Views > December 20, 2004

Time for a Purge?

By Joel Bleifuss

Debate is raging about the future direction of the Democratic Party. What is our message? What is our strategy? Who are our leaders?

If we are to win elections and govern, these important questions need to be resolved. But it is one thing to plot an electoral strategy, and another to understand and convey the realities of the world we live in. These are separate, if connected, tasks.

In the December 12 New Republic, Editor Peter Beinart made a splash when he wrote that Kerry’s “fundamental problem was the party’s liberal base.” He went on to say:

The challenge for the Democrats today 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 [“soft” on communism] Wallace. In the party today, two such heirs loom largest: Michael Moore and MoveOn.

While Beinart’s analysis is a touch farcical, he does delineate the central issue facing Democrats. Should the party follow the tried-and-failed path of the post-World War II crusade against communism and wage a global war against al Qaeda, or should it advocate for a more principled U.S. engagement with the world that addresses the root causes of Islamic fundamentalism.

The first path is the one the United States currently blazes. Uncritical support for the right-wing Likud government’s repression of Palestinians puts the United States, in the eyes of the world, on the side of the oppressor. The misguided war in Iraq, buttressed by official disinformation, foments Islamic extremism and expands the ranks of al Qaeda. At the same time, it gives the United States de facto control of one of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Parallels between the war in Iraq and U.S. Cold War adventures abound. The 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran secured U.S. and British oil interests, and laid the ground for the eventual rise of fundamentalist clerics. The 1954 CIA coup against Guatemala’s democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz protected the holdings of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita). The Vietnam War disaster lasted as long as it did because the Johnson and Nixon administrations systematically lied to the American people and persecuted anti-war dissidents. In the name of anti-communism, covert U.S. military operations in Central America in the ’80s attacked popular movements for the benefit of right-wing oligarchies, while at home military psy-ops specialists launched a propaganda campaign to defend that covert war.

Soviet expansionism was a real threat in its time. And al Qaeda today presents “a clear and present danger.” What is questionable—and worthy of debate—is how best to respond to such threats, and how to prevent them from being transformed into vehicles for the neoconservatives’ global schemes.

At the same time, progressives should link the discussion of how to counter both imperial militarism and the corporate domination of the global economy via the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and ever-expanding trade agreements. Indeed, military empire and corporate power are bound together like feral Siamese twins.

The right has heralded Beinart’s arguments. In a recent column George Will wrote:

But how do you begin reforming a base polluted by the Michael Moore-MoveOn.org faction? … Beinart is bravely trying to do for liberalism what another magazine editor—the National Review’s William Buckley—did for conservatism by excommunicating the Birchers from the conservative movement.

In essence, under the guise of being tough on terror, Beinart and Will are allies. The right would like nothing more than for “responsible” Democrats to purge Moore and MoveOn from its grassroots base. With that “faction” of the Democratic Party nullified, the United States’ military and corporate empire can reign supreme.

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• Reader Comments

  The party of the working man. The party of the disenfranchised...which can essentially mean ANYONE...because if your NOT one of the two percent holding the majority of wealth in this country you are disenfranchised from SOMETHING (education, employment, age, sex, race). The party of The New Deal. The party of the environment. The party of the COMMON MAN.

  This isn’t brain surgery. Of course the Republicans bitch and moan and whine about “class warfare” whenever the discussion points to how they exploit the weak. Because THEY ARE THE ONES waging the class war. They just don’t want it to get out!

  The Democratic Party needs to go back to its roots. They are going to have to be willing to give up a certain amount of PAC money, they are going to have to accept that because they won’t be putting big business FIRST, that that means that a portion of big business will not support them. BUT, they will find that that loss of money/support will be more than replaced by the support of the vast majority of the general population.

  Big business already has a Party. It’s called the Republican Party. It doesn’t need a “second rate” “party of big business”. The Democratics need to remember who their core REALLY IS.

  Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Dec 20, 2004 at 12:36 PM

  As it stands today the Democratic Party is an empty shell.  We didn’t have our own agenda during this last election cycle. Waging a campaign on “we’re not them” is not the way to win.

  We need to gather our pennies, nickels and dimes together and put some adds on TV that expose the issues that affect ALL Americans not previleged to be in the 2%.

  You now have to earn LESS money to be eligible for Pell Grants putting secondary education out of reach for even more people.  Not to mention a precipitous rise in the cost of public universities around the nation.

  Privatizing social security?  No way!  With the majority of Americans Just Over Broke, I can see the future . . . more homeless people or folk working until they die because they can’t afford to retire.

  Anyone can see that we exist in a state where there is govenment for the benefit of big business, not for the people.

  We need to collectively back candidates who are willing to ignore the persuasions from the lobbyists and fight for what’s right.

  “This town needs an enema!”

  Posted by chris on Dec 20, 2004 at 7:17 PM

  Liberal outfits like In These Times, The Progressive and The Nation magazine (and our Toronto Star) are part of the problem. They offer the solution of the Democratic Party to the problem of the Republican Party (and in Canada, they offer the solution of the Liberals to the Conservatives). Joel’s article, and I’ve read - profitably, I might add - many of Joel’s articles over the years, illustrates the reason why the solution offered isn’t the right solution.

  The real problem here is capitalism, and capitalists are not comfortable attacking a system that they’ve chosen to believe in and support. And so, Joel’s article, and zillions of others like it, doesn’t even use the word capitalism or any of it’s variants. You not only avoid discussing capitalism - the problem - but you protect capitalism, for you make it invisible. Out of sight means out of mind.

