Regarding Habeas Corpus

{1} ``Habeas corpus has little to do with terrorism. Nothing in our present circumstances requires the suspension of habeas corpus. We are dealing with a fundamental provision of law (which) is at the very foundation of the legal system designed to safeguard our liberties. We are putting in jeopardy a tradition of protection of individual rights by federal courts that goes back to our earliest foundation.'' –Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) April, 1996

In 1996, President Bill Clinton worked with republican allies in Congress to pass The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Democratic elder statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke out strongly against the parts of the law that eroded the Great Writ of habeas corpus. He was joined by four former Attorney Generals – two democrats and two republicans – who recognized that the law would have little if any impact on "terrorism," and was instead a dangerous attack on the Constitution of the United States.

{2} "Here we are trivializing this treasure, putting in jeopardy a tradition of protection of individual rights by Federal courts that goes back to our earliest foundation. And the virus will spread. Why are we in such a rush to amend our Constitution? Why do we tamper with provisions as profound to our traditions and liberty as habeas corpus?

"The Federal courts do not complain. It may be that because we have enacted this, there will be some prisoners who are executed sooner than they otherwise would have been. You may take satisfaction in that or not, as you choose, but we have begun to weaken a tenet of justice at the very base of our liberties. The virus will spread.

"This is new. It is profoundly disturbing. It is terribly dangerous. If I may have the presumption to join in the judgment of four Attorneys General, Mr. Civiletti, Mr. Levi, Mr. Katzenbach, and Mr. Richardson...this matter is unconstitutional and should be repealed from law." –Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan; 1966

Senator Moynihan recognized the law, which he correctly called a "virus," would spread and infect other areas of our society. Events during the Bush-Cheney administration show that he was on target.

It is important to remember that the damage that Bush & Cheney have done was made possible by President Clinton’s and his republican allies’ efforts in 1996.

{3} "In 1996 we enacted a statute which holds that constitutional protections do not exist unless they have been unreasonably violated, an idea that would have confounded the framers. Thus, we have introduced a virus that will surely spread throughout our system of laws." –Daniel Patrick Moynihan; January 19, 1999

In 1999, Senator Moynihan introduced a bill to repeal the offending parts of President Clinton’s attack on habeas corpus. The bill "died" in committee.

Today, there are concerns about the further attacks on the Constitution, made by the current administration. Both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama have spoken about reversing the damage done by this administration. It is important for democrats at the grass roots level to examine both candidates, to see which one has a history of working to insure the American people of their Constitutional rights.

{4} "A society should not be judged by how it treats its outstanding citizens, by bu how it treats its criminals." – Fydor Dostoevsky

As a state senator, Barack Obama has a documented history on issues relating to defendants’ rights in capital cases. He sponsored a bill that mandated the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in such cases. This was a result of concerns regarding errors in death penalty cases. His position is that no innocent person be wrongly convicted, or that no guilty person avoid conviction, due to an error in process.

Senator Clinton’s position on the issues relating to the Great Writ are less clear. Although I support Barack Obama, I must say that I have always thought Hillary Clinton is more liberal than her husband. We know that she has said she would work to undo the damage that President Bush has done to habeas corpus. But would she be willing to revisit Senator Moynihan’s efforts to undo the damage that President Clinton did?

This is the type of question that many of us would like to see the media ask of both Clinton and Obama.

Reveille for Radicals

{1} Mere Tolerance is NOT Enough
"The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the passed and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

"The class of radicals, conservatives, and liberals which makes up America's political history opens the door to the most fundamental question of what is America? How do the people of America feel? It is in the feeling that the real story of America is written. There were and are a number of Americans -- few, to be sure -- filled with deep feeling for people. They know that people are the stuff that makes up the dream of democracy. These few were and are the American radicals and the only way that we can understand the American radicals is to understand what we mean by this feeling for and with people. Psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and other learned students call this feeling "identification" and have elaborate and complicated explanations about what it means. For our purposes it boils down to the simple question, How do you feel about people? …..

"America's radicals are to be found wherever and whenever America moves close to the fulfillment of its democratic dream. Whenever America's hearts are breaking, there American radicals were and are. America was begun by its radicals. America was built by its radicals. The hope and future of America lies with its radicals.

"What is the American radical? The radical is that unique person to whom the common good is the greatest personal value. He is that person who genuinely and completely believes in mankind. The radical is so completely identified with mankind that he personally shares the pain, the injustices, and the sufferings of all his fellow men."
--Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals

The March 25, 2007 edition of the Washington Post had an interesting article by Peter Slevin, titled "For Clinton and Obama, A Common Ideological Touchstone." The article discusses the connection that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had with Saul D. Alinsky, the legendary community activist. Alinsky is recognized as one of the most successful grass-roots organizers in modern political history.

He was born in 1909 in Chicago, and studied archaeology and then criminal justice, before becoming a grass roots activist. He got his start in the Back of the Yards neighborhood that Upton Sinclair made famous in "The Jungle." He believed that power flowed upward, and that individuals could best access power by being part of a group. Groups, he said, had two types of power: money and numbers. Because poor people had relatively little money, he believed that their power came in joining into groups that represented their combined strength.

