AN ARGUMENT FOR A NEW LIBERALISM.A Fighting Faith, by Peter Beinart, The New Republic

On January 4, 1947, 130 men and women met at Washington's Willard Hotel to save American liberalism. A few months earlier, in articles in The New Republic and elsewhere, the columnists Joseph and Stewart Alsop had warned that "the liberal movement is now engaged in sowing the seeds of its own destruction." Liberals, they argued, "consistently avoided the great political reality of the present: the Soviet challenge to the West." Unless that changed, "In the spasm of terror which will seize this country ... it is the right--the very extreme right--which is most likely to gain victory."
During World War II, only one major liberal organization, the Union for Democratic Action (UDA), had banned communists from its ranks. At the Willard, members of the UDA met to expand and rename their organization. The attendees, who included Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Reuther, and Eleanor Roosevelt, issued a press release that enumerated the new organization's principles. Announcing the formation of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the statement declared, "[B]ecause the interests of the United States are the interests of free men everywhere," America should support "democratic and freedom-loving peoples the world over." That meant unceasing opposition to communism, an ideology "hostile to the principles of freedom and democracy on which the Republic has grown great."
At the time, the ADA's was still a minority view among American liberals. Two of the most influential journals of liberal opinion, The New Republic and The Nation, both rejected militant anti-communism. Former Vice President Henry Wallace, a hero to many liberals, saw communists as allies in the fight for domestic and international progress. As Steven M. Gillon notes in Politics and Vision, his excellent history of the ADA, it was virtually the only liberal organization to back President Harry S Truman's March 1947 decision to aid Greece and Turkey in their battle against Soviet subversion.
But, over the next two years, in bitter political combat across the institutions of American liberalism, anti-communism gained strength. With the ADA's help, Truman crushed Wallace's third-party challenge en route to reelection. The formerly leftist Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled its communist affiliates and The New Republic broke with Wallace, its former editor. The American Civil Liberties Union (aclu) denounced communism, as did the naacp. By 1949, three years after Winston Churchill warned that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe, Schlesinger could write in The Vital Center: "Mid-twentieth century liberalism, I believe, has thus been fundamentally reshaped ... by the exposure of the Soviet Union, and by the deepening of our knowledge of man. The consequence of this historical re-education has been an unconditional rejection of totalitarianism."
Today, three years after September 11 brought the United States face-to-face with a new totalitarian threat, liberalism has still not "been fundamentally reshaped" by the experience. On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's near-theological faith in the transformative capacity of U.S. military might. But American liberalism, as defined by its activist organizations, remains largely what it was in the 1990s--a collection of domestic interests and concerns. On health care, gay rights, and the environment, there is a positive vision, articulated with passion. But there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.
When liberals talk about America's new era, the discussion is largely negative--against the Iraq war, against restrictions on civil liberties, against America's worsening reputation in the world. In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world. As a result, the Democratic Party boasts a fairly hawkish foreign policy establishment and a cadre of politicians and strategists eager to look tough. But, below this small elite sits a Wallacite grassroots that views America's new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage. Two elections, and two defeats, into the September 11 era, American liberalism still has not had its meeting at the Willard Hotel. And the hour is getting late.
The Kerry Compromise
The press loves a surprise. And so, in the days immediately after November 2, journalists trumpeted the revelation that "moral values" had cost John Kerry the election. Upon deeper investigation, however, the reasons for Kerry's loss don't look that surprising at all. In fact, they are largely the same reasons congressional Democrats lost in 2002.
Pundits have seized on exit polls showing that the electorate's single greatest concern was moral values, cited by 22 percent of voters. But, as my colleague Andrew Sullivan has pointed out ("Uncivil Union," November 22), a similar share of the electorate cited moral values in the '90s. The real change this year was on foreign policy. In 2000, only 12 percent of voters cited "world affairs" as their paramount issue; this year, 34 percent mentioned either Iraq or terrorism. (Combined, the two foreign policy categories dwarf moral values.) Voters who cited terrorism backed Bush even more strongly than those who cited moral values. And it was largely this new cohort--the same one that handed the GOP its Senate majority in 2002--that accounts for Bush's improvement over 2000. As Paul Freedman recently calculated in Slate, if you control for Bush's share of the vote four years ago, "a 10-point increase in the percentage of voters [in a given state] citing terrorism as the most important problem translates into a 3-point Bush gain. A 10-point increase in morality voters, on the other hand, has no effect."
On national security, Kerry's nomination was a compromise between a party elite desperate to neutralize the terrorism issue and a liberal base unwilling to redefine itself for the post-September 11 world. In the early days of his candidacy, Kerry seemed destined to run as a hawk. In June 2002, he attacked Bush from the right for not committing American ground troops in the mountains of Tora Bora. Like the other leading candidates in the race, he voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. This not only pleased Kerry's consultants, who hoped to inoculate him against charges that he was soft on terrorism, but it satisfied his foreign policy advisers as well.
The Democratic foreign policy establishment that counseled the leading presidential candidates during the primaries--and coalesced behind Kerry after he won the nomination--was the product of a decade-long evolution. Bill Clinton had come into office with little passion for foreign policy, except as it affected the U.S. economy. But, over time, his administration grew more concerned with international affairs and more hawkish. In August 1995, Clinton finally sent nato warplanes into action in Bosnia. And, four years later, the United States, again working through nato, launched a humanitarian war in Kosovo, preventing another ethnic cleansing and setting the stage for a democratic revolution in Belgrade. It was an air war, to be sure, and it put few American lives at risk. But it was a war nonetheless, initiated without U.N. backing by a Democratic president in response to internal events in a sovereign country.
For top Kerry foreign policy advisers, such as Richard Holbrooke and Joseph Biden, Bosnia and Kosovo seemed like models for a new post-Vietnam liberalism that embraced U.S. power. And September 11 validated the transformation. Democratic foreign policy wonks not only supported the war in Afghanistan, they generally felt it didn't go far enough--urging a larger nato force capable of securing the entire country. And, while disturbed by the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, they agreed that Saddam Hussein was a threat and, more generally, supported aggressive efforts to democratize the Muslim world. As National Journal's Paul Starobin noted in a September 2004 profile, "Kerry and his foreign-policy advisers are not doves. They are liberal war hawks who would be unafraid to use American power to promote their values." At the Democratic convention, Biden said that the "overwhelming obligation of the next president is clear"--to exercise "the full measure of our power" to defeat Islamist totalitarianism.
Had history taken a different course, this new brand of liberalism might have expanded beyond a narrow foreign policy elite. The war in Afghanistan, while unlike Kosovo a war of self-defense, once again brought the Western democracies together against a deeply illiberal foe. Had that war, rather than the war in Iraq, become the defining event of the post-September 11 era, the "re-education" about U.S. power, and about the new totalitarian threat from the Muslim world that had transformed Kerry's advisers, might have trickled down to the party's liberal base, transforming it as well.
Instead, Bush's war on terrorism became a partisan affair--defined in the liberal mind not by images of American soldiers walking Afghan girls to school, but by John Ashcroft's mass detentions and Cheney's false claims about Iraqi WMD. The left's post-September 11 enthusiasm for an aggressive campaign against Al Qaeda--epitomized by students at liberal campuses signing up for jobs with the CIA--was overwhelmed by horror at the bungled Iraq war. So, when the Democratic presidential candidates began courting their party's activists in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2003, they found a liberal grassroots that viewed the war on terrorism in negative terms and judged the candidates less on their enthusiasm for defeating Al Qaeda than on their enthusiasm for defeating Bush. The three candidates who made winning the war on terrorism the centerpiece of their campaigns--Joseph Lieberman, Bob Graham, and Wesley Clark--each failed to capture the imagination of liberal activists eager for a positive agenda only in the domestic sphere. Three of the early front-runners--Kerry, John Edwards, and Dick Gephardt--each sank as Howard Dean pilloried them for supporting Ashcroft's Patriot Act and the Iraq war.
Three months before the Iowa caucuses, facing mass liberal defections to Dean, Kerry voted against Bush's $87 billion supplemental request for Iraq. With that vote, the Kerry compromise was born. To Kerry's foreign policy advisers, some of whom supported the supplemental funding, he remained a vehicle for an aggressive war on terrorism. And that may well have been Kerry's own intention. But, to the liberal voters who would choose the party's nominee, he became a more electable Dean. Kerry's opposition to the $87 billion didn't only change his image on the war in Iraq; it changed his image on the war on terrorism itself. His justification for opposing the $87 billion was essentially isolationist: "We shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in our own communities." And, by exploiting public antipathy toward foreign aid and nation-building, the natural building blocks of any liberal anti-totalitarian effort in the Muslim world, Kerry signaled that liberalism's moral energies should be unleashed primarily at home.
