April 28, 2005
To the Barricades, Democrats!
Death to Tyranny, Long Live Liberty!
Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time passing.
Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time ago.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, ev'ry one.
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Pete Seeger
Where have all the Democrats gone?
Gone to graveyards, ev'ry one.
Introduction
These are trying times for all Democrats. Republicans control the Executive and both houses of Congress. Now conservatives are mounting a drive to take control of the judiciary. While conservatives continue to denounce liberals for using `activist judges' to thwart the will of the people (in cases involving abortion and gay marriage), they intend to use the same method they condemn - using their own `activist judges' - to overturn laws that conservatives do not like. And, it is no accident that most of Bush's blocked court nominees are avowed opponents of Roe v. Wade, homosexuality, and stem cell research.
When finally the courts are firmly in the conservative camp, Bush and his cohorts, the Constitution in Exile coalition of conservative lawyers and judges, will launch a massive attack on `big government' (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385440/posts). They will try to roll back every piece of social legislation enacted since 1932 - progressive legislation that benefited the poor, the sick, the working man, veterans, women, the environment, and created an entire middle class in America. Financial institutions such as the SEC, FSLIC, FHA, FDIC, and the PBGC - institutions that stabilized our economy and lifted us out of the Great Depression - will all be at risk. They will all be at risk because they were all created by progressive Congresses and legally blessed as `constitutional' by so-called `activist judges' in the courts.
These radical conservatives want to return America to the laissez-faire days of a Gilded Age (1896 to the 1920s). To the days of unbridled capitalism. To the days when the Robber Barons ran and ruled our country and the economy. They want to restore the era of Republican dominance in America that existed from 1896 through the Roaring Twenties - a period that almost ruined this country financially and left so many people poor, hungry, and homeless. And finally, Bush has cynically taken up the banner of the born-again Christian right (i.e., the anti gay, anti stem cell research, anti-abortion folks) and is now moving to break down the last constitutional barriers between church and state with `faith-based' initiatives. Republicans are using `faith-based' fights on several issues in the House and Senate to appeal to their base and stoke anger against America's supposed `secular elite.' They are clearly trying to make the battles over court nominations a `religious war.' This is wrong and dangerous.
How are we Democrats reacting? There are too many sad answers. Too often, Democrats seem awe struck, weak, timid, afraid, uncertain, disorganized, disunited, and always ineffectual. Under a barrage of criticism against liberal government, moderates and liberals alike have too often conceded philosophical ground that ought to be fiercely defended.
Why Democrats Are Losing the Battle
I believe Democrats are losing in part because we, the Democratic Party, have forgotten (or abandoned) our outstanding legislative history and have neglected to teach younger voters about that history. Too many younger Americans now take for granted the rights and benefits hard won by the Democratic Party over the last 75 years. Benefits such as the 40 Hour Week, Overtime Pay, child labor legislation, the right to organize, work safety rules, the GI Bill, the VA, ERISA, Civil Rights, Title IX, women's rights, age discrimination laws, environmental laws, the Marshall Plan, rebuilding and creating a peaceful Europe, etc., etc. Young people simply do not know that these benefits were achieved by Democrats many times against Republican opposition. (Some might argue that even some of our Democratic Party leadership seem to have forgotten, i.e., eighteen Democratic Senators voted for the new bankruptcy bill and against the working poor and sick - quite amazing and disappointing.)
The younger generation must be reminded of who we are and what we stand for. Somehow, the Democratic Party must reach out to our young people - many who were not alive when many of our most precious rights were won for them by the Democratic Party. Our party messages must contain not only promise for the future, but educational reminders of our past achievements. We must reinforce the memory of those achievements and remind young people that the benefits they enjoy today were not always there, but were won for them by the Democratic Party.
