kevin Young
The
US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
Richard Rhames
Saddam
Who?
Saul Landau
Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory
Marc Lynch
Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing
Robert Fantina
Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War
Donna Volatile
Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr.
Jelle Bruinsma
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands
Bob Sutcliffe
Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist
Harvey Wasserman
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance
Missy Beattie
Why Obama Can't Save Us
David Swanson
Remembering the Separation of Powers
Jacob Hornberger
The Importance of the Padilla Case
Shepherd Bliss
Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms
Ron Jacobs
Bleeding Kansas
Poets' Basement
Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime
Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench
Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station
Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began
Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism
Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids
Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease
Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
|
January
8, 2008
A Strategy for
Rebuilding the Peace Movement
After
Iowa and New Hampshire
By JONATHAN M. FELDMAN
Presidential elections, and electoral
politics more generally, are often a source for mass confusion.
The confusion is based on what Freud termed "the overvaluation
of the object." He was describing the overvaluation of
the object of desire, leading to various fetishes that displaced
objects of longing in places sometimes deemed abnormal. One can
make a fetish of any candidate or the opportunistic character
of most politicians and the electoral process. One might celebrate
the sense of the possible in Obama, the union backed populism
of Edwards, or even Clinton's parries with the health insurance
industry. There are virtues to these candidates and weaknesses
(if not fatal flaws) when it comes to their ability-or that of
the larger electoral system-to address the central problems facing
us. Or one could call elections "traps for fools" as
Jean-Paul Sartre once did. All these things are more or less
relevant, but slightly beside the point.
What's more relevant is the
structural realignment of the Democratic Party. Stanley Aronowitz,
a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, described the problem
in an essay on "The Decline of American Liberalism"
(published in his book Dead Artists, Live Theories
and Other Cultural Problems, New York, Routledge, 1992).
Aronowitz wrote that "the Democratic Party has less in common
with its New Deal forebears than ever before, and its 'progressive
wing' has never been smaller. Still, the left realignment forces
persist, waiting for the inevitable economic crisis to drive
the labor movement and the Democratic Party further to the left
orfor the pendulum of history to resolve the anomalies in their
theory and analysis. But the economic crisis has come and things
are getting worse politically. The pendulum is at a standstill."
Aronowitz challenged his readers by writing "there is no
independent left in the US worthy of the name." Such a left
"would have as its main tasks to define and disseminate
the ideas of democracy among political activists and the general
population."
This brings us to the observations
of Jerry Brown back in 1992 who, when running against the other
Clinton, remarked that "the way he wins the election will
shape what happens once he gets in office," or something
to that effect. Brown, as the embodiment of the fragments of
environmental, New Age and alternative politics, was simply deemed
a "flake." His counterpart, Bill Clinton, was recognized
as the ever-present "triangulator" and called "slick,"
unable to hold a firm position. Brown, like Ralph Nader and John
Edwards today, singled out the impact of elite financial interests
in shaping the electoral process. How someone gets elected will
shape to whom they are accountable to later on. This idea was
codified by Thomas Fergusson, a Professor of Political Science
at the University of Massachusetts, and author of Golden Rule:
The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven
Political Systems. In describing the theory, G. William Domhoffæin
some ways the intellectual heir to C. Wright Millsæexplained
that theories claiming that voters control political parties
in the United States suffer from various weaknesses. The problem,
Domhoff wrote, is that "these theories underestimate the
costs encountered by American voters in trying to exert control,
which include the time and energy spent in obtaining information,
finding allies, and choosing candidates, as well as the large
amount of money needed for advertising, hiring consultants, and
traveling." American politics in the last century often
became reduced to "battles between rival 'investor blocks'
rooted in economic sectors that need slightly different policies
on such issues as tariffs, subsidies, military spending, and
government support for labor unions."
Domhoff raises many questions
about this theory's merits, but at the very least one can retain
the basic point that how a candidate gets elected will determine
how they perform once in office. Moreover, the larger field of
power surrounding a candidateædefined by concentrations
of economic, media, political and military capitalæwill
potentially limit what a candidate does once in office or the
barriers they face. The coalition a candidate puts together
will influence what leverage the candidate has over these interests.
Obama has reached out to young and old, women and men, and various
social groups in a convincing fashion. His positive vision has
mobilized thousands in a way that may yet make inroads against
elites.
We all know, however, that
coalitions can fall apart once more critical questions are raised,
after the establishment media starts confusion campaigns, or
in response to propaganda efforts by less-enlightened corporations.
One potential outcome is what I call "structured superficiality."
It's not just that things are kept vague, with more difficult
questions to be asked later. Noam Chomsky has described how the
media makes it very difficult to take sophisticated or principled
positions because they support the status quo discourse. Edwards
has spoken more bluntly about some of the contradictions facing
an elected president, but a central question is whether any presidential
campaign today is truly an authentic or autonomous movement "from
below" or simply a hybrid between populist idealism and
elite hegemony from above.