Kerry's vote against the $87 billion helped him lure back the liberal activists he needed to win Iowa, and Iowa catapulted him toward the nomination. But the vote came back to haunt him in two ways. Most obviously, it helped the Bush campaign paint him as unprincipled. But, more subtly, it made it harder for Kerry to ask Americans to sacrifice in a global campaign for freedom. Biden could suggest "a new program of national service" and other measures to "spread the cost and hardship of the war on terror beyond our soldiers and their families." But, whenever Kerry flirted with asking Americans to do more to meet America's new threat, he found himself limited by his prior emphasis on doing less. At times, he said his primary focus in Iraq would be bringing American troops home. He called for expanding the military but pledged that none of the new troops would go to Iraq, the new center of the terror war, where he had said American forces were undermanned. Kerry's criticisms of Bush's Iraq policy were trenchant, but the only alternative principle he clearly articulated was multilateralism, which often sounded like a veiled way of asking Americans to do less. And, because he never urged a national mobilization for safety and freedom, his discussion of terrorism lacked Bush's grandeur. That wasn't an accident. Had Kerry aggressively championed a national mobilization to win the war on terrorism, he wouldn't have been the Democratic nominee.
The Softs
Kerry was a flawed candidate, but he was not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem was the party's liberal base, which would have refused to nominate anyone who proposed redefining the Democratic Party in the way the ADA did in 1947. The challenge for Democrats today is not to find a different kind of presidential candidate. It is to transform the party at its grassroots so that a different kind of presidential candidate can emerge. That means abandoning the unity-at-all-costs ethos that governed American liberalism in 2004. And it requires a sustained battle to wrest the Democratic Party from the heirs of Henry Wallace. In the party today, two such heirs loom largest: Michael Moore and MoveOn.
In 1950, the journal The New Leader divided American liberals into "hards" and "softs." The hards, epitomized by the ADA, believed anti-communism was the fundamental litmus test for a decent left. Non-communism was not enough; opposition to the totalitarian threat was the prerequisite for membership in American liberalism because communism was the defining moral challenge of the age.
The softs, by contrast, were not necessarily communists themselves. But they refused to make anti-communism their guiding principle. For them, the threat to liberal values came entirely from the right--from militarists, from red-baiters, and from the forces of economic reaction. To attack the communists, reliable allies in the fight for civil rights and economic justice, was a distraction from the struggle for progress.
Moore is the most prominent soft in the United States today. Most Democrats agree with him about the Iraq war, about Ashcroft, and about Bush. What they do not recognize, or do not acknowledge, is that Moore does not oppose Bush's policies because he thinks they fail to effectively address the terrorist threat; he does not believe there is a terrorist threat. For Moore, terrorism is an opiate whipped up by corporate bosses. In Dude, Where's My Country?, he says it plainly: "There is no terrorist threat." And he wonders, "Why has our government gone to such absurd lengths to convince us our lives are in danger?"
Moore views totalitarian Islam the way Wallace viewed communism: As a phantom, a ruse employed by the only enemies that matter, those on the right. Saudi extremists may have brought down the Twin Towers, but the real menace is the Carlyle Group. Today, most liberals naïvely consider Moore a useful ally, a bomb-thrower against a right-wing that deserves to be torched. What they do not understand is that his real casualties are on the decent left. When Moore opposes the war against the Taliban, he casts doubt upon the sincerity of liberals who say they opposed the Iraq war because they wanted to win in Afghanistan first. When Moore says terrorism should be no greater a national concern than car accidents or pneumonia, he makes it harder for liberals to claim that their belief in civil liberties does not imply a diminished vigilance against Al Qaeda.
Moore is a non-totalitarian, but, like Wallace, he is not an anti-totalitarian. And, when Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and Tom Daschle flocked to the Washington premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, and when Moore sat in Jimmy Carter's box at the Democratic convention, many Americans wondered whether the Democratic Party was anti-totalitarian either.
If Moore is America's leading individual soft, liberalism's premier soft organization is MoveOn. MoveOn was formed to oppose Clinton's impeachment, but, after September 11, it turned to opposing the war in Afghanistan. A MoveOn-sponsored petition warned, "If we retaliate by bombing Kabul and kill people oppressed by the Taliban, we become like the terrorists we oppose."
By January 2002, MoveOn was collaborating with 9-11peace.org, a website founded by Eli Pariser, who would later become MoveOn's most visible spokesman. One early 9-11peace.org bulletin urged supporters to "[c]all world leaders and ask them to call off the bombing," and to "[f]ly the UN Flag as a symbol of global unity and support for international law." Others questioned the wisdom of increased funding for the CIA and the deployment of American troops to assist in anti-terrorist efforts in the Philippines. In October 2002, after 9-11peace.org was incorporated into MoveOn, an organization bulletin suggested that the United States should have "utilize[d] international law and judicial procedures, including due process" against bin Laden and that "it's possible that a tribunal could even have garnered cooperation from the Taliban."
In the past several years, MoveOn has emerged, in the words of Salon's Michelle Goldberg, as "the most important political advocacy group in Democratic circles." It boasts more than 1.5 million members and raised a remarkable $40 million for the 2004 election. Many MoveOn supporters probably disagree with the organization's opposition to the Afghan war, if they are even aware of it, and simply see the group as an effective means to combat Bush. But one of the lessons of the early cold war is scrupulousness about whom liberals let speak in their name. And, while MoveOn's frequent bulletins are far more thoughtful than Moore's rants, they convey the same basic hostility to U.S. power.
In the early days after September 11, MoveOn suggested that foreign aid might prove a better way to defeat terrorism than military action. But, in recent years, it seems to have largely lost interest in any agenda for fighting terrorism at all. Instead, MoveOn's discussion of the subject seems dominated by two, entirely negative, ideas. First, the war on terrorism crushes civil liberties. On July 18, 2002, in a bulletin titled "Can Democracy Survive an Endless 'War'?," MoveOn charged that the Patriot Act had "nullified large portions of the Bill of Rights." Having grossly inflated the Act's effect, the bulletin then contrasted it with the--implicitly far smaller--danger from Al Qaeda, asking: "Is the threat to the United States' existence great enough to justify the evisceration of our most treasured principles?"
Secondly, the war on terrorism diverts attention from liberalism's positive agenda, which is overwhelmingly domestic. The MoveOn bulletin consists largely of links to articles in other publications, and, while the organization says it "does not necessarily endorse the views espoused on the pages that we link to," the articles generally fit the party line. On October 2, 2002, MoveOn linked to what it called an "excellent article," whose author complained that "it seems all anyone in Washington can think or talk about is terrorism, rebuilding Afghanistan and un-building Iraq." Another article in the same bulletin notes that "a large proportion of [federal] money is earmarked for security concerns related to the 'war on terrorism,' leaving less money available for basic public services."
Like the softs of the early cold war, MoveOn sees threats to liberalism only on the right. And thus, it makes common cause with the most deeply illiberal elements on the international left. In its campaign against the Iraq war, MoveOn urged its supporters to participate in protests co-sponsored by International answer, a front for the World Workers Party, which has defended Saddam, Slobodan Milosevic, and Kim Jong Il. When George Packer, in The New York Times Magazine, asked Pariser about sharing the stage with apologists for dictators, he replied, "I'm personally against defending Slobodan Milosevic and calling North Korea a socialist heaven, but it's just not relevant right now."
Pariser's words could serve as the slogan for today's softs, who do not see the fight against dictatorship and jihad as relevant to their brand of liberalism. When The New York Times asked delegates to this summer's Democratic and Republican conventions which issues were most important, only 2 percent of Democrats mentioned terrorism, compared with 15 percent of Republicans. One percent of Democrats mentioned defense, compared with 15 percent of Republicans. And 1 percent of Democrats mentioned homeland security, compared with 8 percent of Republicans. The irony is that Kerry--influenced by his relatively hawkish advisers--actually supported boosting homeland security funding and increasing the size of the military. But he got little public credit for those proposals, perhaps because most Americans still see the GOP as the party more concerned with security, at home and abroad. And, judging from the delegates at the two conventions, that perception is exactly right.
The Vital Center
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. would not have shared MoveOn's fear of an "endless war" on terrorism. In The Vital Center, he wrote, "Free society and totalitarianism today struggle for the minds and hearts of men.... If we believe in free society hard enough to keep on fighting for it, we are pledged to a permanent crisis which will test the moral, political and very possibly the military strength of each side. A 'permanent' crisis? Well, a generation or two anyway, permanent in one's own lifetime."
Schlesinger, in other words, saw the struggle against the totalitarianism of his time not as a distraction from liberalism's real concerns, or as alien to liberalism's core values, but as the arena in which those values found their deepest expression. That meant several things. First, if liberalism was to credibly oppose totalitarianism, it could not be reflexively hostile to military force. Schlesinger denounced what he called "doughfaces," liberals with "a weakness for impotence ... a fear, that is, of making concrete decisions and being held to account for concrete consequences." Nothing better captures Moore, who denounced the Taliban for its hideous violations of human rights but opposed military action against it--preferring pie-in-the-sky suggestions about nonviolent regime change.
For Schlesinger (who, ironically, has moved toward a softer liberalism later in life), in fact, it was conservatives, with their obsessive hostility to higher taxes, who could not be trusted to fund America's cold war struggle. "An important segment of business opinion," he wrote, "still hesitates to undertake a foreign policy of the magnitude necessary to prop up a free world against totalitarianism lest it add a few dollars to the tax rate." After Dwight Eisenhower became president, the ADA took up this line, arguing in October 1953 that the "overriding issue before the American people today is whether the national defense is to be determined by the demands of the world situation or sacrificed to the worship of tax reductions and a balanced budget." Such critiques laid the groundwork for John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign--a campaign, as Richard Walton notes in Cold War and Counterrevolution, "dominated by a hard-line, get-tough attack on communism." Once in office, Kennedy dramatically increased military spending.
