Robert Whitcomb

February 15, 2015

Commentary

Don Pesci: Senator Murphy for a 'progressive foreign policy'

Robert Whitcomb

February 15, 2015

Commentary

VERNON, Conn.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D.-Conn.), who has been in the Senate only a little more than two years and two weeks, is now “Desperately Seeking A Progressive Foreign Policy,” the title of a column the senator wrote on his new blog.

According to Mr. Murphy, the modern progressive movement is still in its swaddling clothes. The new movement was “founded on foreign policy” after Democrats had spent a couple of decades "in the wilderness during the era of the Democratic Leadership Council… in the early days of the Iraq war.”

The modern progressive movement, Mr. Murphy writes, sprang from Howard Dean’s presidential bid, in 2004, during which time “progressives mounted their first serious assault in years on the conventional thought hegemony by challenging the neoconservative foreign policy vision. Many of today’s icons of the progressive movement — MoveOn, Democracy for America, Daily Kos — arguably originate from this fight. Today’s progressives were molded in the fire of foreign, not domestic, policy.”

The young progressive movement now has become reactive, “absent, from serious, meaningful foreign policy debates.” Progressives have been unwilling to engage in such debates in part because there has been for the last few years a Democrat in the White House. Mr. Murphy does not point out in his maiden progressive articulation that President Barack Obama is possibly the most progressive chief executive since Woodrow Wilson left the White House, in 1921. Progressives have understandably deferred to the commander in chief “when it comes to articulating views on international events.”

Mr. Murphy rejects neo-conservativism robustly as “a non-starter” a “philosophy of knee jerk military intervention” and “the original motivating force behind the modern progressive voice.” Isolationism is likewise repugnant “as most progressives believe in America playing a positive role in the world. We simply believe that we should lean into the world with something other than the pointed edge of a sword.”

Mr. Obama struck a responsive chord in his May 2014 West Point speech, “where he prioritized the use of our military for counterterrorism efforts and emphasized the need to strengthen rule of law and human rights in developing nations.” However, “we break with him on rather substantial questions like domestic surveillance, drone attacks, and most recently, military intervention in Syria.”

From the battlements, Mr. Murphy shouts out orders to his progressive troops: “It’s time for progressives to outline a coherent, proactive foreign policy vision, (italics original).”

The organizing principles of Mr. Murphy’s progressive vision, he writes, would involve: a) “A substantial transfer of financial resources from the military budget to buttress diplomacy and foreign aid so that our global anti-poverty budget, not our military budget, equals that of the other world powers combined,” b) “A new humility to our foreign policy, with less emphasis on short- term influencers like military intervention and aid [which Mr. Murphy highly recommended in a)] and more effort spent trying to address the root causes of conflict,” c) “An end to unchecked mass surveillance programs, at home and abroad, as part of a new recognition that we are safer as a nation when we aren’t so easily labeled as hypocrites for preaching and practicing vastly differently on human and civil rights,” and d) “a categorical rejection of torture, under any circumstances.”

A rapid implementation of Mr. Murphy’s principled vision is necessary because “We are entering well into the fourth month of unauthorized U.S. military actions in Iraq and Syria amidst calls from the new Republican Senate majority to send ground troops back to the Middle East” and “fragile negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear weapons” program are under threat “from good-intentioned but misguided efforts to pass new sanctions legislation against ISIS.''

A recent request to Congress from Mr. Obama for additional presidential authority to prosecute a war against ISIS, a terrorist group that beheads American journalists, murders American aid workers and crucifies Christians, would seem to violate Murphy principle a), since both the congressional authority and the funds necessary to prosecute a war against ISIS for at least three years certainly would not involve a “transfer of financial resources from the military budget to buttress diplomacy.” It would also violate Murphy principle b), which calls for a new humility that emphasizes a greater “effort spent trying to address the root causes of conflict” rather than investing time and money on “on short- term influencers like military intervention and aid.”

Still we are left with the two remaining principles of Mr. Murphy’s progressive vision as yet unassaulted by the progressive Mr. Obama or non-progressives in Congress. Rand Paul, an arch libertarian, has come out strongly against snoops hiding in the telephone receivers of average Americans, and Mr. Obama has long favored assassination, death by drone, to torture. It turns out that the progressive principles enunciated by Mr. Murphy in his progressive blog are not all that cutting edge.

Progressives within the Democratic Party may want to start looking for a new John the Baptist.

Don Pesci (donpesci@att.net) is a writer who lives in Vernon

Robert Whitcomb

January 3, 2015

Commentary

Jefferson Paris: Bernie in Havana

Robert Whitcomb

January 3, 2015

Commentary

Editor’s Note: This two-act play takes off from the recent decision by President Obama to restore U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba. Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s brother, is president of the Council of State of Cuba. Bernard Sanders, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and is a self-described democratic socialist, is a U.S. senator from Vermont. The author is a resident of Vermont; Jefferson Parish is a nom de plume.