  If you can’t name the enemy, then I don’t think you’re going to rally the troops to confront it. And if you can’t name the enemy because it is you, then you’ve got issues, including an honesty issue.

  Yes, Republicans and rightwingers lack honesty, love their triumphalism and love to cause anger, their religiosity notwithstanding. They do what the apostle John said folks in the world (alienated from God) do. They show off their means of survival (1John 2:15-17)

  Clearly, You can be happy being happy or you can be happy being miserable.

  And so you have to deal with the way triumphant, happy Republicans lyingly refer to anyone or any group who doesn’t agree with them as communists or socialists, even when the target is someone, like Kerry, whose friends and partners are their own friends and partners. The Democratic Party is a pro business, pro war, anti working class Party, which is why it isn’t a solution to the problem of a pro business, pro war and anti working class Party.

  But while you’re harping on their lack of honesty, leftwingers, reflect for a moment on the fact that it’s not just Republicans whose ‘profits before people’ behavior is causing destruction. That’s because Republicans are also capitalists, like Democrats. And so, It’s also capitalists whose ‘profits before people’ behavior is causing destruction. And isn’t that what most of you are?

  Isn’t there something dishonest about harping on the damage that the Republican Party is doing and not mentioning capitalism? Isn’t there something dishonest about not qualifying your criticisms in such a way that you at least acknowledge that it’s hard to properly attack the enemy when the enemy is also yourself?

  There is indeed class warfare happening. But pointing that out and talking about it are two different things. One of those actions is a waste of time. The other is useful. But perhaps it’s harder to talk about class warfare when in fact you are part of what keeps it going.

  Capitalism means class warfare, the way cows mean milk. Capitalism has blossomed and is now neoliberal capitalism. (Some would probably argue that neoliberal capitalism is merely one form of capitalism. If that is true, it doesn’t refute anything I’m saying here.) The neoliberal agenda of privatization and deregulation (that favors corporations) is alive and well. The socialization of costs and privatization of profits continues apace. The middle class is being slowly but surely absorbed into the ranks of the working poor, as jobs get outsourced and as the slave camps called ‘export processing zones’ (areas in a country where corporations get tax holidays on the theory, which had good intentions, that developing nations would catch up if they were more attractive to capitalists in this way) multiply and even pop in developed democracies. All of that is what capitalism means.

  I’ll throw in a few more items, since I enjoy thinking that capitalists will be annoyed if they read this. Capitalism means Big Pharma making huge profits catering to the affluent and fairly healthy population with lifestyle drugs and thrapies while ignoring the suffering of millions of AIDS patients in Africa. It means bloody and very destructive wars of conquest. It means offshore tax havens, where something like 5 trillion dollars (the American take is around $500 billion, the last I heard; See Ken Silverstein’s article about it which may still be archived on the Mother Jones magazine website) sit untaxed, while ‘leaders’ whine that they can’t afford social spending. While they have chosen to pursue their neoliberal agenda, and glory, they can’t afford social spending. (It’s really all a matter of choice.) They have decided that being a master in a rickety mansion in which most of the residents are their slaves is preferable to being an equal in a clean, safe and well organized mansion in which everyone shares fairly in the pain and the gain.

  Now, Here’s what I think you should ask yourselves. Have I just annoyed you or made a point that you can agree with?

  Posted by Arby on Dec 21, 2004 at 11:37 PM

  Spot on Arby!

  The challenge of opening a public discussion on the evils of capitalism would be convincing people that criticism of capitalism is not anti-American. In the American psyche, capitalism equals democracy. And democracy equals capitalism. We have to make it clear that run-away turbo-capitalism is actually a threat to the fundaments of democracy: a healthy public “space” (physical and mental) for discussion and freedom of expression, choice (be it choice of political ideas, life-styles, religious beliefs (or the choice NOT to believe...) whatever....), objective media (press, television, radio, internet....).

  We also have to make it clear that it is not a question of “pure capitalism or pure socialism”. Both economic systems offer certain advantages and disadvantages.—Personally, I’d be in favour of a “social market economy” similar to the one that has proved highly successful in Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

  But first and foremost, we have to convince people—average, every-day people—to think about the system and alternatives to it. Only when your average-guy-from-down-the-street and the girl-next-door begin to ask questions and work for change will the situation improve.

  Posted by Ben on Dec 22, 2004 at 12:54 AM

  Well said Arby. The article was about the future direction of the democratic party, which I hope involves a large fire and lots of dancing. I, for one, did get fooled again, as Bush mis-spoke the old adage, and I’m pretty pissed about it. To think they had the nerve to call a vote for Nader “wasted”. But to Arby’s point, which I agree with, there is no solution to any of the problems we face coming from the corporations that control our government, and the two major parties. There will be no end to the wars over oil, and soon food & water, as long as we refuse to re-order our priorities, and our society. And of course, we do and will refuse, until we are forced to do it in response to some future crisis. Frankly, I don’t expect any of us will live long enough to see such a shift, but it’s a nice dream. What I do expect to see is something like what happened in Spain, Italy, and, yes, Germany in the 1930,s. Wealth concentrated in a very few hands, Power in even fewer, suspension of our constitution and bill of rights, political repression, sham elections, oh wait, we already have those. Almost there kids!

  Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Dec 22, 2004 at 1:46 AM

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