Such a critique might seem unavailable to liberals today, given that Bush, having abandoned the Republican Party's traditional concern with balanced budgets, seems content to cut taxes and strengthen the U.S. military at the same time. But subtly, the Republican Party's dual imperatives have already begun to collide--with a stronger defense consistently losing out. Bush has not increased the size of the U.S. military since September 11--despite repeated calls from hawks in his own party--in part because, given his massive tax cuts, he simply cannot afford to. An anti-totalitarian liberalism would attack those tax cuts not merely as unfair and fiscally reckless, but, above all, as long-term threats to America's ability to wage war against fanatical Islam. Today, however, there is no liberal constituency for such an argument in a Democratic Party in which only 2 percent of delegates called "terrorism" their paramount issue and another 1 percent mentioned "defense."
But Schlesinger and the ADA didn't only attack the right as weak on national defense; they charged that conservatives were not committed to defeating communism in the battle for hearts and minds. It was the ADA's ally, Truman, who had developed the Marshall Plan to safeguard European democracies through massive U.S. foreign aid. And, when Truman proposed extending the principle to the Third World, calling in his 1949 inaugural address for "a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas," it was congressional Republicans who resisted the effort.
Support for a U.S.-led campaign to defeat Third World communism through economic development and social justice remained central to anti-totalitarian liberalism throughout the 1950s. Addressing an ADA meeting in 1952, Democratic Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut called for an "army" of young Americans to travel to the Third World as "missionaries of democracy." In 1955, the ADA called for doubling U.S. aid to the Third World, to blunt "the main thrust of communist expansion" and to "help those countries provide the reality of freedom and make an actual start toward economic betterment." When Kennedy took office, he proposed the Alliance for Progress, a $20 billion Marshall Plan for Latin America. And, answering McMahon's call, he launched the Peace Corps, an opportunity for young Americans to participate "in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace."
The critique the ADA leveled in the '50s could be leveled by liberals again today. For all the Bush administration's talk about promoting freedom in the Muslim world, its efforts have been crippled by the Republican Party's deep-seated opposition to foreign aid and nation-building, illustrated most disastrously in Iraq. The resources that the United States has committed to democratization and development in the Middle East are trivial, prompting Naiem Sherbiny of Egypt's reformist Ibn Khaldun Center to tell The Washington Post late last year that the Bush administration was "pussyfooting at the margin with small stuff."
Many Democratic foreign policy thinkers favor a far more ambitious U.S. effort. Biden, for instance, has called for the United States to "dramatically expand our investment in global education." But, while an updated Marshall Plan and an expanded Peace Corps for the Muslim world are more naturally liberal than conservative ideas, they have not resonated among post-September 11 liberal activists. A new Peace Corps requires faith in America's ability to improve the world, something that Moore--who has said the United States "is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe"--clearly lacks. And a new Marshall Plan clearly contradicts the zero-sum view of foreign aid that undergirded Kerry's vote against the $87 billion. In their alienation over Iraq, many liberal activists seem to see the very idea of democracy-promotion as alien. When the Times asked Democratic delegates whether the "United States should try to change a dictatorship to a democracy where it can, or should the United States stay out of other countries' affairs," more than three times as many Democrats answered "stay out," even though the question said nothing about military force.
What the ADA understood, and today's softs do not, is that, while in a narrow sense the struggle against totalitarianism may divert resources from domestic causes, it also provides a powerful rationale for a more just society at home. During the early cold war, liberals repeatedly argued that the denial of African American civil rights undermined America's anti-communist efforts in the Third World. This linkage between freedom at home and freedom abroad was particularly important in the debate over civil liberties. One of the hallmarks of ADA liberals was their refusal to imply--as groups like MoveOn sometimes do today--that civil liberties violations represent a greater threat to liberal values than America's totalitarian foes. And, whenever possible, they argued that violations of individual freedom were wrong, at least in part, because they hindered the anti-communist effort. Sadly, few liberal indictments of, for instance, the Ashcroft detentions are couched in similar terms today.
Toward an Anti-Totalitarian Liberalism
For liberals to make such arguments effectively, they must first take back their movement from the softs. We will know such an effort has begun when dissension breaks out within America's key liberal institutions. In the late '40s, the conflict played out in Minnesota's left-leaning Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, which Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy wrested away from Wallace supporters. It created friction within the naacp. And it divided the aclu, which split apart in 1951, with anti-communists controlling the organization and non-communists leaving to form the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.
But, most important, the conflict played out in the labor movement. In 1946, the CIO, which had long included communist-dominated affiliates, began to move against them. Over fierce communist opposition, the CIO endorsed the Marshall Plan, Truman's reelection bid, and the formation of nato. And, in 1949, the Organization's executive board expelled eleven unions. As Mary Sperling McAuliffe notes in her book Crisis on the Left: Cold War Politics and American Liberals, 1947-1954, while some of the expelled affiliates were openly communist, others were expelled merely for refusing to declare themselves anti-communist, a sharp contrast from the Popular Front mentality that governed MoveOn's opposition to the Iraq war.
Softs attacked the CIO's action as McCarthyite, but it eliminated any doubt about the American labor movement's commitment to the anti-communist cause. And that commitment became a key part of cold war foreign policy. Already in 1944, the CIO's more conservative rival, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had created the Free Trade Union Committee (ftuc), which worked to build an anti-totalitarian labor movement around the world. Between 1947 and 1948, the ftuc helped create an alternative to the communist-dominated General Confederation of Labor in France. It helped socialist trade unionists distribute anti-communist literature in Germany's Soviet-controlled zone. And it helped anti-communists take control of the Confederation of Labor in Greece. By the early '60s, the newly merged afl-cio was assisting anti-communists in the Third World as well, with the American Institute for Free Labor Development training 30,000 Latin American trade unionists in courses "with a particular emphasis on the theme of democracy versus totalitarianism." And the afl-cio was spending a remarkable 20 percent of its budget on foreign programs. In 1969, Ronald Radosh could remark in his book, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy, on the "total absorption of American labor leaders in the ideology of Cold War liberalism."
That absorption mattered. It created a constituency, deep in the grassroots of the Democratic Party, for the marriage between social justice at home and aggressive anti-communism abroad. Today, however, the U.S. labor movement is largely disconnected from the war against totalitarian Islam, even though independent, liberal-minded unions are an important part of the battle against dictatorship and fanaticism in the Muslim world.
The fight against the Soviet Union was an easier fit, of course, since the unions had seen communism up close. And today's afl-cio is not about to purge member unions that ignore national security. But, if elements within American labor threw themselves into the movement for reform in the Muslim world, they would create a base of support for Democrats who put winning the war on terrorism at the center of their campaigns. The same is true for feminist groups, for whom the rights of Muslim women are a natural concern. If these organizations judged candidates on their commitment to promoting liberalism in the Muslim world, and not merely on their commitment to international family planning, they too would subtly shift the Democratic Party's national security image. Challenging the "doughface" feminists who opposed the Afghan war and those labor unionists with a knee-jerk suspicion of U.S. power might produce bitter internal conflict. And doing so is harder today because liberals don't have a sympathetic White House to enact liberal anti-totalitarianism policies. But, unless liberals stop glossing over fundamental differences in the name of unity, they never will.
Obviously, Al Qaeda and the Soviet Union are not the same. The USSR was a totalitarian superpower; Al Qaeda merely espouses a totalitarian ideology, which has had mercifully little access to the instruments of state power. Communism was more culturally familiar, which provided greater opportunities for domestic subversion but also meant that the United States could more easily mount an ideological response. The peoples of the contemporary Muslim world are far more cynical than the peoples of cold war Eastern Europe about U.S. intentions, though they still yearn for the freedoms the United States embodies.
But, despite these differences, Islamist totalitarianism--like Soviet totalitarianism before it--threatens the United States and the aspirations of millions across the world. And, as long as that threat remains, defeating it must be liberalism's north star. Methods for defeating totalitarian Islam are a legitimate topic of internal liberal debate. But the centrality of the effort is not. The recognition that liberals face an external enemy more grave, and more illiberal, than George W. Bush should be the litmus test of a decent left.
Today, the war on terrorism is partially obscured by the war in Iraq, which has made liberals cynical about the purposes of U.S. power. But, even if Iraq is Vietnam, it no more obviates the war on terrorism than Vietnam obviated the battle against communism. Global jihad will be with us long after American troops stop dying in Falluja and Mosul. And thus, liberalism will rise or fall on whether it can become, again, what Schlesinger called "a fighting faith."
Of all the things contemporary liberals can learn from their forbearers half a century ago, perhaps the most important is that national security can be a calling. If the struggles for gay marriage and universal health care lay rightful claim to liberal idealism, so does the struggle to protect the United States by spreading freedom in the Muslim world. It, too, can provide the moral purpose for which a new generation of liberals yearn. As it did for the men and women who convened at the Willard Hotel.