Aronowitz's challenge and the
questions about vested corporate interests can make one feel
powerless or yearning for some kind of "change," the
favored soundbite of our era. Where then is a democratic change
or opening possible? One clue could be seen in Iowa. The Iowa
campaign highlighted the power of the youth voter, as Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair note in a recent column. An earlier
article by Elizabeth Holmes on October 3rd of last year in The
Wall Street Journal described the efforts of Atul Nakhasi,
a 19-year-old college junior who is president of the University
of Iowa Democrats. Nakhasi organized various forums profiling
the candidates. He came to know all the organizers of the campaigns
and received "a hand-written thank-you from Bill Clinton
and a private lunch with Sen. Joe Biden." Nakhasi "cleverly
plotted to turn his once-moribund organization into a sought-after
player in the Iowa caucuses, where the first delegates in the
2008 presidential campaign will be chosen." Nakhasi was
to be "on the stage when Barack Obama" spoke to his
campus. The evenness of the race perhaps explains "how
peripheral players around the country are seizing on the sprawling
race for the White House to advance their causes." An Iowa
entrance poll showed that 17 percent of total voters were aged
17 to 24, with Obama carrying 57 percent of these voters. Thousands
were from out of state. Organizing and a political innovation
made a difference.
The Nakhasi effort and Iowa
youth vote are indicative of an accountability structure that
could still be organized by the Left if it overcame the twin
confusions of electoral fetishism and abstinence. Sitting on
the sidelines during the incubation stage of executive power-wielders
makes little sense. Blindly or soberly embracing candidates already
captive to corporate or other elite interests does not an accountability
system make. Inevitably, if established interests are to be tackled,
third parties or party fracturing will be inevitable outcomes
or necessities. That seems a clear lesson from history.
One could support a third-party
effort, but doing so before autonomous media, political and economic
power have been organized contains obvious risks. The question
remains as to how to build an accountability structure that gives
us elections that mean more than selecting our favorite manager
for the military-industrial complex. Nakhasi's story clearly
shows how one could create the form of such an accountability
system, and what unions, peace and environmental activists could
do. One can be "on the stage" and not on the sidelines.
Jump ahead to the October 5th
debate in New Hampshire, where one thing was evident. The Fourth
Estate is insufficient for playing the role of a needed accountability
structure. There were no expert interrogators who could point
out the obvious links between an Iraq waræwhich some estimates
now claim can cost $3.5 trillionæand the money we need
for health care, alternative energy investments, and modernizing
the industrial base against outsourcing threats. That very taboo
subject and set of associations could have been the subject of
a mass citizen mobilization, which partly took the form of the
Nakhasi initiative and multiplied it on a grand scale throughout
the key primary states. It could have been financed by the very
monies diverted into symbolic politics outside the White House
and mega rallies fueled by bus trips, car commutes and petitioning
established government power.
Lessons
from the Past: Fredrick Douglass, Thomas Jefferson and
Eugene McCarthy
Fortunately, we have a guidebook
for how to design such a democratic accountability campaign.
The pages of this book come from Fredrick Douglass, Thomas Jefferson,
George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. Let's start with Douglass
and the larger Abolitionist movement. Douglass was one of the
Abolitionist movement's most important heroes and leaders. Rather
than simply petition the media, Douglass published several newspapers.
His ability to tap media power was no doubt promoted by his various
speaking campaigns and eloquence. This likely gave him access
to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Rather than
design small-scale poverty programs, Douglass went further, becoming
President of the Freedman's Savings Bank in the Reconstruction
era. Colleges like Oberlin and Antioch were central to building
the movement. Douglass understood the logic of accountability,
most famously saying: "Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did, and it never will." Lesson: accountability
depends on networks linking social movements to banks, universities
and newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson envisioned
the creation of a permanent structure centered on localized "ward
Republics" that would unite grassroots citizens in decentralized
collectives. Aronowitz, and earlier Hannah Arendt in her book
On Revolution, popularized his views. These collectives
would provide a means for making centralized national politicians
accountable to popular will. This idea was conveyed in a February
2, 1816 letter to Joseph C. Cabell as published in Richard K.
Matthews's The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson:
Where every man is a sharer
in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher
ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of
affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every
day; when there shall not be a man in the state who will not
be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will
let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be
wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.
As Matthews explains, the ward
republic would not only provide a system to check "tyrants
at home," but also continue the spirit of the American Revolution,
serve as a citizen education forum, and create a space (like
later co-operatives or works councils) for popular education.