Alinsky believed that the poor could obtain results through direct action, more than in voting. He did not advocate violence; quite the opposite, he knew that would be a self-defeating course. Rather, he favored using street theater, sit-ins, and constantly up-grading tactics to capture the public’s attention.

His students include Edward Chambers, the Executive Director of the Industrial Area Foundation; labor activist Patrick Crowley; East Brooklyn community organizer Michael Gecan; and the great labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez.

Along with Dolores Huerta, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers. Cesar Chavez When a U.S. Subcommittee examined issues involved in the "grape strike," Chavez became closely associated with Senator Robert Kennedy.

{2} Rules for Radicals
"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default.."
--Saul Alinsky; The Latter Rain

Hillary Clinton has called 1968 a significant year in her "personal and political evolution." When she began her senior year at Wellesey College, a number of historic events had taken place: there was the Tet Offensive and major escalation in the Vietnam War; President Johnson’s decision to retire; the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

For her senior thesis, she wrote a 92-page paper on war and poverty, titled, "There is Only the Fight….:An Analysis of the Alinsky Model." She interviewed Saul Alinsky three times, and wrote that he "does not sound radical," that his tactics were "non-radical, even ‘anti-radical’," and that they represented the values found in the schools and churches of the communities he worked in.

On October 25, 1968, Saul Alinsky offered Hillary Rodham a job. She declined to accept the offer, and her career went in a different direction. In the 1990s, when republicans attempted to use Alinsky’s name to discredit her, the White House requested Wellesey College to seal their copy of Hillary’s thesis.

Although she had attempted to disassociate herself from Alinsky, as First Lady, Clinton did meet with some of the community organizers who were Alinsky students. Michael Gecan noted, "She would always say, ‘I did my senior thesis on Alinsky’."

In her 2003 "Living History," Clinton included but one paragraph on Saul Alinsky. She calls him "a colorful and controversial figure who managed to offend almost everyone." It is this approach that has convinced the majority of Alinsky students to conclude, in the words of Greg Galluzzo, that "Hillary leans toward the elites."

{3}The Democratic Promise
Alinsky: "Conservative? That's a crock of crap. Right now they're nowhere. But they can and will go either of two ways in the coming years -- to a native American fascism or toward radical social change. Right now they're frozen, festering in apathy, leading what Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation:" They're oppressed by taxation and inflation, poisoned by pollution, terrorized by urban crime, frightened by the new youth culture, baffled by the computerized world around them. They've worked all their lives to get their own little house in the suburbs, their color TV, their two cars, and now the good life seems to have turned to ashes in their mouths. Their personal lives are generally unfulfilling, their jobs unsatisfying, they've succumbed to tranquilizers and pep pills, they drown their anxieties in alcohol, they feel trapped in longterm endurance marriages or escape into guilt-ridden divorces. They're losing their kids and they're losing their dreams. They're alienated, depersonalized, without any feeling of participation in the political process, and they feel rejected and hopeless. Their utopia of status and security has become a tacky-tacky suburb, their split-levels have sprouted prison bars and their disillusionment is becoming terminal.

"They're the first to live in a total mass-media-oriented world, and every night when they turn on the TV and the news comes on, they see the almost unbelievable hypocrisy and deceit and even outright idiocy of our national leaders and the corruption and disintegration of all our institutions, from the police and courts to the White House itself. Their society appears to be crumbling and they see themselves as no more than small failures within the larger failure. All their old values seem to have deserted them, leaving them rudderless in a sea of social chaos. Believe me, this is good organizational material.

"The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them, instead of giving in to apathy. We'll start with specific issues -- taxes, jobs, consumer problems, pollution -- and from there move on to the larger issues: pollution in the Pentagon and the Congress and the board rooms of the megacorporations. Once you organize people, they'll keep advancing from issue to issue toward the ultimate objective: people power. We'll not only give them a cause, we'll make life goddamn exciting for them again -- life instead of existence. We'll turn them on."
--Saul Alinsky; Playboy Interview; 1972
http://www.forestcouncil.org/tims_picks/view.php?id=1075

In 1985, 21-year old Barack Obama accepted a job as a community organizer in Chicago. Although Saul Alinsky had died in ’72, Obama would work for the Developing Communities Project, which was connected to the Alinsky programs. It was there that Obama learned the Alinsky tactic of listening closely to the people at the community level, and helping to develop a program that met their needs.

After working at this level, Obama decided that in order to do more, he had to get his law degree. When he finished his education at Harvard, he returned to Chicago, where along with teaching Constitutional Law, he continued to to advocate for community-based groups. Obama never felt the need to distance himself from the Alinsky theory that the wisdom of democracy is found at the grass roots level.

During the democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama has called his work with the Developing Communities Project as "the best education I ever had."

Towards the end of his life, Saul Alinsky recognized the importance of grass roots organizing among the middle class in communities across America. He saw that the nation was moving in a direction that would pose similar problems for both the lower- and middle income families. He also knew that the grass-roots could combine to have both types of power: money and people. We see evidence of that in the internet campaigns of Howard Dean in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008.