As you may know, I have always liked Howard Dean and he was my first choice for the Democratic Nomination. Why? He understands how to rebuild the party and make it mean something. He made a speech this Wednesday about the future of the party, and he is right on in my opinion. Check it out.

Remarks by Governor Howard Dean On the Future of the Democratic Party The George Washington University

Thank you, Melissa, for that introduction. It's a pleasure to be here.

Let me tell you what my plan for this Party is:

We're going to win in Mississippi...and Alabama...and Idaho...and South Carolina.

Four years ago, the President won 49 percent of the vote. The Republican Party treated it like it was a mandate, and we let them get away with it.

Fifty one percent is not a mandate either. And this time we're not going to let them get away with it.

Our challenge today is not to re-hash what has happened, but to look forward, to make the Democratic Party a 50-state party again, and, most importantly, to win.

To win the White House and a majority in Congress, yes. But also to do the real work that will make these victories possible -- to put Democratic ideas and Democratic candidates in every office -- whether it be Secretary of State, supervisor of elections, county commissioner or school board member.

Here in Washington, it seems that after every losing election, there's a consensus reached among decision-makers in the Democratic Party is that the way to win is to be more like Republicans.
I suppose you could call that philosophy: if you didn't beat 'em, join them.

I'm not one for making predictions -- but if we accept that philosophy this time around, another Democrat will be standing here in four years giving this same speech. We cannot win by being "Republican-lite." We've tried it; it doesn't work.

The question is not whether we move left or right. It's not about our direction. What we need to start focusing on... is the destination.

There are some practical elements to the destination.

The destination of the Democratic Party requires that it be financially viable, able to raise money not only from big donors but small contributors, not only through dinners and telephone solicitations and direct mail, but also through the Internet and person-to-person outreach.
The destination of the Democratic Party means making it a party that can communicate with its supporters and with all Americans. Politics is at its best when we create and inspire a sense of community. The tools that were pioneered in my campaign -- like blogs and Meetups and most importantly, community building -- are just a start. We must use all of the power and potential of technology as part of an aggressive outreach to meet and include voters, to work with the state parties and to influence media coverage.

The most practical destination is winning elective office. And we must do that at every level of government.

The way we will rebuild the Democratic Party is not from consultants down, but from the ground up.

We have some successes to build on. We raised more money than the RNC, and we did so by attracting thousands of new small donors. This is the first time in my memory that the DNC is not coming out of a national campaign in debt. We trained tens of thousands of new activists.
We put together the most sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation our Party has ever had. We registered millions of new voters, including a record number of minority and young voters. And we saw those new voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

Now we need to build on our successes while transforming the Democratic Party into a grassroots organization that can win in 50 states.

I have seen all the doomsday predictions that the Democratic Party could shrink to become a regional Party. A Party of the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest.

We cannot be a Party that seeks the presidency by running an 18-state campaign. We cannot be a party that cedes a single state, a single District, a single precinct, nor should we cede a single voter.

As many of the candidates supported by my organization Democracy for America showed -- people in places that we've too long ignored are hungry for an alternative; they're hungry for new ideas and new candidates, and they're willing to elect Democrats.

Since we started Democracy for America last March, we raised over $5 million, mostly from small donors.

That money was used to help 748 candidates in 46 states and at every level of government.
We helped a Democratic governor get elected in Montana and a Democratic mayor get elected in Salt Lake County, Utah.

We helped Lori Saldana in San Diego. Lori, a Latina grassroots environmental organizer was outspent in both the primary and the general, won a seat on the state assembly.

We also helped Anita Kelly become the first African-American woman elected to her circuit court in Montgomery, Alabama.

Fifteen of the candidates who we helped win last month never ran for elective office before.
And in Texas, a little known candidate who had been written off completely ran the first competitive race against Tom Delay in over a decade.

And others who lost came very close, including Scott Kawasaki who lost by only 45 votes in an Alaska state legislative race -- in a very Republican state. We can win in these states, and we will.

There are no red states or blue states, just American states. And if we can compete at all levels and in the most conservative parts of the country, we can win... at any level and anywhere.
People will vote for Democratic candidates in Texas, and Alabama and Utah if we knock on their door, introduce ourselves and tell them what we believe.

There is another destination beyond strong finances, outreach and campaigns.

That destination is a better, stronger, smarter, safer, healthier America.

An America where we don't turn our back on our own people.

That's the America we can only build with conviction.

When some people say we should change direction, in essence they are arguing that our basic or guiding principles can be altered or modified.

They can't.

On issue after issue, we are where the majority of the American people are.
What I want to know is, at what point did it become a radical notion to stand up for what we believe?

Over fifty years ago, Harry Truman said, "We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it."

Yet here we are still making the same mistakes.

Let me tell you something: there's only one thing Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left -- and that's for us to lurch to the right.

What they fear most is that we may really begin fighting for what we believe -- the fiscally responsible, socially progressive values for which Democrats have always stood and fought.

I'll give this to Republicans. They know the America they want. They want a government so small that, in the words of one prominent Republican, it can be drowned in a bathtub.

They want a government that runs big deficits, but is small enough to fit into your bedroom.

They want a government that is of, by and for their special interest friends.

They want a government that preaches compassion but practices division.

They want wealth rewarded over work.

And they are willing to use any means to get there.

In going from record surpluses to record deficits, the Republican Party has relinquished the mantle of fiscal responsibility.

And now they're talking about borrowing another $2 trillion to take benefits away from our Senior Citizens.

In going from record job creation to record job loss, they have abandoned the mantle of economic responsibility.

In cutting health care, education, and community policing programs... and in failing to invest in America's inner cities, or distressed rural communities... they certainly have no desire to even claim the mantle of social responsibility.

In their refusal to embrace real electoral reform or conduct the business of government in the light of day, they are hardly the model of civic responsibility.

In their willingness to change the rules so that their indicted leaders can stay in power, they have even given up any claim on personal responsibility.

And in starting an international conflict based on misleading information, I believe they have abdicated America's moral responsibility, as well.

There is a Party of fiscal responsibility... economic responsibility... social responsibility... civic responsibility... personal responsibility... and moral responsibility.

It's the Democratic Party.

We need to be able to say strongly, firmly, and proudly what we believe.
Because we are what we believe.

And we believe every person in America should have access to affordable health care. It is wrong that we remain the only industrialized nation in the world that does not assure health care for all of its citizens.

We believe the path to a better future goes directly through our public schools. I have nothing against private schools, parochial schools and home schooling. Parents with the means and inclination should choose whatever they believe is best for their children. But those choices must never come at the expense of what has been -- and must always be -- the great equalizer in our society; public education.

We believe that if you put in a lifetime of work, you have earned a retirement of dignity -- not one that is put at risk by your government or unethical business practices.

The first time our nation balanced its budget, it was Andrew Jackson, father of the Democratic Party, who did it. The last time our nation balanced its budget, it was Bill Clinton who did it. I did it every year as Governor. Democrats believe in fiscal responsibility and we're the only ones who have delivered it.

We believe that every single American has a voice and that it should be heard in the halls of power everyday. And it most certainly must be heard on Election Day. Democracies around the world look to us as a model. How can we be worthy of their aspirations when we have not done enough to guarantee accurate elections for our own citizens.

We believe in a strong and secure America... and we believe we will be stronger by having a moral foreign policy.

We need to embrace real political reform -- because only real reform will pry government from the grasp of the special interests who fight against reform and progress.

The pundits have said that this election was decided on the issue of moral values. I don't believe that. It is a moral value to provide health care. It is a moral value to educate our young people. The sense of community that comes from full participation in our Democracy is a moral value. Honesty is a moral value.

If this election had been decided on moral values, Democrats would have won.

It is time for the Democratic Party to start framing the debate.

We have to learn to punch our way off the ropes.

We have to set the agenda.

We should not hesitate to call for reform -- reform in elections, reform in health care and education, reforms that promote ethical business practices.

And, yes, we need to talk about some internal reform in the Democratic Party as well, and I'll be discussing that more specifically in the days ahead.

Reform is the hallmark of a strong Democratic Party.

Those who stand in the way of reform cannot be the focus of our attention for only four months out of every four years.

Reform is a daily battle.

And we must pursue those reforms with conviction -- every day, at all levels, in 50 states.

A little while back, at a fundraiser, a woman came up to me. She identified herself as an evangelical Christian from Texas. I asked her what you are all wondering -- why was she supporting me. She said there were two reasons. The first was that she had a child who had poly-cystic kidney disease, and that the illness made it impossible for their family to get health insurance.