Jefferson described the need
for "ready reserves" that would function as the political
equivalent of a voluntary fire department, a kind of ever-present
structure to put pressure on leaders. All citizens should remain
ever ready to hold elected leaders accountable. This lesson about
the necessity for grassroots campaigns to promote accountability
has been taken to heart by right-wing groups throughout the United
States. They have used the new media to create a system of accountability,
but rather than advancing a general public good, they promote
the narrow interests of capital and moral fundamentalism. For
example, Pat Buchanan turned his presidential campaign into an
institution to project his politics after and between elections.
A type of ready reserves was
evident in Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign and grassroots
movement in the Democratic primaries. His strong second-place
showing in the New Hampshire primary some 40 years ago helped
force Lyndon Johnson to end his quest for a second term in the
White House. The McCarthy campaign became sidetracked by Robert
F. Kennedy's decision to enter the race, and with his assassination,
the ascendancy of Hubert F. Humphrey. Yet the McCarthy campaign
illustrates a central lesson of where and how to exploit accountability
structures.
Many of the McCarthy campaign's
lessons are revealed in an excellent documentary by Emil D'Antonio
called 1968: America is Hard to See. In the film we learn
how activists mobilizing from below could organize a candidacy
rather than be organized by it. We see how New Hampshire, a relatively
small state adjacent to dozens of colleges and universities throughout
New England and beyond, was a prime site for organizing by a
relatively dedicated group of individuals. The McCarthy campaign
attracted hundreds of students who canvassed and mobilized throughout
the state. A key player in helping spark the campaign was the
late Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who was joined
by various student organizers. Critical intellectuals and students
could and did make a difference. The ability to hold President
Johnson accountable for his disastrous extension of the Vietnam
War was made possible by picking a place where such a group could
have leverage-where access to national state power was incubated,
where the media spotlight shone, where organizers going door
to door could canvass and cover the political terrain, and where
those contesting for power were actually dependent on the power
of citizen voters. Contrast this situation with the symbolic
politics of White House demonstrations against already elected
presidents that take place on a single day, and you immediately
recognize the opportunity costs of the status quo politics of
peace.
Connect
the Dots: Lessons from George McGovern
Some may ask, "accountability
for what" and "to what"? One answer is a larger
vision that connects the dots as I noted in a previous Counterpunch
article. We need more than small-scale, defensive "pragmatic"
lowest common denominator politics. In addition to a radical,
popularly based form, we also need a comprehensive intellectual
content. The most important way to "connect the dots"
is to respond to the crises attached to the economy, the environment
and militarism. We don't have to wait for crises to unfold,
but we do need to design and build a permanent democracy
machinery to exploit them inside and outside established party
structures. If we don't the right will and they have.
On August 2, 1963, Senator
George McGovern gave a speech to the U.S. Senate called, "New
Perspectives on American Security." This speech was given
10 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It represents a kind
of blueprint for an alternative politics that connects the dots.
In the speech McGovern warned about the ever-present dangers
of nuclear war:
"A single warhead from
the American or Russian stockpile, if exploded over a great city,
would instantly transform it into a raging fireball three miles
in diameter with a direct heat and blast capable of burning human
flesh and collapsing buildings 25 miles from its center. Above
a smoking crater a mile wide and several blocks deep, a gigantic,
poisonous radioactive cloud would rise 20 or 35 miles to rain
down tortuous death on millions of human beings not fortunate
enough to be incinerated quickly in the initial firestorm."
McGovern continued with alternative
proposals: "I think we need to take another careful look
at our enormous arms budget, asking ourselves: What part of this
budget represents additions to an already surplus overkill capacity?
What alternative uses can be made of surplus military funds for
strengthening the economic and political foundations of our society."
Arms cuts should be accompanied by conversion planning, a capability
that "must be developed at all establishments-manufacturing,
research, and others-engaged in fulfilling contracts or otherwise
working for the Department of Defense of or the Atomic Energy
Commission" [the predecessor to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission].
Those worried about today's
assault on the dollar should note McGovern's warning back then:
"the strain on our gold reserves as a result of heavy military
commitments abroad and excessive arms spending at home is a threat
to our international position." Reminding his listeners
of Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex,
McGovern noted, "Americans have always feared that any trend
toward militarism was a threat to the quality of our democracy."
McGovern, who later ran for
President in 1972, was not afraid to link military spending levels
to an opportunity cost taking the form of a weakened welfare
state. He continued, "Our civil rights problems require
for their solution a major expansion of employment opportunity.
The economically depressed regions of the country require fresh
capital and technical talent." The country had "an
urgent need for more classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and
capable teachers." There were "millions of citizens,
particularly our older people, who need more adequate hospital
and nursing home care." There were "rivers and streams
to be saved from pollution and waste-a task calling for considerable
engineering and technical manpower." It was not just a matter
of shifting budgets, but also economic reconstruction: "some
of our present defense installations might in the future be converted
into vocational schools, community colleges, or heath centers."