I strongly recommend that people interested in organizing people in their area, including for the November elections, to take the time to study Saul Alinsky’s works.

American University

This may sound like a bit of speculation, but I think there is an explanation for the apparent coordination between the McCain and Clinton campaigns’ attacks on Barack Obama. Watching the news in the past few days, I have been reminded of discussions with my late father, who was an FDR democrat. In fact, the whole family was FDT democrats at that time. I remember him telling me about his Aunt Mary, a charter member of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers’ Union (Newark and Ridgewood Stations), who was a staunch FDR supporter. She taught Dad to be aware not only of the differences between the two political parties, but also the similarities. She said it was in the overlap that the real opposition to the New Deal was found.

Any system that deals with large numbers of people is, by definition, a bureaucracy. And bureaucracies always have their own internal balance. When I worked in human services, I recognized that "family systems" have a balance like a mobile over a baby’s crib: pull on one piece, and everything shifts. Work-places are the same. Many of us have had the experience of having a new supervisor coming into the workplace, saying, "There are going to be big changes. Big ones." And despite the best of intentions, the system resists change: he numerous pieces on the mobile keep that new supervisor in their balance.

Sometimes in discussions on DU (and elsewhere), people will say that when JFK was assassinated in Dallas, that it represented a coup. There are many people who believe that the military-industrial complex took the reins of power on that day. My Dad always told me that this was incorrect: Kennedy’s being elected president was the coup. He showed me how even in the democratic primary, a number of good "systems" democrats attempted – right up to the convention – to keep JFK from being the nominee. Part of it was because they resented that he wasn’t dependent on the usual sources for his finances, which Dad said was always a key.

President Kennedy was working within the system, but he was aiming at making real changes. Dad used to point to the American University Commencement Address as JFK’s compass pointing where he was heading in his second term. Of course, back then, like today, some people will say that such speeches are meaningless. Take a minute and read (or listen to) this June10, 1963 speech, and decide for yourself:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkamericanuniversityaddress.html

When LBJ became president, he did his absolute best to make shifts in the mobile, to institute social programs that were inspired by his understanding of FDR and JFK. But the system would not accommodate both the "Great Society" and the "War Society." The Vietnam War and the Cold War/Arms Race controlled more pieces on the mobile.

In the 1988 democratic primary, when Jesse Jackson was gaining in support in the factories and on the farms across America, and holding out the promise of real change, the other candidates huddled and devised a plan to put a company man out front. And today, we have the myth that Dukakis lost because he was "too liberal." No, he lost because he was too weak to be anything but a company man. He lost the support of the progressives and many of the liberals when he refused to show them respect by acknowledging what Jesse had accomplished. And there are a lot of democratic "leaders" who are more comfortable feeding at a trough filled by the republican machine than in seeking to accomplish real change.

James Carroll’s book "House of War" documents how the Pentagon has been the nucleus of the American mobile, holding the pieces in place. And while it is not difficult to identify some brave individual democratic politicians who have attempted, from the end of LBJ’s presidency until today, to institute change from their seat in the House of Representatives or the Senate, the system has not changed. It is evident that to make such change a reality, we need to have an agent of change in the White House, a majority in the Congress, and an energized American public that demands real change.

We need a JFK, not an LBJ or a Nixon. It’s no coincidence that LBJ and Nixon were friends, and that in 1968, Johnson actually worked behind the scenes in coperation with Nixon to insure a republican victory. LBJ believed that Nixon was more capable of keeping the machine properly oiled.

The Clinton and McCain attacks on Barack Obama do risk the possibility of a democratic victory in the presidential election. Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), the House Democratic Whip, has said what many of us have come to believe: that Hillary Clinton is willing to damage Obama, allowing McCain to win now so that she can run in 2012. That’s "machine politics," which also risks the democratic party’s ability to win in congressional, state and local elections.

Not this time.

We need to take steps at the grass roots level to counter the Clinton-McCain offensive. One obvious ploy the machine is resorting to is having Clinton supporters being very vocal about how they will vote for McCain if Obama is recognized as the party’s nominee. (Now you tell me – is this not what my father spoke of as the similarities, rather than the differences?) They want to convince the Super Delegates that Obama will have trouble in November, as if the democratic party would do better by picking the candidate who is currently not only in last place, but who cannot win the democratic primary.

Not this time. We are not better off running the last place candidate. It is important that today, people of good will take steps outlined in Amendment 1 of that Bill of Rights. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper(s). Call, write, and e-mail your elected democratic representatives. Tell them to take steps to end the Clinton campaign’s attempt to damage the democrat party’s top candidate.

Also, please send a contribution to the Obama campaign. We need to be able to set a pace that they can’t keep up with. We need to drain the swamps that breed division within our party that benefits the McCain campaign.

The Democratic Primary & Iran

One of the problems that democrats face in winning the competition in the marketplace of ideas is that we allow the republicans to frame debates. There is no better example of this than the current discussions about Senator Clinton’s rather odd statement about a US response to Iran if it initiated a nuclear attack against Israel. Much of the on-going discussions, even on progressive internet forums, suggests that there has been a republican operation that is something akin to a lobotomy, which severed the capacity for rational thought.