The second thing she said was, "The real reason we're with you is because evangelical Christians are people of deep conviction, and you're a person of deep conviction.

We may not agree with you on everything, but what we want more than anything else from our government is that when something happens to our family or something happens to our country -- it's that the people in office have deep conviction."

We are what we believe. And the American people know it.

And I believe that over the next two... four... ten years...
Election by election...
State by state...
Precinct by precinct...
Door by door...
Vote by vote...
We're going to lift our Party up...
And we're going to take this country back for the people who built it.

Governor Howard Dean -- December 8, 2004

Okay, I was lame and didn't blog for some time. I apologize. I intend to blog forth now. Remember the Fallujah assault that "broke the back of the insurgency across Iraq?" There are now over 150 attacks against US and Iraqi puppet, oh sorry, I meant interim government targets... A day. We average 4 to 5 dead Americans per day. Only Allah knows how many Iraqis are dying a day. We don't count them. The house leadership is tucking all kinds of bad stuff into Omnibus spending bills now (right for them to look at anyone's tax returns, right for private healthcare bureaucrats to deny you payment for exercising your right to an abortion, full funding for Bush's stupid return to the moon scheme, ad nauseum.)

I guess we who didn't vote for these morons no longer even get the right to have these things debated or even mentioned before they get shoved down our throats. When is the revolt scheduled? I swear I'll make time for it.

I've wanted to blog, really I have, but I've gotten so distracted lately.

Though the administration never comes out and say so, they imply that the torture techniques they employ are done so only to terrorists and in an effort to discover the next 9-11 attack. Newsweek has a report out that most of those tortured in Abu Ghirab weren't even terror suspects. They were common criminals and some were mentally ill. I am just so proud!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5412316/site/Newsweek

See, this is why torture should never be allowed. People in custody are not guilty just because they are in custody, even though most Americans seem to think so. A sober examination of evidence is required to determine guilt. People are scooped up in war zones indiscriminately precisely because when chaos reigns on the ground, you arrest first and sort it out later. That's the safest thing to do and is completely understandable. That's why Guantanimo was full of taxi drivers and other innocents at first. Only took the military 6 weeks to 6 months to sort most of them out. That is precisely why you must follow humane and constitution-based rules when you detain people. Not for the benefit of the detained, but for the benefit of those who detain--so that no one can ever accuse you of tyrannical behavior, so that our experiment in decent, humane, popular government and society is not debased.

Those in power now are not fit to govern.

Hey, I heard a great idea about putting Reagan's mug on currency. The suggestion was to reintroduce the $500 bill and put Reagan on it. Perfect. Then his favorite people would get to see him whenever they needed inspiration.

By the way, I found this on the US Treasury page about discontinued denominations:

United States currency notes now in production bear the following portraits: George Washington on the $1 bill, Thomas Jefferson on the $2 bill, Abraham Lincoln on the $5 bill, Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill.

There are also several denominations of currency notes that are no longer produced. These include the $500 bill with the portrait of William McKinley, the $1,000 bill with a portrait of Grover Cleveland, the $5,000 bill with a portrait of James Madison, the $10,000 bill with a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, and the $100,000 currency note bearing a portrait of Woodrow Wilson. They were used mainly for transfer of funds between Fed reserve banks and discontinued in 1969. Our current style of paper currency was created in 1929.

As a matter of interest, Salmon P. Chase served as Treasury secretary from 1861 until July 1864, and was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1864 to 1873.

The Bush admin. hits a new low. The VP of the US told a US Senator to Fuck off on the floor of the Senate. And this is after Cheney started it by accosting Patrick Leahy and berating him for accusing Haliburton of war profiteering. When Leahy had the temerity to point out that the Republicans played much more dirty pool by accusing Senate Democrats of Anti-Catholic bias just because they opposed Bill Pryor, who happens to be a Catholic, for a judgeship, Cheney let loose with the profanity.

For the full story see:

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-campaign-obscenity.html

Unfit to Govern.

By the way, Fahrenheit 9/11 is already breaking box-office records, beating out even Men in Black with wall-to-wall sold-out shows. And tonight, despite the right-wing campaigns to stop it, it will open at over 800 theaters across the country -- totally unprecedented for a documentary. Well over one hundred thousand MoveOn members will be there over the course of the weekend, and we hope you can come, too.

But this huge opening for Fahrenheit 9/11 is just the beginning. On Monday night, tens of thousands of MoveOn members are gathering at house parties across the country in "Turn Up the Heat," a nation-wide virtual town meeting with Michael Moore. Together, we'll take the enormous momentum of Fahrenheit 9/11 and channel it into strategic action to win back the White House.

There are over 1,400 house parties planned so far, from Delray Beach, Florida to Salem, Oregon. To find a party near you, or host one of your own, just go to:
http://action.moveonpac.org/f911/

Here's a sampling of what the critics have to say:

"As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" -- as we saw last night -- is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty -- and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice."
-- Roger Friedman, FOX NEWS

"Among the movies everyone should see this year--whatever your film taste or your political bent--Michael Moore's incendiary documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' heads the list. 'Fahrenheit' may provoke, delight or divide its audience. But no one will react indifferently to this shocking, sad and funny look at the Bush administration's handling of terrorism and the Iraqi war."
-- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"[A]n explosive and heart wrenching piece of cinema . . ."
-- Mark Salisbury, PREMIERE MAGAZINE

"It is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances."
-- A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Fahrenheit 9/11 may be the most important cultural event of this election cycle. Right-wing groups like Citizens United are complaining that the movie will help defeat Bush. Let's prove them right.

'Nother review of Michael Moore's new movie:

F 9/11

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?040628crci_cinema

Well, I manage to stumble through a dress rehearsal of Molly Sweeney last night. Good thing too, we open Friday.

Here's the promotional blurb:

> Hey Folks,
>
> Due to a clerical error, I've been allowed to trod the
> boards and do a play again! It's called Molly
> Sweeney, by the Irish playwright Brian Friel and it
> runs Friday and Saturday this week and then
> Thursday-Sat. for the following three weekends, ending
> Saturday, July 17. See this link for specific times
> and info.
>
> http://www.main.org/diffstages/
>
> It's in two acts, each about an hour long with about
> 15 minutes of interval between. It's probably not
> like anything you've seen before, with the three
> actors on stage together the whole play, trading
> monologues that tell the story of Molly's
> sight-restoring surgery in retrospect.
>
> And it's chock full of interesting stuff: a
> fascinating look inside the world of the blind, what
> it means to see, the difference between seeing and
> understanding, why ambition and good intentions don't
> always lead to happy endings. Not to mention flying
> fishing, Iranian goats, cheese making, African bees,
> too much whiskey, flowers, swimming, the samba, and
> two badgers, if you don't mind. Full of human
> frailty, but loaded with humor, it ends up being
> greatly affecting.
>
> Hope to see you there!
>
> Tomas
>
> P.S. If you're mad that TxDOT is using our money to
> build roads and then turn them over to corporations so
> they cab charge us to use them, see this sight:
>
> >
> > Here is a .pdf file that can also be printed and
> distributed:
> >
> >
>

I meant to post this yesterday but was swamped with preparation for my play. Wednesday night, Nightline blew the lid of the torture scandal with a carefully research paper trail and timeline that plainly suggests the the top levels of our government okayed and encouraged torture in Afghanistan and Iraq. See this link for more info: http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/Nightline/

See the section of Wednesday's and Thursday's show.

Disgusting.

Damn it. I had to go and read the Letters to the Editor section of the E-version of the Statesman. Of course, I found something I had to respond to. Here is the ignorant fallacy:

"Separation is a myth

I disagree forcefully with the June 13 letter "Separation not a myth." The writer expects us to assume, as liberals would have us do, that separation of church and state is a principle found in our Constitution and desired by our founding fathers.

"Separation of church and state" never appears in the Constitution. The founding fathers put in a section stating that there should be "no establishment of religion," but they meant it to be understood as "no established denomination of Christianity." It was not until activist judge rulings in the 1960s that "separation of church and state" was even mentioned.

Contrary to liberals' beliefs, it is not conservatives who wish to throw out the Constitution. It is liberals who want to twist its meaning around to suit their purposes.

DAVID RUNYON
Pflugerville"

Here is my enlightened response:

"It's No Myth

Judging by David Runyon's letter of June 18 claiming that "separation of church and state" is not a constitutional principle, was never intended by the founders and was instead invented by "activist" judges in the 1960s, he must have slept through his US history classes. Luckily for him, I did not and can set him straight.

The establishment clause of the First Amendment, as it is known in scholarly circles, was indeed meant to prevent congress from passing any laws concerning religion, positive or negative, and I know so because Thomas Jefferson wrote so in a famous letter to the Danbury Baptist association in 1802. In fact, he invented the phrase "separation of church and state" in the letter explaining to the church folks that the establishment clause was intended to build a "wall of separation between church and state" because religion is a personal matter between a citizen and his/her god.

