A few thoughts about the debt ceiling and a call for a Left political strategy

Not raising the debt ceiling would be like a rather simple-minded declaration of bankruptcy, but the big question is how to turn a Republican setback into a long-term political rout

1. John Boehner is right; the Republicans did fight "the good fight" and they lost it, but the debt ceiling was never a real issue. It was only a viable tactic for Republicans because Democrats had given in before, e.g., the sequester. The Republicans' maneuver was an inspired procedural action, but they won't weaponize it again. Democrats have shown that they have an effective defense against that weapon.

2. It was, in any case, always a dumb idea. Not raising the debt ceiling is like declaring bankruptcy without any legal protections. Imagine a decision to stop paying bills without filing for bankruptcy. One would be entirely at the mercy of creditors free to proceed against you as they wished. It would be like leaving your front door unlocked and posting a sign out front inviting all comers: "Take what you want, I am without hope."

3. Meanwhile, there were an awful lot of people relegated to bystander status or worse during the federal shutdown. Federal employees watched the fight from the sidelines. So did most voters in Blue states, though those who insisted that their elected representatives hold the line on the debt ceiling and shutdown may have helped to strengthen Democratic spines. Working people and poor families across the country had no political options while they suffered through layoffs, lost work time, closure of Head Start programs and food stamp cuts. The list could go on and on, but the point is that working folks in huge numbers found they could do little or nothing that would affect the standoff.

4. The fight was at least a temporary disaster for Republicans. But absent a political strategy to attack the House majority in red-state congressional districts, the Tea Party will live to fight another day and the Republican House will continue to be the tail that wags the dog.

5. In the week or two before the shutdown, plenty of people on the Left were busy celebrating so-called "populist victories" over the elite. A friend of mine, apparently in the full belief that popular resistance to intervention in Syria and opposition to the appointment of Larry Summers as Fed chief were attributable to some long-awaited resurgence of the Left in the United States, declared his belief that we have reached "the end of nearly four decades of rightward drift in the United States." In view of the fact that the Left was another of the groups watching helplessly from the sidelines while the Tea Party celebrated obstruction and shutdown, it's hard to take that claim seriously.

6. But the assertion that we have lived through "... four decades of rightward drift ..." does resonate. Right to work laws, stagnating wages, growing wealth inequality, record levels of incarceration, new and higher barriers to voting, prohibitively high college costs, virtually unregulated campaign spending by corporations and the wealthy, and more are features of the rightward drift that sometimes feels like a stampede.

7. Arguably, the last really sustained and effective progressive movement in this country was the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that resulted in the Civil Rights Act(s) of 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The liberalization of national politics that grew out of that movement also helped to assure the creation of Medicare in 1965. That liberalization also created cultural space for feminism and new employment protections for women and minorities.

8. The celebrated anti-war movement of the '60s and early '70s raised important questions about the Vietnam War, U.S. imperialism, in general, and the military-industrial complex, and raised important questions about mainstream politics and media, but petered out with no strategic accomplishments to show for a great deal of political engagement.

9. One of the great strategic actions of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement that followed were that they took political action in the South and the great cities of the North. Those movements empowered people who might otherwise be victims of an oppressive political environment to take action on their own behalf. They also attracted supporters to the fight, often getting those supporters to establish roots for the long-term in places where the struggle was centered.

10. From where I stand, the challenge now is to articulate a political strategy that takes the fight to where success, measured in a variety of ways, will make the most difference:

--to the red states, for example, to engage in sustained electoral action aimed at replacing Republican representatives with Democrats, where possible, and aimed at making uncompetitive state legislative and congressional districts competitive,

--to do this for the long haul, not merely for 2014, or 2016, but through 2020 and the opportunity to redistrict in the red states,

--to build district-based networks capable of maintaining a permanent educational and organizing presence.

There is more to suggest, of course, but the point is that even if the brief bright flare of Occupy, the resistance to intervention in Syria and to the appointment of Larry Summers to the Fed mean more than I think they do, they will mean little without a commitment by the Left to organize electorally and to take that effort to where the fight is. It has been many years since the Left has made any political difference one way or the other in the United States. Even the Tea Party makes more difference than we do. Are we ready to change?

The Left is still a no-show in American politics

The time for sitting it out is over

Harold Meyerson has a nice piece in the Washington Post today, "A loser of a tax deal" about the declining share of GDP that goes to wages and salaries. "The earned income share of GDP peaked in 1969 at 53.5 percent," Meyerson writes. "In 2012, it was 43.5 percent."

"Where did those 10 percentage points of GDP--currently about $1.5 trillion every year--go instead of to U.S. workers?" he asks. Simply put: corporate profits, a huge transfer of wealth to the owning class.