Let’s take a brief look at the situation, with a focus on why Senator Clinton said that which she did.

For those with a serious interest in understanding Iran, a good place to start is with conservative Kenneth Pollack’s 2005 book, "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America." Keep in mind that Pollack, the author of the earlier book "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq." Even he recognized that the dynamics between the USA and Iran was significantly different than the situation with Iraq.

Pollack points out that one must understand Iran’s history in order to appreciate their belief that their country is at risk of foreign intervention. The Iranians are very aware of their history, including events after WW1, when world powers were intent upon accessing their natural resources. There was a time when the Iranian people looked to the United States as an ally who could help advocate for them. It is firmly in their people’s memories what eventually took place, when the CIA masterminded a coup that replaced a popular prime minister with the Shah of Iran.

Even 28 years ago, at a time when the public believed that tensions between the US and Iran were the greatest, it turns out that there may have been an agreement regarding the release of the hostages which influenced the outcome of the 1980 election; and there was definitely a series of illegal weapons deals which were part of the Iran-Contra Scandals. Many of the criminals from this Reagan-Bush1 adventure found comfortable jobs in the Bush-Cheney administration.

In the wake of the first Gulf War, Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz and aide Scooter Libby authored a position paper for Dick Cheney, which became the foundation for PNAC. The paper outlined plans for a global US military presence that would "deter potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." In his book "Imperial Hubris," Michael Scheuer addressed the neoconservative agenda of re-drawing the map of the Middle East (pages 14-15).

This plan included the concept of invading Iraq – a project that was framed for public consumption with claims that Iraq posed a serious and immediate threat to national security.
The war of occupation in Iraq has had an unintended consequence. It has helped make Iran a larger regional power, with substantial control over a resource that is important to the world. And it isn’t Niger’s yellow cake.

During the period leading up to the Bush-Cheney invasion in Iraq, counterespionage agents for our government were tracking people suspected of participating in a large, well-organized spy ring. Three have since been charged: Larry Franklin, and Iranian expert working for Douglas Feith; and Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen of AIPAC. They were found to be sharing highly classified military secrets regarding Iran with intelligence officers from another Middle Eastern nation.

What’s more, the FBI files showed that during the Bill Clinton administration, Rosen and Weissman had lunched with Kenneth Pollack – then serving as a Persian Gulf specialist on Clinton’s National Security Council – before sharing information with others that is suspected of coming straight from Pollack. In fact, Pollack has been subpoenaed by the defense attorneys to testify about more of the connections between the Clinton administration and the AIPAC intelligence unit.

Small world.

Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is experiencing trouble in two areas. One is in votes, the other is in finances. When some democrats begin to lose support in these two areas, they may look elsewhere. Let us consider the example of Senator Joseph Lieberman, a former democrat. When it became apparent that the democrats in his party were rejecting Joe because of his support for the Bush-Cheney war of occupation in Iraq, he shifted to the right.

Lieberman now inhabits an area that has overlapping interests in both the republican and democratic parties. It is a group that began when there was a split in the civil rights movement, at the time that Martin Luther King, Jr., merged it with the anti-war movement. The split came after the Six Day War, as documented in Taylor Branch’sbook "At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68" (see Chapter 35: Splinters).

It’s not that Senator Clinton is a neoconservative. But she is signaling to the closely related group known as the neo-liberals. The neo-liberals are liberal on social issues, conservative on foreign policy, and share in the agenda to re-draw the map of the Middle East. It is not necessarily an agenda restricted to war – and we err in letting the debate be framed in such a manner – but rather, who will be involved in the behind-the-scenes trading, and includes the control of the single most important resource that countries such as Iraq and Iran possess.

When Senator Clinton speaks of bombing Iran, it is important to put it into the proper context. She is certainly aware of the recent NIE that showed agreement among all US intelligence agencies regarding Iran’s nuclear program. She also knows that Iran has no reason to want to attack Israel with nuclear weapons – such talk is used by leaders from different nations for the exclusive purpose of scaring citizens. Clinton’s statement is nothing more, and nothing less, than a signal to the neo-liberal community that "she’s their girl."

This is the type of thing that makes progressive and liberal democrats agree with Barack Obama’s saying that we need the type of leadership that doesn’t get us involved in wars in places like Iraq and Iran. Any and every American president is going to support Israel. The truth is that Israel is not safer because of the Bush-Cheney policies, which have destabilized the Middle East. Quite the opposite: they have strengthened the radical Islamic elements that actually do pose risks to those who advocate for peace in the Middle East.

Jouney to PA

(Note: This is from the forum Democratic Underground.)


{1} "Bullfight critics ranked in rows
Crowd the enormous Plaza full;
But only one is there who knows,
And he’s the man who fights the bull."
--Domingo Ortega

President John F. Kennedy used to carry a copy of this verse in his wallet. It was inexplicably included in Kennedy’s last morning Intelligence Checklist, after analysis of estimates on Saigon, Cyprus, Korea, Vietnam, and Khruschchev’s statement from Kiev on the "very firm" Soviet position on Berlin.