Further proof of the founders intention to create a secular government is found in Article XI of the Treaty with the Bey and people of Tripoli, signed by founder and 2nd President John Adams and unanimously ratified by the US Senate in 1797. It states that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." For brevity's sake, I'll stop there, though there's lot more evidence from quotes of founders like George Washington, James Madison, Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, as well as a lot more than quoted here from Adams and Jefferson. Look them up. They're all over the internet.

Opinions are fine, Mr. Runyon, but they only mean something when supported by and weaned from fact.

Tom Chamberlain
Austin"

Michael Moore's new Movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, is according to the Fox News review, "a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail."

Whaaaaaaa!?!?

While the commentators on that network are calling the movie an anti Bush screed, the reviewer, Roger Friedman, says that is wrong headed. "As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty  —  and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice."

Plus, he says seeing it would be an affirmation of the 1st amendment and a blow to corporate censorship. "But, really, in the end, not seeing "F9/11" would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat."

So see the movie. And bring a friend.

This from Seth in a comment about the June 10th post. Sickening, if true:

Army Admits Discharged Soldier Injured


Tuesday June 8, 2004 11:46 PM




By BRUCE SCHREINER

Associated Press Writer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A military police officer was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Army acknowledged Tuesday.

The Army previously said Spc. Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the U.S. government holds suspected terrorists.

Full story here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4183322,00.html

Here's the press release for the play I'm in:

For Immediate Release                                                   Norman Blumensaadt
June 4, 2004                                                                  (512)453-7943
Different Stages . 4602 B Rosedale . Austin TX 78756

Different Stages Presents

Brian Friel's
Molly Sweeney

June 25 - July 17, 2004
The Auditorium on Waller Creek, 710 East 41st St

Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.

One Sunday performance July 11 at 2 PM

"Pay What-You-Wish" on Thursdays   $14 on Fridays and Saturdays and $12 on Sunday
Bring  a can good for the Aids Services of Austin Food Bank
and get $2 off the Friday and Saturday ticket price.


(AUSTIN, Texas) -    Different Stages closes its 2003-2004 season with Brian Friel's  tale,
MOLLY SWEENEY. The Tony-award winning playwright of Dancing at Lughnasa and Translations takes a risk with this daring three character play. Using a bare stage and lavish imagery, Molly, blind since she was an infant, Frank, her husband and champion of good causes, and Mr. Rice, her once-famous eye surgeon, tell their stories of the transformation of Molly's world. This is an unforgettable theatre piece rich with the simple purity of an Irish Storyteller's art.

Directed by Karen Carver Sneed (Crimes of the Heart), MOLLY SWEENEY features Payton Hayslip (Fruits andVegetables) as Molly, Tom Chamberlain (Travesties) as her husband and Garry Peters (The Road to Wigan Pier) as her doctor.

For tickets and information call 474-TIXS (8497)

Lots of goofy and arrogant little neo-cons love to call reasonable, moderate people who think that capitalism needs regulation (classic definition of a political liberal) "socialists," once again letting their ignorance show.

See, Socialism means a state managed economy. We are not now nor ever have been socialist. We are a liberal democracy with a lightly regulated free market economy. Interestingly, even in the depths of the "malaise" of the late 1970s, we remained the richest and most economically robust nation in the world, despite the right wing's patron saint's unsupported claims to the contrary. Reagan blamed all our woes on regulation, and that resonated with youngsters ignorant of the great depression and the way things were before the Federal Reserve and the SEC. Before that, bubbles like the Real Estate fiasco in the 80s and the tech stock nonsense of 2000 happened about every 15 to 20 years. Check your history books if you don't believe me. By the way, the real estate bust in the 80s was due to the stupidity and greed at many Savings and Loans when they were, say it with me now, deregulated.

Regulation was intended not to punish entrepreneurs or strangle small business, but to provide sane boundaries and limits so that the natural corrections of the market didn't hit us so hard. Yes, it prevents us from running at full speed or getting too high too quick, but the idea is to minimize the number of Icaruses out there in business land. Plus it attempts to keep corporations from manipulating resources for maximum profit.

In case you think that's bad, I remind you of Enron. Now we have proof they are evil. Check it out:

In the now infamous Grandma Millie exchange, recorded on Nov. 30, 2000, two traders, identified as Kevin and Bob, discuss demands by California officials that electricity-generating companies and traders pay refunds for price-gouging. They also refer to the disputed presidential election, which was as yet undecided.

Kevin: So the rumor's true? They're [expletive] takin' all the money back from you guys? All those money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?

Bob: Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she's the one who couldn't figure out how to [expletive] vote on the butterfly ballot.

Kevin: Yeah, now she wants her [expletive] money back for all the power you've charged for [expletive] $250 a megawatt hour.

Bob: You know - you know - you know, Grandma Millie, she's the one that Al Gore's fightin' for, you know?

Later in the same conversation, Kevin and Bob express little sympathy for Californians.

Kevin: Oh, best thing that could happen is [expletive] an earthquake, let that thing float out to the Pacific and put 'em [expletive] candles.

Bob: I know. Those guys - just cut 'em off.

Kevin: They're so [expletive] and they're so like totally - -

Bob: They are so [expletive].

That from an article in the NY Times this weekend. the whole article is at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/weekinreview/13word.html

Check it out, get riled and get active. The biggest threat to you is not big government. Rather, it is unfettered crooks like this.

Which brings me to my modest proposal. I would give the residents of Ca. onw whack each at these bastards in some suitably public place. What you think?

Still don't believe the Abu Ghirab scandal was the result of orders from the very top of this administration?

Now we find out that lawyers at the justice department argued that the President could order torture on our enemies as he saw fit. And John Ashcroft, the top law enforcement officer of the US has refused to let us see these arguments not for any legal reasons or because of Executive Privilege, but because he just won't, clearly an act that puts him in contempt of Congress.

Unfit to govern this great nation. A shame we all must bear until we correct it in November.

Hey, did you hear that a guy named Ronald Reagan died? Apparently he played the 40th President of the United States on this long-ass West Wing type program that lasted 8 years. Now they're doing the longest tribute to a dead actor I've ever seen. Longer than those Oscar remembers segments.

I heard a guy say Reagan taught him to love his country again. Some other guy said Reagan defeated the Soviet Union (even though a pesky Senator from New York name of Moynihan did a financial analysis and predicted it would be bankrupt by the early 1990s anyway. Oh, and he did this in 1978, by the way.) Some people just thought he was a great dad-like figure, except for his own children. Anyway, we're a weird country sometimes--Maybe we'll get over this. See this site for a critical look at this guy's legacy.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102008/

Hear about the racist attack in Austin?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/tuesday/news_045c5610e15191ab0068.html

What follows is my reply to Kay Bailey's reply to a petition I sent her:

I thank you for you prompt replies to my emails over the years. Courtesy seems to be a lost art today both in day to day life and especially in politics.

In particular, I refer to your email:

June 7, 2004
>
>
> Mr. Thomas Chamberlain
> 4804 Avenue G
> Austin, TX 78751-2523
>
> Dear Mr. Chamberlain:
>
> Thank you for contacting me regarding Iraqi
> prisoner abuse. I welcome
> your thoughts and comments on this issue.
>
> I have been to Iraq to visit our troops and assess
> the mission
> first-hand. The military's task involves important
> projects, such as
> building schools and hospitals, and establishing
> order to enable the Iraqi
> people to advance toward democratic ideals. The
> security provided by
> American forces, while never perfect, ensures
> opportunity in the region.
> The United States is committed to rebuilding efforts
> in Iraq, and it is
> imperative we support the military men and women who
> are serving with
> honor and distinction in difficult circumstances.
>
> I am troubled by the actions of a small group of
> American soldiers
> against Iraqi prisoners; what has occurred is both
> unacceptable and
> intolerable. There is no excuse for what happened
> to the prisoners and
> those involved will be held accountable for their
> actions. I support the
> Administration's commitment to uncovering the facts
> on why these abuses
> happened and punishing those who are found guilty.
> I understand your
> concerns, but it is important to let the
> investigation take its full
> course. Please be assured I will continue to
> monitor the situation
> closely and keep your views in mind.

With all due respect, I am troubled by my senator referring to the systematic mistreatment of Iraqis by US personnel as "actions of a small group of American soldiers." What? Allegations of abuse come from all of the detention centers in that country and over 38 deaths in those facilities are classified by the military as homicides.

These abuses occurred after Gen. Miller came to Iraq from Guantanimo Bay to "improve intel" from prisoners, and you ask your constituents to believe these actions arise from rogue elements? The ICRC was raising red flags from the get-go about our detention centers and specifically lambasted them last October and November. But no one seemed to care as long as there weren't any pictures. Well I care. And you should too. This abuse is the result of an ends-justifies-the-means approach instilled by Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies, but you want to blame a few badly trained reservists?

Maybe now you can understand why many freedom-loving Americans oppose the Patriot Act and demand court oversight of everything this administration does. We do not trust our leaders, and according to the constitution, shouldn't have to. You in the legislative branch and those in the judiciary as supposed to be watchdogs, not lapdogs. And if the attitude expressed in your email in any indication, you are failing us.