I would argue that too many of our modern young people (25-40) are competitively materialistic, self centered (if not selfish), and perhaps a little greedy. They seem to be primarily interested in acquiring things - the biggest, the best, the most expensive. They are living the `good life.' These youngsters either do not read or care little about history or biography. They know little or nothing about the history of the Great Depression, World War II, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, or the Labor Movement. They do not watch The News Hour, Frontline, or listen to NPR. Recent PEW research (see: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=215) revealed that they get most of their political news from the The Daily Show, Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live, and The Simpsons, and much too often from the loud mouth jock banter of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly - demagogues who appeal to the baser human instincts of fear, greed, selfishness, self-righteousness, materialism and militarism. The younger generation seems to prefer clichés and sound bites. In the absence of any real appreciation of history, more and more young people - professionals and otherwise - are voting for the Republican Party. They now consider themselves to be part of the ruling hierarchy.
If we do not educate these young people about how they got the freedoms and benefits they now take for granted - if we Democrats fail to do this - then surely the growing fundamentalist and neo-conservative wings of the Republican Party will begin to dismantle not only the New Deal, but all that we Democrats have accomplished since 1932. Roe v. Wade will become history. Welfare and education programs will be cut. Bankruptcy rules will punish the poor. Unions will completely disappear. Environmental law will favor the oppressors. Oil wells will be drilled in wilderness areas. The Kyoto Treaty will never become a reality. And jobs and corporate profits will continue to move offshore. It is a recipe for disaster for America's working and middle class. We must turn this tide before it is too late.
What Our Democratic Message Should Be
The Democratic Party can and should state a positive case for the future. But at the same time our messages must constantly remind young voters of our record in serving the labor movement, the under classes, the working poor, the unemployed, single mothers, minorities, immigrants, the middle class, the environment, etc., through programs such as The New Deal, The War on Poverty, and The Great Society. To many of our young people, I fear, these are just catch phrases. They do not know what these words mean. They simply do not understand the import of what these programs did for our standard of living. They must be reminded
I recently compiled a list of the Democratic Party's accomplishments while occupying the White House and/or while Congress was controlled by a Democratic majority. It is a long list. It turned out to be too long to list here, and it stretches from 1913 right up to the year 2000. The following few paragraphs enumerate the short titles of just some of the legislation passed during the thirties when the progressive movement began and when President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced his New Deal to lift our country out of a debilitating economic depression.
Starting in 1933, during the Hundred Days Congress, the President and a Democratic Congress passed a long list of progressive legislation to improve the lives of all Americans, rich and poor, especially the homeless and jobless. Legislation that included the Federal Emergency Relief Act, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Home Owners Loan Corporation, and the Securities Act of 1933. In 1934, the same Congress gave us the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. (FSLIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Taylor Grazing Act (early environment law). 1935 and 1936 gave us the National Labor Relations Act, the Resettlement Administration, the Soil Conservation Act, the Historic Sites, Buildings and Antiquities Act, the Social Security Act, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) Act, the Work Projects Administration (WPA), the National Youth Administration (NYA), the Emergency Relief Act of 1935, the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, and the Robinson-Patman Antitrust Act.
The reader is encouraged to do a Google search on each of the above titles and learn and understand more about each of these bills. But suffice it to note here that today's conservative Constitution in Exile movement believes that many if not most of these legislative actions were unconstitutional and should now be overturned (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385440/posts). Do we really want to go backwards? Are we ready to retreat to the free-wheeling, laissez-faire rule of the 1920s - when big business was king and workers were exploited? I think not.
In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law America's first minimum wage law - 25 cents an hour, rising to 40 cents an hour over seven years - and requiring time and a half pay for over 40 hours worked in a week. This law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), gave us the 40 Hour Week, Overtime Pay, and placed severe restrictions on child labor. There were howls of protest from business interests. In one of his famous fireside chats the night before the signing, President Roosevelt warned, "Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day tell you that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on American industry."
Benefits such as these and many more that followed would not have happened without Democratic Party initiatives and/or leadership. Republicans fought their passage every step of the way and are still fighting to overturn them. Democrats should be proud and remind everyone they know of this wonderful and all encompassing legislative history. (It is also possible that even our Democratic leadership has forgotten the range and extent of our achievements and need to be reminded.) I urge all readers to study and remind themselves of our wonderful heritage - from Woodrow Wilson through Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.
