This Wednesday Democracy for New York City, one of Democracy for America's largest chapters voted by an overwhelming 70 percent to endorse Jonathan Tasini in the upcoming U.S. Senate primary. This follows closely on the heels of the endorsement of Progressive Democrats of America, whose advisory board includes: Reps John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey among others. According to PDA's Executive Director, Tim Carpenter:
Jonathan Tasini is offering voters in New York a real alternative to the Bush Administration's failed stay-the-course strategy. He has had the courage to call for withdrawal. Grassroots Democrats have responded to that courage and each PDA chapter in New York has endorsed his candidacy, allowing for a PDA national endorsement.
Carpenter believes the Tasini candidacy sends a message to the Democratic Leadership:
Any Democrat who continues to support the war needs to be held accountable," he says. If Democrats want to lead this country again, Democrats need to take the lead on getting our troops out of Iraq.
On Monday, Tasini was the subject of a full profile in the New York Times. According to the Times:
[W]hile he acknowledges the odds are against him, his anti-Clinton campaign has attracted increasing attention in recent weeks, winning the endorsement of a variety of Democratic clubs and nearly forcing a resolution onto the floor of the state Democratic convention last month calling for the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq.
If it had not been for Jonathan Tasini, there would have been no discussion of the most important issue of the day at the New York State Democratic Convention.
And, If you think that I'm exaggerating about the war being the single most important issue facing this country consider the following: according to a recent study by Linda Bilmes, a leading Harvard budgetary expert, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, if one applies the Congressional Budget Office's basic assumptions about the duration of the Iraq conflict ("a small but continuous presence"), it will cost nearly a staggering $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done.
Then there's the very serious issue of how the Iraqi people have been made to suffer through almost three and a half years of U.S. bombings, invasion and occupation outlined by William Blum for Counterpunch last week. Among the conditions cited by Mr. Blum are the following:
A 2005 UN study revealed that 84% of the higher education establishments have been "destroyed, damaged and robbed".
Deadly infections including typhoid and tuberculosis are rampaging through the country. Iraq's network of hospitals and health centers, once admired throughout the Middle East, has been severely damaged by the war and looting.
The UN's World Food Program reported that 400,000 Iraqi children were suffering from "dangerous deficiencies of protein". Deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases, particularly amongst children, already a problem because of the 12 years of US-imposed sanctions, have increased as poverty and disorder have made access to a proper diet and medicines ever more difficult.
Thousands of Iraqis have lost an arm or a leg, frequently from unexploded US cluster bombs, which became land mines; cluster bombs are a class of weapons denounced by human rights groups as a cruelly random scourge on civilians, particularly children.
The American military has attacked hospitals to prevent them from giving out casualty figures of US attacks that contradicted official US figures, which the hospitals had been in the habit of doing.
Numerous homes have been broken into by US forces, the men taken away, the women humiliated, the children traumatized; on many occasions, the family has said that the American soldiers helped themselves to some of the family's money. Iraq has had to submit to a degrading national strip search.
Senator Clinton, who has been spoken of as a possible candidate for the most powerful leadership position in the entire world, has not had a word to say about any of this.
Contrast Mrs. Clinton's conduct with that of Jonathan Tasini. Last week Tasini said that if he had been in the Senate not only would he have supported the Kerry amendment requiring U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by January 2007 but also the much tougher bill offered by Rep Jim McGovern, that would cut off funding for further offensive military action in Iraq and only allow funds to be used for the immediate, safe withdrawal of U.S. troops. Even Iraq's new prime minister was calling for a timetable for the withdrawal last week until his colleagues in the United Iraqi Alliance forced him to recant (I'm sure the Bush administration had nothing to do with that).
But Tasini is not just a one issue candidate. If you doubt me check out his excellent Daily Kos diary on the so-called "pension crisis" from last Friday http://www.dailykos.com/.... It's on a par with anything David Sirota has written about the issue.
The Times article states that the Tasini campaign has become a "vehicle for liberals who are disenchanted with Mrs. Clinton." But that's only part of the story. Tasini's supporters are first and foremost Americans who are disgusted by what is happening to this country under Bush with the cooperation of far too many in the "mainstream" political establishment. We are supporting Tasini for the simple reason that he is the type of person we would like to see more of in the Senate; someone with a background in the labor movement and issue advocacy, who will not take a penny of corporate cash and who will fight hard from day one against militarism, imperialism and the ever mounting corporate abuse of average citizens.
Al Ronzoni, Jr.