The next President of the United States will be facing domestic and international difficulties that are as severe as those JFK was dealing with in 1963. I am supporting Barack Obama, because I think that he is the most capable of leading this country in the same manner that President Kennedy was.

I believe that Barack Obama is planning to carry on the goals that President Kennedy outlined in his Commencement Address at American University, on June 10, 1963. The older democrats who have listened closely to Senator Obama recognize this, while younger Obama supporters are hearing the message with new ears. I understand that his democratic critics are unable to hear this. But I am convinced that the nation’s leaders operating behind the curtain do.

{2} "Still, let us not be complacent. Should private interests fail today and public purpose thereafter, what rough beast, its hour come round at last, may be slouching toward Washington to be born?"
--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom; 1949

We support Barack Obama not merely because he reminds us of the poetry of old, but because he offers the only alternative to the course that the nation is currently on. That is the course that President Eisenhower warned of in his Farewell Address, and that Kennedy said posed the greatest danger to our Constitutional democracy.

Many of the supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton believe that she is uniquely qualified to lead the country in the next eight years. A substantial number of them believe that Barack Obama would make a good vice president, and get more of the experience that he needs in order to become the chief executive.

By the middle of this week, the democratic party will be significantly closer to identifying who the nominee will be for the Fall ’08 campaign. A growing number of democrats are recognizing that the nominee will be Barack Obama. As this process moves forward, the remaining advocates for a Clinton presidency is expressing the sentiments of those who would not want Obama as Hillary’s VP. However, even in the ABC debate, which I believe was orchestrated by those powers opposed to both Clinton and Obama, Senator Clinton made clear that she will support Barack Obama if he is indeed the nominee.

{3} "We came down
The rivers and highways
We came down fromForests and falls
We came down fromCarson and Springfield
We came down fromPhoenix enthralled
And I can tell you
The names of the KingdomI can tell you
The things that you know
Listening for a fistful of silence
Climbing valleys into the shadefor seven years,
I dweltin the loose palace of exileplaying strange games with the girls of the island
now, I have come againto the land of the fair, and the strong, and the wise
brothers and sisters of the pale forestchildren of night
who among you will run with the hunt?
now night arrives with her purple legion
Retire now to your tents and to your dreams
Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth
I want to be ready."
--James Douglas Morrison

Tuesday is going to be an important event in the democratic process. Many people from both the Clinton and Obama campaign have put a significant amount of work into the state’s primary. It is safe to say that the nation will be watching closely.

As democrats, we know from experience that people opposed to our party have been not only watching, but attempting to plant the seeds of mistrust and division in our party. Be awake. Be aware.

It is going to be a very competitive contest. From Tuesday night on, for the next several days, emotions will run high. That is to be expected. And we can also expect the slouching republican machine to try to disrupt our party’s future. Don’t let them.

Good luck to both candidates. I hope that no matter which democratic candidate you support, that you hear that message of promise that President Kennedy delivered some 45 years ago:

"…. Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
"We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again.

"I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

"Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.

"There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.

"With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. …."

Read or listen to the complete speech:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03AmericanUniversity06101963.htm

Nativism in the 2008 Elections

(Note: This essay was posted on the political forum the Democratic Underground, or "DU.")

There has been some confusion about Senator Barack Obama’s comments on rural culture which I would like to address this morning. He had commented on a concept known as "nativism," which has a interesting history in the United States. In general, nativism is defined by the tensions that are created when a population with historic roots in an area believes that their culture is threatened by people who are "different" moving into the area.

I live in rural, upstate New York. Nativism is part of our history, and something I came to experience first-hand growing up. And because nativism has closely connected to economic stress, I am aware of it today in the area where I live.

One of the problems with some DU discussions about Obama’s comments is that some people incorrectly interpret them as saying rural people are racist. But nativism and racism are not the same thing. Let’s start by taking a look at an interesting historical example that shows the differences.

In the late 1800s, the dominant culture in this area was defined by the "Protestant work ethic," which held the promise of success for those who were devote Christians, dedicated to hard work, and disciplined in "saving for a rainy day." However, the final quarter of the century was marked by national economic shifts, and unemployment, poverty, depression and despair became very common in this area.

Pre-Civil War farms in the area were self-sufficient units; the war created a dramatic shift to larger dairy farms, which exported milk products to cities. The banking industry began to have a hold on the farms in the region. Farmers had to deal with issues including the weather and market prices in order to make a living on the land that their father and grandfather had handed down to them. The banker did not have the same emotional investment in that soil.

It wasn’t just the farmers. In 1893, more than 1200 area residents were employed in factories in the largest local town, Norwich. The industries were located along the transportation routes, which included the canal and the railroads (which were putting the canals out of business). In 1894, a national economic depression caused large cut-backs in employment in the four largest industries. This then caused other smaller businesses to close.

1894 also saw national labor strikes, including the Pullman’s (or Deb’s) Strike. This meant that the Pennsylvania coal that our region had come to depend on was not being transported in the same quantities to our area. In that era, coal was as important as oil is today: industries used it (wood fires do not allow for metal work in industry), and many homes had changed from wood to coal for heating.