Frankly, I have to say that even while I was compiling the data, I was completely astounded by the number and the quality of Democratic achievements over the last 100 years. The data screamed out at me, "What in the hell is wrong with my party if they can't tell this story, if they can't remind middle America of what we have done for them?" Just reading this long unbroken chain of progressive achievement makes me even more proud to be a Democrat. Why can't we tell the story of this history in a more compelling way?
When people ask us, "What do Democrats stand for?" we should stand up, wave a list of these achievements, and proudly say,
"This is What We Have Done & What We Stand For:
- Fair, Just, & Equitable Treatment & Opportunity for All Americans!"
As an old unreconstructed FDR-Democrat, I have to tell you that I am pretty tired of some of our newer Democratic leaders who do not seem to know what we have done and what we stand for. Clearly, we need to find strong and passionate party leadership (in the mode of Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and Howard Dean) who are willing to stand up proudly and articulate our history and remind our young people of what we have done, who we are, what we stand for, and where we are going.
Democratic Messages Must Educate As Well as Promise
It is time to stop skulking about apologetically when the subject of `big government' is raised. It is time to remind all voters that a lot of `big government' does work, that it works well, and that we have a record to prove it. It seems to me that we must use a format in every future campaign message that is twofold - a first part that demonstrates how we solved a problem in the past, coupled with a statement that clearly identifies what Democrats stand for on that issue today. We must deliver both parts - history and promise - in all our campaign messages.
For example, a 30 second TV spot might say:
- "From the party that gave you the 40 Hour Week, Overtime Pay, and paid vacations, the Democratic party promises to protect the rights of the working man and to stop the massive movement of American jobs offshore."
- "From the party that gave you financial controls and market stability (the SEC, FSLIC, FHA, FDIC, ERISA, PBGC) we promise to protect your family's investments and future security at all levels of income, not just the rich, including your pensions and the Social Security program."
- "From the party that gave you the Soil Conservation Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the /Wilderness Act, we promise to protect our wilderness areas and support international treaties to protect the world's environment such as the Kyoto Treaty"
- "From the party that gave you the GI Bill and the Veterans' Administration, we promise to improve the post-battlefield welfare of all our veterans."
These may be poor examples, but they are meant to illustrate how Democratic messages can and should sell our record of historical achievement as a credible basis for our promises for the future.
From The Past - What We Have Achieved
Starting with Thomas Jefferson (the first true Democrat), "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," through Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry Truman's Truman Doctrine & Marshall Plan, John F. Kennedy's Space Initiative, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society & Civil Rights, the list of our Democratic achievements is rich and long. Our messages must explicitly remind all voters - especially the young - of every one of those achievements, one by one as appropriate, in all of our public messages:
To The Future - What We Democrats Stand For
We must argue that based upon our past achievements, our party has much to say about the future. Building on our past achievements, we can credibly argue that the Democratic Party is the only party best positioned to achieve the following popular and much wanted improvements to the quality of life for all Americans:
- More Campaign Finance Reforms
- More Corporate Reforms
- A sound fiscal policy and balanced budget based upon equitable taxation
- Social Security Protection
- Pension & Retirement Savings (401k, etc) Protections
- Protection of fair labor laws
- Tougher consumer protection laws
- Tougher environmental laws
- Advancement of civil rights for all - men & women & the disabled
- Real affordable medical coverage for all Americans
- Real prescription drug coverage for seniors
- Public education for all children through 16 grades (not just 12)
- Protecting a Woman's Right to Choose
- Promoting women's rights and the ERA
- Defending the Bill of Rights
- Ensuring the Separation of Church & State
- Increasing our role in the UN - especially in human tragedies such as Darfur.
- Securing an equitable, two state solution in Palestine-Israel
- World peace through diplomacy, not unilateral actions or war.