Scene one, Presidential office of Raul Castro, in Havana, Cuba, sometime in 2015.

Bernard Sanders enters, followed by an aide and two press photographers.

Sanders: [In a 1950’s Brooklyn accent] Hello, Mr. President.

Castro: Hello Bernie, ah, Mr. Ambassador. This is an historic occasion.

Sanders: Yes it is, Mr. President. Our president sends his regards and best wishes and asked me to say:

Buenos Dias, El Presidente.

Castro: Very good! When you return you can tell him this for me:

Go Yankees!

[Castro chuckles at his joke.]

[The two men shake hands, as the press photographer records the occasion. They then sit.]

Sanders: Mr. President…

Castro: Please call me Raul. If you don’t mind I’ll call you Bernie.

Sanders: Of course. Everyone does. Now Raul, our president…=

Castro: Barack….

Sanders: Yes, Barack and I believe it is in the best interest of our respective countries that the over-50-year-old U.S. trade embargo of Cuba be ended and free trade resume. But that requires approval by our Congress. And Congress needs some assurances from you.

Castro: Can I offer you a cigar, Bernie?

Sanders: Sure. But aren’t we in a smoke-free zone? Where I live in Vermont, you can’t even smoke in the city park.

Castro: No problemo here, Bernie. I make the rules.

Sanders: OK. [He lights up, takes a puff, then looks at the cigar.] The red band is nice touch. Now, as I was saying, Congress needs some assurances….

Castro: Such as….

Sanders: [Making sure that the photographer is filming, he removes a card from his pocket and begins reading.]

That Cuba will respect freedom of expression, religion and association; that American investors will be repaid for expropriated property; that people will be entitled to pursue life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; that you will allow political parties; that you will empty your prisons of political prisoners and renounce state-sponsored terrorism; that you will export rum and cigars to America; and that our hotels and casinos will be welcomed.

Castro: You ask for a lot, Bernie. You should be glad my brother is not here. He’d send you a fastball high and tight and shout,

“Yanqui, go home!”

Sanders: Actually, Raul, I grew up in Brooklyn and rooted for the Dodgers against the Yankees.

Castro: Ah yes. Well my wife went to MIT and rooted for the Red Sox. But you didn’t actually want Yankees to go home, did you? [chuckling] Well, we do need some new trading partners with the oil business in the crapper, so let’s discuss this more in private, si?

Sanders: Si, I mean yes, Raul. [Turning to his aide and the photographers] Will you excuse us? [They leave.]

Scene two. Same office but the two are now alone.

Castro: Hey, Bernie, where did you learn the secret socialist handshake?

Sanders: I read about it once in a book about Che, and a few years ago tried it out on Hugo at a meeting in Caracas with Joe Kennedy and his home-heating-oil company. It’s tricky to make each digit the same size and minimize the importance of the thumb. I don’t think that the press boys noticed.

Castro: Do you want me to have them arrested and find out?

Sanders: No, no [trying to smile]. Not today at least. Did you like my speech?

Castro: Well, I admired the apparent conviction. It can’t have been easy for a socialist to say. But there’s an old Spanish idiom that translated goes something like this: “You fuck the chicken if you must.” Which reminds me, how did you get Barack to appoint you ambassador?

Sanders: I learned long ago that the way to get what you want is to make yourself a pain somewhere else. I enjoyed being a senator but I wasn’t getting anywhere. So I started rumors about a presidential run of my own. Did you read about it?

Castro: Sure. I get Burlington’s Seven Days. The Bernie Beat’s terrific.

Sanders: Well, I was making the Clinton/Cuomo/Warren people nervous. They figured I couldn’t pass up this gig. The same thing happened in Vermont when I threatened to run for governor. Voila, I became a congressman!

Castro: Nice. But aren’t people afraid you’ll give away the store down here?

Sanders: Let me put it to you this way. [Taking another drag on his cigar.] We, that is, the CIA, have tons of money. I mean tons and tons and tons of it. Just look what we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you’ll just relax on a few of the smaller things I talked about (like letting Caesar’s Palace into Havana and letting Catholics attend church regularly), money will go wherever you want it to…Cuba, the Caymans, Kremlin, Swiss banks, Vermont, wherever.

Castro: But La Revolution? Fidel’s vision of compete equality? Che’s legacy?

Sanders: [Looking around] Are we truly alone here, Raul?

Castro: Si, senor. But this is the only place.

Sanders: Now here’s the thing. You’ve got to look at the big picture. If you soft-pedal a few of these socialist ideas, for which we will pay you richly, I will work with you to push the big ideas to our country. We can go on a speaking tour. Havana may become like Miami, but America will become like your Cuba.