McGovern's speech and thinking
was influenced in part by the writings and advice of his colleague,
Columbia University Professor Seymour Melman, who worked with
McGovern. Together with labor, peace, civil rights and environmental
leaders, they helped convene a mass town meeting on the peace
dividend in 1990. This meeting also gave a voice to third-party
Congressional candidate Bernie Sanders, a major champion for
a third party, as well as Senator Claiborne Pell, then head of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In this case, accountability
structures and third parties were not at odds. The key question
is how an accountability system is designed.
Various commentators have trivialized
McGovern and his trajectory. The right-wing, centrists and media
pundits have spent the past 30 or so years demonizing McGovern
as a loser, an "excessive" liberal and "has-been."
In fact, Bill Clinton viewed his positioning as a centrist as
a means of overcoming what has been viewed as the folly of McGovern's
electoral trouncing by Richard Nixon. Yet, McGovern got more
than 29,000,000 votes. After President Nixon resigned in disgrace,
the proportion of those who claimed or believed they voted for
McGovern shot up considerably. About a year ago, McGovern got
a warm reception at the National Press Club in a
speech that outlined an orderly exit path from the latest tragedy
of American militarist excess-the war in Iraq .
Beyond Crackpot
Realism
We need to move beyond what
C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism," a false
belief in the workable character of force in military affairs.
Our wars have recruited far more terrorists than they've destroyed.
Crackpot realism also extends to a kind of naïve belief
in watered-down politics or buying into established forms of
protest. The emphasis on so-called "pragmatic" measures,
like those inspired by community organizer Saul Alinksy, take
existing power structures for granted. They don't redesign new
structures to project power. This represents several steps back
from the Abolitionist movement or even the strategies of the
Black Muslims (leaving aside the content of their politics).
Activists, trade unions, peace
groups or others committed to various candidates or parties may
believe that investing in accountability structures rather than
candidates is a waste of time and resources. The problem with
such political short-termism is that the big promises and commitments
of candidates often fade away once they are elected. Candidates
find they lack the base they need or were simply disingenuous
in their earlier pledges. Or, even if we hope the best from candidates,
they will often take for granted those constituencies most dependent
upon them. Moreover, the political space between a corporation
and a candidate will produce a more dynamic extension of power
than the space between a non-profit and a candidate. For these
reasons, progressive forces must engage outside established political
coalitions and build interlocking networks of media, economic,
and political power.
Those believing in third parties
or specific candidates should note that any such effortæwithout
the accumulation of media, political and economic power in some
larger networkæ invariably fades with the whims of the
particular candidate they are backing. That's another kind of
investment risk. These structures have to be built into democratically
organized and designed political and media spaces that can be
readily used to continue to hold any politician accountable.
We need to move beyond the cult of the individualæleft,
center or right. Many progressive candidates fade away after
election day and do not build permanent campaigns.
Trade unions with their backs
against the wall will invest in Democratic Party politicians.
But rather than simply support a third- or labor-party ballot
line, or write blank checks to Democrats, all activists might
do the following: take some proportion of the resources you would
invest in a particular candidacy and place that in a fund tied
to an accountability structure, like a candidate forum-based
town meeting, that exists independently from your favorite candidate.
This investment would continue if your candidate is elected,
and be similarly useful if he or she loses. Consider this simply
as a form of political insurance against a candidate's breaking
a promise or losing.
Votes usually correspond to
Faustian bargains where more powerful elite groups pull the strings
of competing candidates. This is why elections may be "traps
for fools." In contrast, voting for Harold Washington,
Chicago's most progressive mayor was not a trap. And the larger
structure that can be built around an election is not a trap.
I'm not referring to independent political action committees
and phone banks. Those usually are dormant in between elections.
I mean rather the kinds of structures like progressive media
stations, forums, networks and political commitments elaborated
above, supplemented by socially responsible media, schools for
organizers, and various democratic economic institutions, including
co-operatives and other forms of worker and community control.
Many of these structures already
exist. Labor unions have a form of accountability insurance in
The Workers Independent News, a progressive news network for
the labor movement (see http://www.laborradio.org/). The Democracy
Now! radio and TV network can also be part of this process.
Some funds could also be placed in networks of cooperatives which
could provide a supplementary power accumulation system. Examples
include Equal Exchange in the U.S., a fair trade company, or
Mondragon in Spain. Unfortunately, we lack the kind of co-ordinated
action to use all of these as accountability structures in the
current electoral cycle. We need to broaden the debate about
the peace movement's political strategy.
Jonathan M. Feldman is a lecturer at Stockholm University
and part of the network, www.economicreconstruction.com.
He can be reached at JonathanMFeldman@economicreconstruction.com.
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