The loss of jobs, bank foreclosures, and related economic stress leads directly to increases in depression, suicide, and a spike in the local homicide rates. This is not the promise held out by that Protestant work ethic. Something else is at play here: someone else must be to blame.

Around this time, what was the first poor people’s march on Washington, DC, was being planned by a Commander Coxey. The participants were known as "Coxey’s Army." Part of the national movement included a group coming from Utica, NY, which would stop in Norwich on the way to Washington. They were hoping to get 200 recruits from this area. The local industry leaders were concerned, because the workers in one industry had gone on strike, and there were more than 600 unemployed factory workers in and around Norwich. They were afraid that Coxey’s Army could create serious problems.

The top local paper, being one of the businesses, began warning the local population to be on the look-out for "tramps, and no-gooders …. Dagos …anarchists, highbinders, and the worst class of criminals." After Commander Coxey was arrested in Washington, and the protest march ended, the newspaper continued to rant about "Jew pack peddlers … thieves, robbers, thugs, escaped convicts, (and) murderers."

Signs reading "No TRAMPS wanted in Norwich" became common, and the homeless men riding the rails were sentenced to 6 months in jail. Curiously, the inmates were used to work on the local business leaders’ family farms.

The local censuses show that there was a growing black population, especially in Norwich, after the end of the Civil War. Yet the nativism was not directed at the black residents of the area. While racism can play a role in nativism, it is important to recognize they are different.

During discussions of the events in Memphis when we discussed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, I wrote about the prejudice against Irish immigrant railroad workers in this area. Interestingly, when nativism was high in the late 1890s, a local judge named William Sullivan spoke out against the institutionalized oppression of the poor and non-WASP population here. Soon, there were wild rumors that Sullivan was the leader of a dangerous group of revolutionaries, and that they had a large cache of weapons hidden in the local Catholic church. This is a symptom of nativism, rather than racism.

When I was a small child, my father bought some land and began building a house for our family. We were, at the time, living four miles away; my father and his father had lived three miles away years before. Still, more than a half-dozen neighbors on the rural road put up "For Sale" signs, because they were opposed to having an Irish Catholic family living so close to them. Twenty years later, the same neighbors put up "For Sale" signs when black relatives built on land my father gave them.

In the 1980s, national economic changes began putting local "family farms" out of business. Corporate farms, including the Dream Street farms that John & Yoko made famous, bought out a significant number of family farms. This caused resentments.

The corporate farms were largely a tax shelter. In a relatively short time, they were sold to land developers, and the land that had been family farms for generations was sub-divided into plots that were sold to people from NY City and Long Island. When the new owners put up "no trespassing" signs, and refused to allow local people access to hunt and fish, there was bitterness. Hunting and fishing is part of the local culture, and people who had become used to hunting at a spot favored by their grandfather were resentful when "city people" who used the area for a vacation home denied them access.

The animosity became a part of the issues that divided small communities. It was nativism, not racism. And the sad truth is that it impacts things from local civic groups to town and county government. It isn’t "one-sided": there are "local" people who dislike "city folks" for no reason other than they are from New York City or Long Island, and "city folk" who look down their noses at local folkways and traditions.

One last point: I am not a church-goer. But others in my family are. A few years back, I was asked by members of my wife’s church to do the application to get their church on the NYS and federal register of historic places. No problem – my hobby is local history, and I am friends with people in NYSOPRHP.

No problem! My goodness! The "local" families that have ties to that church dating from 1813 were furious. They blamed the "city folk." Then they were mad at me, and insisted that I wear a name-tag when I attended meetings at the church regarding the application process. The church diaries that I had borrowed as a historian (dating from 1812 to 1920) had to be returned immediately, because I had sided with those "others."

It wasn’t racism. It was nativism. And it comes into play on issues involving local culture – including guns, fishing poles, churches, ballots, and jobs.

Changelings

{1} "We change, whether we like it or not." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Human nature predisposes us to seek "safety." The Acacia tortilis of the savannahs is imprinted in our collective memories.

There is no serious question that our country faces difficult and often dangerous situations today, and that we must change in order to deal with these threats. These include the environmental crises, disease, and war.

Like many other animals, human beings have a group nature. And when the sun goes down, and the danger of the darkness becomes the greatest, people gather with the group.

Individuals in our modern society tend to react to changing circumstances in one of two ways. The first is to wish for a return of "the good old days," and the other is to try to master change. Most of us, of course, respond to various changes in a combination of the two.

{2} "Things do not change; we change." – Henry David Thoreau

The nature of the republican species is to attempt to return to Mayberry RFD. We can recogize this as a collective coping strategy on their part. Clearly, republican strategists understand this, and hence they produce commercials such as "Morning in America" and remind us that Willie Horton is lurking in the shadows.

Democrats can also be prone to wanting to go back to Ixtlan. For some of us, that means the years 1992 to 2000, rather the Eisenhower era. For others it could be the 1960s, when John Lennon noted that belly buttons were only knee-high.

Others are aware that we need to learn from the past, in order to transition to the future. The time to make change, they tell us, is now. They tell us that we are the agents of change.