Conclusions
Republicans want to turn America back to the free-wheeling, laissez-faire days of a Gilded Age (1896 to the 1920s) - to the days of unbridled capitalism, to the days when the Robber Barons ran and ruled our country and the economy. They want to restore the era of Republican dominance in America from 1896 through the Roaring Twenties - a period that almost ruined this country financially and left many people poor, hungry, and homeless.
When `free markets' were left to their own devices, they produced monopolies and price gouging, impoverished and injured workers, tainted and dangerous products, and a despoiled environment. As this happened, the American people increasingly turned to the government to correct the antisocial abuses of the unfettered market. Over time a broad consensus developed - that included the wiser heads in the business community - that government had a critical role to play as mediator and protector when `big business' created conditions that hurt the general welfare. And Democratic Congresses responded by creating the necessary regulatory agencies and putting strict regulations in place.
During the Bush Administration, however, Republican ideologues with the same sensibilities of their Gilded Age forefathers, have packed the top positions of our regulatory agencies with lawyers and lobbyists from the very same industries they are supposed to regulate. Aiding their efforts to castrate existing regulations have been a variety of right-wing think tanks, professional consultants, and paid university stooges of industry. Under the Bush administration, these coalitions have achieved a near-total triumph. Rules that have survived have gone largely unenforced. Food & Drug Administration complaints about misleading drug promotions plummeted by almost 80 percent during Bush's first term, worker-safety fines decreased by 25 percent, and Department of Agriculture officials repeatedly ignored warnings about tainted meat at a turkey-processing plant until its products killed eight people. Superfund cleanups decreased by 52 percent, consumption warnings on fish caught in rivers nearly doubled, and beach closings were up 26 percent. So much for enlightened and responsible `free enterprise" protecting our environment and the public welfare. And so much for Democratic ineffectualness. Perhaps, America needs another writer like Upton Sinclair and another exposé like The Jungle to provoke the Democratic Party to take more dramatic actions on people's real concerns.
The Republican Party now controls the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Now they are trying to take control of the judicial. If they are successful, Republicans and the Constitution in Exile folks (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385440/posts) will almost certainly try to roll back the New Deal and all of the progressive legislation Democrats have passed since 1932 governing the workplace, the environment, healthcare, and so on. It is a troubling paradox that conservatives who continue to denounce liberals for using the courts and `activist judges' to thwart the will of the people in cases involving abortion and gay marriage, now intend to use the same method they condemn - using their own `activist judges' to overturn laws they do not like. As we consider all this, we must all ask ourselves - as modern Americans enjoying the fruits of progressive legislation that began in the thirties - "Are we ready to retreat to the free-wheeling, laissez-faire rule of the 1920s - when big business was king and workers were exploited?" I think not. We Democrats must fight back to preserve the benefits we have provided for the working and middle class. Those benefits are real `family values.' We must fight back now.
In the name of modernity, we have abandoned not only our principles, but also the language that has historically defined our party. Our biggest and latest mistake has been to imagine that we could neutralize popular complaints about `big government' by simply adopting Republican rhetoric - when in so doing we only further disparaged traditional liberalism in the process. When Bill Clinton announced the "end of big government" it was, in effect, a concession speech - an admission of the defeat of the policies that Republicans have been attacking since the days of the New Deal.
Our party's self-defeating embrace of `anti-government' rhetoric is killing us. We should not be defensive or apologetic when we are accused by Republicans of favoring `big government.' Instead, we should reply by demanding that our Republican accusers tell the public which elements of `big government' they would cut or reduce. Then let the voters decide if they want their education, veteran, or healthcare benefits reduced or cut. Call the Republican bluff - make them declare their positions. Demand of them, "What would you do away with? - Social Security? Medicare? The SEC? The FDA? Veterans Affairs? What?"
Americans are often hostile to `government' in the abstract, yet they often like the specific government services they receive. When asked about individual government services. one by one, - national security, education, healthcare, public safety, veterans benefits, the environment - a significant majority of voters want more done and more money spent. This indicates that Americans are conflicted within themselves. They are conservative when `government' is the focus of debate, but much more liberal when a specific government service is the issue. So what happens? Republicans make `big government' the focus of the debate and we Democrats let them get away with changing the subject and then limp away from the debate apologetically. We must stop being defensive little wimps and remind the voters of all the good `big government' services we have won for them, one by one, if necessary. Al Gore did do this and it won him polling points and finally an election. (But what my Democratic Party did not do after that election fills me with shame.)