[He high-fives Raul.]

Castro: [Pausing for a while] Che would be impressed, El Bernardo. Is Barack on board?

Sanders: Si, El Presidente. It was his idea to begin. But he insists you open a golf course.

Castro: I suppose we could do that. How else do we start?

Sanders: In the north, in the snow, in Vermont in fact.

Castro: Brrr. Would I have to go there?

Sanders: No (though you’d be warmly received), but some of that money coming your way would. The idea is to make Vermont the model of the new U.S. free health care, complete income redistribution, more government programs. You know, socialism. We’re about half way there now; we just need some money to finish it. Then it is, “as Vermont goes, so goes the nation.”

Castro: You’ve got quite a vision there, Bernie.

Sanders: My friends aren’t called Sanderistas for nothing!

Castro: But how am I going to back away from our revolutionary goals? My party will be sorely disappointed.

Sanders: Not if you do what I did, Raul, and the steps are pretty simple.

One, blast the rich whenever and wherever you can. It matters less what you do than what you say you are going to do. That is the first rule of my politics.

Castro: But we don’t have any rich here, except us.

Sanders: Oh yeah. Then on to step two. Speak up for the little guy, whenever and wherever. Again, talking is more important than doing.

Castro: We do that now.

Sanders: Third, always, always support the veterans. If you support the vets, you win over or at least neutralize the army. And with the army on your side, business won’t oppose you.

Castro: We don’t have any business here either.

Sanders: How lucky! But in sum, if you say Viva la Revolution over and over and make sure the vets get a pension, you’ll win every election and be able to do pretty much whatever you want. Get it?

Castro: We don’t have real elections down here, Bernie. And I already do what I want. Nevertheless, I think all this is going to work out very well. Why don’t we have a swig of rum from my in-laws’ pre-revolution distillery to toast the people. And then we can call Hugo with the good news.

Sanders: Okay, but one more thing before I leave. I really like your hair. Who’s your barber?

Robert Whitcomb

November 26, 2014

Commentary

Peter Hart: Big Media's bad advice for Democrats

Robert Whitcomb

November 26, 2014

Commentary

Before anyone even knew just how badly the Democrats would get trounced in the 2014 midterm elections, some pundits were already sending the party a message: Be more like the Republicans.

Now they don’t put it that way, exactly.

The professional campaign watchers like to say instead that the Democratic Party needs to move to the “middle” or the “center.” What they mean is that the Democrats should get closer to the Republicans on the issues.

Think about this for a second.

The turnout for the mid-term elections was the lowest for a mid-term in 70 years. Can we really expect more people to get excited about voting if the two major political parties become more like one another?

It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s Big Media’s remedy

For example, after Senate Democrats voted to give the populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, a leadership role in their caucus, CBS host Bob Schieffer said that it was “going to leave the impression that the party is moving to the left,” when the advice from “a lot of people” is that nothing will get done in Washington unless “both parties move toward the center.”

USA Today actually recommended that Barack Obama steal an idea from post-Iran/Contra Scandal Ronald Reagan and apologize on TV. What for? The newspaper didn’t say.

The problem, as The New York Times saw it, was that the Democrats had gone too far to the left under Obama: “Democrats largely abandoned the more centrist, line-blurring approach of Bill Clinton to motivate an ascendant bloc of liberal voters,” the paper insisted.

But that’s a dubious description of Obama-era Democrats.

On foreign policy, after all, the White House has escalated the war in Afghanistan, carried out drone attacks on several countries, helped engineer a disastrous Libyan War, and is now going back into Iraq.

The centerpiece of Obama’s domestic policy, meanwhile — the Affordable Care Act — was borrowed from Mitt Romney, who established a similar initiative as the governor of Massachusetts. And the law’s “individual mandate” to buy insurance was first cooked up by the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

But if that’s what the media considers veering left, what do Beltway insiders think that the White House should do to make up for it?

For them, the first order of business is, well, big business: Obama should push through the secretive, corporate-friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. People who actually turned up to vote must find this peculiar, since almost no one was talking up the deal before Election Day.

What else should Obama do, according to these pundits? Approve the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would pump dirty tar sands oil from Canada down to the Gulf Coast for refining.

Why would a president who says he cares about the climate crisis do this? To be more bipartisan, apparently.

Does any of this sound like the message voters were sending?

Not at all.

In fact, one of the most intriguing findings to come out of the 2014 exit polls was that the majority of voters think that the economic system favors the wealthy: 63 percent of respondents said so, up from 56 in 2012.

This would suggest that a more vigorous brand of economic populism would resonate with voters — even if the pundits would hate it.

Peter Hart is the activism director of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (www.fair.org). This was distributed via OtherWords (www.OtherWords.org).