{3} "Be the change you want to see in the world." – Gandhi

In traditional Irish culture, there is a recognition of a type of person called a Changeling. Sometimes Changelings are involved in politics or social movements. Other times they are simply the people you meet, who your grandmother said has been here before. Sometimes they take things that you already knew, and put them in a different sequence, and help you to see the world differently.

People respond to Changelings in a couple of ways. Those who understand that we need to change to deal with life welcome the challenges that they present. They know that the significance of a Changeling is their ability to spark motivation in others.

Those who fear change tend to resent the Changelings. They look very hard for flaws in the Changelings, to justify their own unwillingness to change.

In the fields of psychiatry and sociology, these tendencies are associated with what is known as the "locus of control." Those with an internal locus of control believe that they are largely able to control things in their environment; they welcome the opportunity to make changes. Those with an external locus of control believe that outside influences dictate; they are convinced that they are victims of circumstance who require others to make the changes needed for them to stay secure in their sameness.

{4} "For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something else." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Since John Edwards dropped out of the democratic primary, our choices have been between two US Senators: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If we take away all of the nonsense that has polluted the primary atmosphere, we can see that both of these two are solid candidates who could be strong democratic candidates for president. It is, in many ways, a shame that the acrimony from the contest appears to have destroyed any chance of a ticket including both of the two.

If the party nominates Clinton, the ticket loses Obama; if it instead nominates Obama, the ticket will lose Clinton. Those who favor Senator Clinton often point to the stability they associate with her, and suggest that she would help the nation return to the policies of the Clinton-Gore administration. Those who favor Senator Obama recognize that he is an agent of change, and believe that he is more qualified to help lead the nation in the future.

{5} "Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability." – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is a growing recognition that the democratic nominee is going to be Senator Barack Obama. I recognize that others might believe that Senator Clinton still has a chance to win the nomination. I have no interest in debating that with them – they are surely as entitled to that belief as I am to my own.

However, as we approach the summer, we have to make another decision, and that is will we be so invested in the current conflict between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, that we remain mired in it, like sticks in the mud? Or do we change the approach that we take? No matter if Clinton or Obama wins the nomination, for the democratic party to win in November, it will require us all to change. For if we stay the same, it can only mean more of the same, which is what John McCain represents.

"Leadership," the Rev. Jesse Jackson tells us, "has a harder job to do than just chose sides. It must bring sides together." We can provide our own leadership on that, now.

Countering bitterness

{1} "What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." – Oscar Wilde
The attention being given to Senator Barack Obama’s comments about the bitterness that many Americans feel is a good thing. What’s more, the manner in which Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain react in identical ways to Obama’s message is also helpful to the Obama campaign. Let’s take a closer look.

An easy experiment can be conducted at any gas station in the country. While filling your tank, ask those nearest to you what they think of the price of gas? Then go to any grocery store, and ask people what they think of the rise in prices. The majority of the people that I speak to express concern over the increasing costs. I have yet to meet anyone who says that they wish prices would go up even more, so that they could get less for their dollar.

People across the country are also feeling the pressure of the economic trends inside their homes. Homeowners are paying huge increases in taxes. The costs of sending a child to college are enormous. Healthcare costs are a burden. And jobs are becoming scarce.

Many Americans recognize that the country is in a crisis today. Obama was addressing this. His opponents’ attempts to take cheap shots at him will backfire. They will come off as being as out of touch as President Bush the Elder when he had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost. And it opens up the opportunity for Obama to have an open and frank discussion with the American people.

{2} "To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable." – Erich Fromm

I was in the grocery store this week. A relative was wearing a shirt with a picture of President Bush, and the words "Dumb as a Rock." As we talked about politics and the price of groceries, a few other people stopped to talk. My relative said that as an old man, he was glad that he had had the opportunity to live the American dream. But he was angry that his grandchildren and great grandchildren would never have the same opportunities that he had.

All of the people taking part in the discussion, except for me, were grandparents. All of them were upset at the direction that our country is heading in. We talked about the democratic options: some support Clinton, and others support Obama. But no one thought that things are going well in the small towns of America today.

{3} "Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals you sick self." – Kahlil Gibran

Barack Obama is giving voice to those Americans who recognize that there are some serious problems that cause pain and suffering for families across the country. At her best, Senator Clinton does this, too. That is, in my opinion, why it is troubling to witness her attempts to score cheap points by attacking Senator Obama for telling the truth about the growing sense of disillusionment that Americans feel about the federal government.

Barack Obama was correct in his statements about the problems that small towns and villages are faced with. And the attacks by McCain and Clinton will allow him to continue an open discussion with the American public. I thank McCain and Clinton for that.

{4} "You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies.
You may trod me in the very dirt.
But still, like dust, I’ll rise." – Maya Angelou

There is an interesting pattern emerging from the attempts to trod Obama in the very dirt of politics as usual. It backfires.

Obama is what in boxing is referred to as a counter puncher. That is a skill that requires perfect balance. The counter puncher allows his opponent to lead. He lets them throw their best shots. And when the opponent is slightly off balance as a result of over-extending, the counter puncher responses with fast, hard combinations. He punches through his opponent’s attack. And it is the opponent who gets dusted.