And where were we on the new bankruptcy bill? Eighteen very timid old and `New' Democratic Senators disgracefully voted for this bill and against the poor and sick - the very soul of our constituency. The Democratic Party must get back to its roots - to its core values - and abandon any further notion of being cooperative `New Democrats.' New Democrats are just another form of Republicanism and as one wag has already pointed out, "If you have a choice between a Republican and a New Democrat, why not vote for the real thing?" We must get this straight - it is `us' against `them.' We are Democrats and we are liberal - we fight for the causes that benefit the working and middle classes. The Republican Party is conservative and still the party of `big business' no matter what rhetoric they use - just ask the disappearing farmers of Kansas who swallowed the Republican bait while the big feed merchants took over their state. And we should remind voters who vote against their own economic self interests, such as the farmers in Kansas who now vote Republican, that the Republican Party takes care of `big business' first - the Enrons of this country - not the little guy. And it does not trickle down - it trickles out, as jobs go offshore and untaxed corporate profits are hidden in the Caymans. We must fight back now or democracy in America is doomed. Once Republicans control all three branches of government, it's "Turn the lights out, Katie, and bar the doors. It's all over."
Republicans constantly use deceptive and disingenuous language to hide the truth from voters - language such as "Healthy Forests Restoration Act" - a bill that in fact aids wealthy timber interests by opening our public forests to more logging under the guise of community `fire protection,' `fuels reduction,' `restoration,' and `forest health.' We must get this straight - Republicans lie! Republicans are slimy! And, we let them get away with it. Bush continues to use folksy rhetoric to obscure his relationship with `big business' and the wealthy and we let him get away with it. We let him get away with the gross inconsistencies between his populist rhetoric and his actual policy implementation. I say it is time to get up from our deep slumber and go to the barricades and fight Republicans with every rhetorical weapon we have in our arsenal. Enough is enough.
This is not to say that embracing our past as well as our future is going to be easy. But, it is critical that Democrats overcome the ten year image of `me too' policies - an image reeking of weakness and indecisiveness. It is critical that we remind voters too young to remember how we got to where we are today, that without the Democratic Party they would not be enjoying the `good life.'
The time has come for all Democrats to stand up proudly for what we have done and to aggressively pursue policies that will benefit all people working for wages.
The party should ignore focus groups. Instead, we can and should sell our record - it will win converts. Voters in middle America are hungry for an old time religion, they desperately want to hear what we have to say about their personal economic predicaments. They want a choice on election day. We must find principled and assertive leadership with the passions demonstrated by Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, and the late Paul Wellstone (RIP) - leaders who have not forgotten our party's contribution to all working people and the very creation of the middle class. And if the DLC tries to tell us once again that `populism' will not sell, tell them to get stuffed and dig out the studies of John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, "Why Democrats Must be Populists - And what populist-phobes don't understand about America." (see: http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/16/judis-j.html)
As E.J. Dionne wrote after the last election, "It's about having something to say that matters. Democrats had much they could have said, but too many Democrats were afraid to say (it)." We decry voter negligence and apathy, but why should voters register and go to the polls when they feel they have so little choice? Let's give the people a clearer choice!
In 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt described Democrats as "a party which believes that, as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them." That vision still defines our party.
We must restore our party's now cloudy `brand identity.'
LET'S GIVE THE PEOPLE BACK
OUR OLD TIME DEMOCRATIC PARTY!
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Floyd Johnson describes himself as a depression-born, unreconstructed FDR-Democrat. He moved to Phoenix from London in 1975 after residing several years in Brussels and London. He received a Masters Degree from Thunderbird - The Garvin School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona in 1981. After 35 years in the computer industry, he was a used and rare book seller in Peoria, Arizona until his retirement in 2002.
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