I urge you to rise above party loyalty and demand to know why chain of command was so confused in those detention centers that this abuse was even possible. I sincerely hope you will reconsider your position.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the "June 4th Incident" as it is known in China--Tiananmen Square to us. Incredibly, the Commie party there is still prohibiting any commemoration of it and placing activists under house arrest to prevent it, and just as incredibly people are doing so in their small way anyway. Since the party is the state there, they reason that criticism of the party is bad for the state and thus unpatriotic. Sad but understandable, given their system of governance,

What is not understandable at all, given our system of government, is that anyone, let alone the House Majority Leader, would make that claim in this country. And yet that is what Tom Delay says about Nancy Pelosi calling the President incompetent. She said that Bush's handling of the war in Iraq shows "an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience, in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and
the cost to our taxpayers." Given the fact that they were wrong about WMD, wrong about any al Qaeda connection, wrong about the number of troops necessary to secure the country's infrastructure and borders (remember the looting and infiltration of foreign fighters?) wrong about the reception of the people, wrong about the end of major combat operations and are still unable to provide security, her position seems at least plausible.

Delay said that "her words are putting American lives at risk," and that she has "a responsibility to the troops and to this nation to show unity in this time of war." Uh, George Bush put American lives at risk with his little adventure in nation building, not Nancy Pelosi's criticism of it. And to his second point, Teddy Roosevelt said in 1918, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Sad when a major figure in American politics resembles the red Chinese government more than a venerable fore-figure of his own country and political party. But then again, Tommy D has always been a sad little figure. Happy June 4 incident day.

The Austin Film Society, of which I am a member has some cool perks, one of which is free preview screenings. Tonight, I saw one you guys need to see. It's called Control Room and it opens next Friday in Austin at the Arbor. Check it out. It is a documentary that follows Al Jazeera and some of the CentComm folks they interact with just before the invasion of Iraq and through the time Bush declared victory. Fascinating stuff. Puts everything in a new light, because it presents Al Jazeera and their staff as human beings. Lots of points of view are present and few verified, but who's right and who's wrong isn't quite as important as the feeling you get that our toothless media isn't showing us all we need to know. And not because they're bad or in cohoots with the gov, but for lots of complicated and very real reasons. Plus, as a former print journalist, I love depictions of the behind the scenes stuff. It reminds me of covering the mayor's office in SA in 88 or the Texas Legislature in 89. There are all kinds of relationships you build that the public never sees. A reporter is like an iceberg--you only see a fraction, because for lots of complicated and human reasons, that's all we every get to show. See this movie and what's better, take a friend who still thinks taking over Iraq was a good idea. Good stuff, Maynard.

Yesterday, I agreed to fill in for a drop out and appear in a play. It opens the 25th of June and I have to memorize 1/3 of the 57 page play. No worries! 'Specially since my character can't stay on topic. His first bit is 5 and 1/2 pages long. I am an eejit and the Irish say. Oh did I mention it's a Brian Friel play and set in Ballybeg, Donegal so I have to pass for a mick.

It's called and about Molly Sweeney, a woman blind since early childhood and who just underwent surgery to restore her sight and I am to be the husband, Frank, it's told in monologue so it should be interesting. See this link for more info http://www.guthrietheater.org/pdf/molly.pdf on the play and the writer.

See this link for more info about this production: http://www.main.org/diffstages/

I went to Moveon.org's site today to answer their question, "What's you position on the US military presence in Iraq? They had these choices:

Immediate withdrawal
Setting a date for withdrawal
Staying the course,
I don't know--it's a mess.

I chose the last option and then added this comment.

This is not a question for which multiple choice answers work very well. Bush's adventure has destabilize Iraq and injected into it a measure of chaos that we now, unfortunately, have the obligation to correct. So immediate withdrawal is irresponsible. Staying the course, since it is a rudderless one, is inconceivable. Perhaps, what would be best is if the newly sovereign government in Iraq repudiates the Bush administration itself and demands the withdrawal of all coalition troops and their replacement with a UN-sponsored security force that is a true international coalition. Perhaps then, the new Iraqi government can forge an independent tone and those currently fighting "occupation" would have no enemy.

Then, maybe, Iraqi police and military will not abandon their jobs or collaborate with those fighting the occupation. Bush has ruined our image in the region and I think we will have to step out of the lead in rebuilding Iraq to rehabilitate that image. At the same time, we must ensure that any UN replacement is up to the job, has teeth, and is not mere window dressing.

So, that was the position I took. Almost half of the membership supports the date setting option, which I think just gives those fighting the occupation a time-table for their evil deeds. Will the sovereign Iraqi government help us out by kicking us out? Probably not. That would take boldness and I doubt those installed by brainy (the UN diplomat who will choose the interim government) will be anything more than cautious and plodding.

By the way, I got an email today about resurrecting an anti-Nazi occupation idea from Norway and Denmark to wear certain colored clothing to signify opposition. According to the email, Norwegian women knit red caps for their household to wear in public to demonstrate, quietly, their opposition to the fascist Germans. Danes wore red-white-blue caps. The email asks those opposed to the Bush Admin. To wear red every Friday.

Though this is not outright stupidity like the email I received urging me to not buy gas on a particular day to protest gas prices (if we all bought gas every day, this might make sense, sort of, but since I buy gas every 2 weeks or so, and probably wouldn't buy gas on that day anyway, how is this going to hurt big oil?), it still kinda makes me smile. My alternative is, forget the red cap, get someone, anyone, convinced not to vote for Bush in November and do THAT every Friday and maybe we would get somewhere. Plus, red is associated with communism and that nonsense could be thrown in your face. How about blue? Or red white and blue? We need to rescue the flag from the right wing nuts anyway....

Last bit is outrage 65002. John Ashcroft is trying to brand Greenpeace a criminal organization in Federal Court in Florida. Greenpeace has for sometime boarded boats bearing illegal Amazon rainforest mahogany to bring this smuggling to the attention of US authorities and demand the authorities take action against the shippers. The volunteers are usually arrested for trespassers and given fines for their civil disobedience. But John decided to use an obscure maritime law from 1872 to indict Greenpeace as an organization. (That old law was to prevent organized gangs of whores and gamblers to come on board ships just in harbor for the purposes of bilking the sailors of their pay.) The idea is to get a conviction and then use that to strip Greenpeace of it's tax exempt status and effectively shut it up. Don't believe this is the Bush Strategy? A few months ago, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza was not permitted to enter Miami harbor on a PR and education tour because of "homeland security issues."


A corollary to that dumb republican trick is Mitt Romney, Gov' of Mass. Using a bigoted law that was put in place to prevent miscegenation (mixed marriages) in Mass. Without having to actually state that's what they were doing. The law prohibits the issuance of marriage certificates to out-of-staters if their union violated the law in their home state. Here he is using that bigotry in a new and creative way. Think that irony was lost on Mitt?

As you may or may not know, the Chronicle published a blurb about Nudge fest in yesterday's issue and mentioned In Flagrante, erroneously accusing Scott Von Doviak of making it. (see link for more info on Mr. Von Doviak)

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-1251/

This is what I wrote to the Chronicle:

Correction to the Nudge Micro Digital Film
Festival story on page 60 of the May 7, 2004 Chronicle.

Courtney Fitzgerald accuses Scott Von Doviak of making the feature In Flagrante in Steve Mims' 1998 class. I write to clear his name and take full responsibility for writing and directing said movie.

I don't know how this rumor got started as Steve's press release and flyer clearly name me as the culprit and he swears up and down that when called and questioned about the Von Doviak attribution, he set the caller straight and gave them my full name.

Thanks. I hope this clears things up.

I thought you folks might enjoy this.

I have been stewing over the John Kerry-isn't-a-good-Catholic-because-he-is-pro-choice flap and now I think I'll serve up the result.

I was raised in this church and took it very seriously at one point in my life, so I've thought about this charge a lot. It is specious and here's why.

Being pro-choice simply acknowledges that in a multi-faith society abortion decisions are best left to the individual facing them. Some, whose faith tells them it is a sin will choose not to have one. Those whose faith tells them it is not a sin are free to have one.

In the legal realm, that is the secular convention, fetus' have never been conferred rights (that is why the right-wing is trying hard to do so now by passing state and federal murder laws when a fetus dies as the result of a crime to the mother. This is unprecedented in common law. You had to be born to have rights under the law. When parents lost a fetus due to the criminal act against the mother, English law provide only civil recourse to the parents. They could sue for damages since they lost a field hand or house keeper. The implication was that the parents had rights, while the unborn had non.)

The Supreme Court recognized this in 1973 with the Roe decision. The states could not impose religious morality upon those who did not hold those religious views. It was a decision that only a individual could make. Not a state. I think they were right on the money.