Obama: Positive Vibrations

{1} "Senator Edward M. Kennedy, rejecting entreaties from the Clintons and their supporters, is set to endorse Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid on Monday as part of an effort to lend Kennedy charisma and connections before the 22-state Feb. 5 showdown for the Democratic nomination.

"Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral in the Democratic race, but Mr. Kennedy had become increasingly disenchanted with the tone of the Clinton campaign, aides said. He and former President Bill Clinton had a heated telephone exchange earlier this month over what Mr. Kennedy considered misleading statements by Mr. Clinton about Mr. Obama, as well as his injection of race into the campaign. …." – New York Times; Kennedy Chooses Obama, Spurning Plea by Clintons; January 28, 2008

Among the numerous news reports about the democratic primary this week are two that remind me of Senator Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama. The first is Bill Clinton’s claim that Bill Richardson "promised" him that he would not endorse Obama; and second is the report that Hillary Clinton, in a last ditch attempt to persuade Richardson to not make his endorsement, said that "Obama can’t win."

The discussions between Bill Clinton and two of the top democratic leaders in the country show that the former president reacts angrily when he finds that they support Barack Obama. With Richardson, it is evident that Bill felt there was an issue of loyalty involved. Even if we support Barack Obama, I think we can appreciate that a person could react angrily when they believe someone betrayed a sense of loyalty.

So James Carville was tasked with publicly calling Bill Richardson a "Judas," and spreading details of Bill Clinton’s interpretation of his talks with Richardson. This is the same James who was revealed in Woodward’s "State of Denial" as giving inside information from the 2004 Kerry campaign to his wife Mary Matalin, who then delivered it to her boss, VP Dick Cheney. And the same Carville who hosted a fund-raiser for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in his home. Who better to call Bill Richardson a "Judas," I ask?

Hillary Clinton’s statement that Obama can’t win is also interesting. From everything that I have seen, I am confident that Senator Clinton sincerely believes that she would be more likely to win the general election in November. It is almost certain that she believes, based upon polls, that Barack Obama would have a far more difficult battle in the general election, and that if he is the nominee, that John McCain would be elected to the third term of the Bush 2 presidency. So I have no problem with her saying what she did.

But Senator Kennedy’s reading of the polls makes more sense to me. After a careful and detailed study, Ted Kennedy concluded that four things were true: [a] that Hillary Clinton’s "negatives" were so high, that she would not win in November if she were the nominee; [b] that Barack Obama would be able to win the general election; [c] that the Clinton campaign was engaged in negative tactics that threatened to cause serious fractures within the party; and [d] that the "coat tails" issue indicated a Clinton candidacy would make congressional and state-wide elections more difficult, while an Obama candidacy would help the party make significant gains across the board.

{2} "A year later, near the end of Mr. Obama’s first year in the Senate, Ethel Kennedy asked him to speak at a ceremony for her husband’s 80th birthday. At the time, she referred to Mr. Obama as ‘our next president.’

" ‘I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did,’ Mrs. Kennedy said in an interview that day, comparing her late husband’s quest for social justice to Mr. Obama’s. ‘He has the passion in his heart. He’s not selling you. It’s just him.’ " –NY Times; 1-28-08

There are going to be some important contests in the nest three months. The Obama campaign is in a position of strength. Our candidate is winning because he offers a positive democratic message, rather than the negative message of fear that we associate with republicans.

I am hoping that Obama supporters will continue to follow our candidate’s lead, and focus on the positive things that our campaign offers to this country. There will be some people who react angrily, who say that Obama can’t win, and who may even say that they will not vote for Barack Obama in November. We are only responsible for our own actions. And it is more responsible, in terms of electing Obama and making gains in congress and in state elections, that we stay positive.

In the past, I’ve spoken about the three groups we find in every election: [a] those who support you; [b] those who oppose you; and [c] the undecided. It is important to try to widen your "group a" base, by making sure that family, friends and neighbors are registered voters. Also, it is important to reach out to "group c," with letters to the editor and similar actions. And it is also important to avoid engagements with "group b," unless it is in a setting that helps reach "group c" voters.

As a general rule, when we are involved in discussions – be they on campus, at work, or even on the internet – we should avoid attempts by those in "group b" to engage in arguments in which their goal is simply to fan the flames of anger, and to divide the democratic party. What they say and how they vote is not our responsibility. That’s up to them. Our focus has to be to send out those ripples of positive energy that Senator Robert Kennedy spoke of in South Africa years ago, and that Ethel Kennedy has concluded that Senator Obama represents today.

The Obama campaign is leading in the number of primaries won, in caucuses won, in popular vote, and in fund-raising. Those are all significant "positives." The "super delegates" are comparing two candidates’ campaigns: one who is winning with a positive message of hope we can believe in, and one who is losing with a negative message, which is reportedly trying to scare the super delegates with Rev. Wright.

The Obama campaign’s positives mean that we have no need to step into the gutter. We can keep it positive. And we will continue to win.