Curiously, the religious right, who think abortion is wrong think they have a right to impose this belief upon those who do not hold it. Kerry's position is that while he, in the exercise of his faith, believes it is wrong and therefore presumably would not be party to an abortion, he as a good American realizes that not others do not share his faith and must be allowed to follow theirs without interference, in accordance with freedom to practice religion as spelled out in the 1st amendment, the law of the land.

So as a Catholic, he is anti-abortion in personal life. As a Public servant, he upholds the Constitution, as he swore to. What's the problem? There is none. As a Catholic, you are not required by catechism to use your position in secular government to impose Catholic doctrine on the people. And as an American legislator, you are sworn not to. So as long as he doesn't have an abortion, how can he possibly sin in that regard? Simple. He can't. Further, you can be a good Catholic and vote pro-choice all you want and never sin. Allowing that you do not have the right to impose your beliefs is not a sin.

For some strange reason some believers think Jesus requires you to impose belief in him through secular law. He doesn't. In fact, he is quite clear that all a follower can do is spread the good news. It is up to the hearer to accept it or not. He is very specific in this. People must come to him voluntarily. Plus, it is a very Old Testament notion that someone elses sin is visited upon you so you must get your neighbors to repent. It was the scribes and Pharisees not Jesus who went around condemning people for violations of the letter of Mosaic law. Jesus not only did not condemn, he saved them from the condemners and then broke bread with the sinners. How can one can one self a Christian when one acts more like the Pharisees that had him killed than Jesus himself? Makes no sense.

Well, turns out three-ear is not only a female, but a mommy as well. Saw her engorged dinners while she was munching sunflower seeds the other day. Monkey-time Randy informs me that the third ear is a surveillance implant of the Homeland Security Dept. That explains why she's eyeballing me all the time.

Typing of animals, (I'm not speaking so I can't write that can I?) I'm listening to the commentary from a Brit named Cowie on the Alain Resnais film Hiroshima Mon Amour (which is worth seeing now, I'd say), Saturday around noon, when I see a black form flash by on my peripheral vision. I turn to look out the window to see Elvis, my big black Lab, wandering through the front yard, sniffing and such. I immediate pause the film and pop out onto the front porch to catch Elv in the side yard by the juniper trees. "Elvis, Come inside," says I, to which the good ol' boy dutifully lifts his head, wags and then runs over and up the steps and into the house, where Peachy greets him.

Exasperated, I stay outside and head around the north side of the house expecting to find the gate wide open. However, it's closed. Now, I'm stumped, cuz I can't figure out how he got out. I go through the gate and start walking the perimeter of the fence expecting to find it disturbed where he climbed it. Mind you, I have waged a 4- or 5-year campaign to keep first Peachy and now Elv in the yard--First filling in holes and building stone and wood barricades, then trying an invisible fence and finally resorting to electrification, which for the most part has worked well.

Still, it hasn't been 100 percent successful, and the breaches are harder and harder to anticipate, so I was searching with some annoyance for the way out when I heard dog commotion behind me. I turned and saw Peachy's and not one, but two black labs. I said something out loud, like "huh?" or "What the..." And that brought the pack of them to me. Upon further review, it became clear that the 2nd lab wasn't Elvis, aside from the fact that Elvis was standing next to him. Elvis has a grey muzzle and this pup's was coal black. So I called the boy over to me and took off his collar, which was exceedingly similar to Elvis'. It had two tags on it just like Elvis but the name tag was a chrome bone where Elvis' is a blue bone. Turns out he lives in the 5100 block of Ave. G and his name was Coal P. Smith. As I went into the house to call his human, the similarities in the dogs struck me as amazing. Coal was about 90 percent the size of Elv, but he walked and held his head almost the exact same way. I called Coal in and made my dogs wait outside.

This was the exchange with Coal's human:

Hello
Hello there!
You have my dog don't you?
I sure do.
Where are you?
(I give the address).
I'll be there in a minute. Thanks.


That was it. ;-)

So I'm waiting with him as he sniffs out the entire place occasionally brushing by me. When I put my hand down, he comes to it, in an eerily similar manner to that of my big boy. Again. I am in a bit of awe of the weirdness of the sitch.

The wind blows the front door slightly open and Coal takes the opportunity to nose it fully open and push out through the screen door. I follow him and when he gets 20 feet away ask him to come, which, amazingly, he does. He waits on the porch with me for a minute until he recognizes the engine of his human and bolts down to the curb.

A lady pulls up in an Explorer and Coal circles it. She gets out and greets the boy and then thanks me. I tell her the story, as it strikes me as a good one. She enjoys it or convincingly pretend to and then opens the back door for Coal to climb into. He climbs up but hesitates with the hind legs. She explains that for some reason his hip dysplasia makes it hard for him to get into the car but that he jumps the fence no problem. I tell me my boy has atrophied hind legs too but after all he's 11 years old. She says, "So is Coal!

Weird man.

ABC's Nightline is going on the air tonight a reading of the names of the soldiers that have died in Iraq along with a face to go with the name. But 8 stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group won't be showing it, because the CEO has decided that the unvarnished reading of the war dead is an antiwar statement. Mind you, Ted Koppel isn't going to make any value judgements while introducing the bit. It's just a straight memorial. Check out what Sinclair says to explain their preemption. http://www.sbgi.net/index.shtml. You'll notice there's a response to a letter from John McCain up there too. Here's the letter: http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsCenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=1276.

I don't know about you, but I don't want some media exec whose donated heavily to the Republicans to tell me what I should watch or not. If he really wanted to respond to it, show it and then respond anyway you want. But to simply not show it is unpatriotic and unamerican. Period. Unbelievable.

If you feel the need to sound off, here's the contact info for the CEO:

Corporate Headquarters
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
410-568-1500 (Main Telephone)
410-568-1533 (Main Fax)

Now with Comments. Enjoy.

Okay,


(Rain last 24h, trace)
(previous 24h, .6 inches)

Bob just came buy with lunch that I grilled some of while he chopped and warmed the other 2/3rds. I got to point 3-ear, my local squirrel out to him. This year, I moved my bird feeder from a porch hang down to a pole in the front yard, thus making it squirrel resistant and taking away my motivation to capture and release the beasts like I did last summer (2 males and 5 females). Since they breed in September and February, they quickly repopulate and last summer's quick-fix was just impractical in the long run. Plus I got too much grief from my tree huggin' friends, who fretted that the squirrels were possibly being harmed by being moved 5 miles south. They weren't of course, cuz they ain't territorial and adapt very easily.

Anyway, Three-ear enjoys the corn, peanuts and S-flower seeds in the bird feed mix, and he's content to eat them off the ground and not molest the feeder, so everything is cool. I get to see my cardinals, bluejays, house sparrows and white winged doves come and feed and he/she gets to eat too. I have other squirrel visitors, but I haven't identified them like 3-ear, cuz they don't make it easy with a deformed right ear that looks like 2. He also is not skittish and lets me come within 3 feet of him most days. Interesting little beast.

Bob didn't seem that impressed. Instead he make the dogs sit and feed them Alpo Snaps. Peachy and Elvis loooooove Bob.

Vice President Dick gave a speech today saying the President doesn't believe we need a permission slip from particular nations to defend our national interests, a dig at Democrats lament that we went it alone and are no paying the price for it. Note that permission slip is their latest clever quip they are going to overuse like they did "not on a war footing," "would have moved heaven and earth had we known," "gathering threat," and so on. Problem is, those nations he suggests he didn't need a permission slip from were right. Iraq had no WMD, no delivery system, no nothing. What's more, after scolding the UN for being namby pamby towards Iraq for letting SH thumb his nose and lie and drag his feet, it turned out, ironically, not only had UNSCOM, the original inspection regime, destroyed his WMD and WMD programs, the oft belittled embargo made it impossible to restart them.

Given those facts, going into Iraq had nothing to do with "protecting our national interests." How embarrassing that Dick and Dubya have proved the poodle-walking surrender monkeys right!

Lastly Supreme Antonin Scalia is flapping his jowls again. I ain't talkin' about his claim that ruling on a procedural matter involving his good friend and hunting pal VP Dick wouldn't be a conflict of interest. He may have a point, since the issue isn't personal, but a matter of what the office of VP can and cannot decide to reveal or not. I refer instead to his public grousing that the full court let stand a ruling that Virginia Military Institute cannot compel cadets to say a noon meal non-sectarian prayer. He said it was too important to VMI to leave it unresolved. Huh? Refusing to review, resolves it. It means the ruling stands. End of story. Funnily enough, initially, all the cadets who brought the suit wanted permission to do was ignore the prayer. They were not allowed to ignore a prayer in a State funded school. Now, because the goofs in charge wouldn't allow them to, the school can't say the prayer at all.

When will the religious right get it? Those who don't want to worship your way are simply asking to be left alone and not compelled to do so. They don't want to take away your right, and not compelling them doesn't affect your practice at all. What part of that don't they get?

Being easily influenced, I've started this log cuz some friends of mine started one and I didn't want to feel left out. Plus, I needed a physical place to stick my coffee-induced rants before they leak out of my head and into the ether with the other waste heat produced daily 'round here. So here 'tis.