When those profits are distributed to shareholders, the lion's share goes to the very wealthy, whose income from dividends and capital gains, Meyerson points out, are taxed at a much lower rate than income from wages and salaries. Into the bargain, retained profits are frequently invested by corporations in overseas production rather than domestically. This, of course, reinforces foreign low-wage competition with American workers.

All of this, Meyerson tells us, is redistributionist--a charge frequently lobbed at liberals, but which more accurately describes the right-wing agenda. "Far from mitigating the consequences of this shift [in income from working people to the wealthy], the U.S. tax code reinforces the redistribution from wages to profits," Meyerson writes.

"None of this upsets Republicans, but it would be nice if Democrats realized these tax breaks undermine everything they stand for," he concludes.

Meyerson's column is a helpful, fact-based assessment of the recent fiscal-cliff deal. It is only a minor quibble to observe that Democrats likely do realize that the current tax code, with its favorable treatment of unearned income and overall generosity toward corporations and the wealthy, does undermine what they stand for.

And it's certainly worth pointing out that President Obama might have gotten more in negotiations, if he had been rougher on Republicans. But the deal, unpalatable as it might have been for the Left, nevertheless represented a significant reversal of Bush-era tax cuts in the face of powerful irrational resistance from the Right. The tax on dividend income, for instance, went up 33 percent. That would have been a more meaningful step, if the payroll tax hadn't gone up even more.

In the long run, the fight for economic justice is going to take something more than an aggrieved awareness of how far we are from that happy state. It will take a level of Democratic electoral vigor that isn't possible with a Left that is eternally divided about the wisdom of participating in "bourgeois" politics.

Right now unions and minorities, organizationally and individually, are the only participants in the electoral process who organize and vote based on the interests of working people. A scattering of environmental and feminist organizations and other nonprofits are involved, as well. But there may very well be as many as ten million or more leftists, with organizing, communication and policy experience, who could be running, working and voting in local, state and federal elections; and doing so in a way that would reestablish a liberal agenda as a thing to be reckoned with here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Michael Gerson's mama wears combat boots

Another letter the Post didn't publish

Editor,

Michael Gerson tells us that there are "only two responses [to the Medicare crisis]. The conservative approach...would involve focusing public benefits on the poor while requiring the wealthy and middle class to accept a greater share of their health costs ("Placating the middle class," Jan. 4)."

Perhaps I am naive, but that assertion comes as something of a surprise. If it is accurate, then I can't help noting that there just aren't many of those "conservatives" in Congress. In point of fact, I can't think of a single Republican in the House who has recently expressed a policy preference for the poor.

"The liberal approach," Gerson continues, "is to increase the percentage of the economy taken in taxes to well above historical norms to support the commitments of an essentially unreformed entitlement system."

I consider myself a liberal (maybe worse, but let's not go there), but that's not a description I recognize. Nevertheless, please, raise taxes "above the historical norm" to put people back to work. Once they are working and business is expanding production more rapidly, the GNP will go up faster than tax revenues, which Gerson ought to find gratifying.

And, by all means, reform Medicare to permit the government to achieve substantial savings through competitive bidding for medical equipment and a wide range of medical services, and allow for public funding of drug research in order to reduce the exorbitant profits that result from corporate control of drug patents.

And, to make Gerson conservatives happy, introduce a graduated means test that will reduce health benefits collected by upper-income individuals. Use such policies to reduce per capita health care costs to levels comparable to other industrial democracies and the Medicare crisis will go away. Into the bargain, the economy will benefit and even more jobs will be created.

Think of the subsequent growth in the GNP! Think of the reduction "in the percentage of the economy taken in taxes!" See the deficit shrink! Find the conservatives in Congress! There's work to be done!

Jeff Epton

Brookland

Reader P.S. If you want to get a look at a letter of mine the Post did publish, check out "A tanker contract that shouldn't fly." It was almost five years ago, but I still like the letter.

Cliff diving

Fiscally speaking, Obama's position only gets stronger

Why shouldn't President Obama demand Republican support for ending Bush-era tax cuts for the rich? Because if he doesn't find a way to compromise with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, we will all go over the fiscal cliff?

The truth is Republicans have stronger reasons to avoid the cliff than Obama does and, surprisingly, many more reasons to go over it, as well. Either way, they face political damnation.

If we do take a dive, Boehner and McConnell know that Republicans will get the major portion of the blame. Their refusal to compromise will be portrayed as protecting lower tax rates for the rich. No amount of explaining will change that perception.

Obama will be criticized, too, but not as harshly, and he doesn't have 2014 election worries, either. Republican incumbents (House or Senate) planning on running for reelection will begin their campaigns fearing that intransigence on the fiscal cliff (and the debt ceiling, if it comes to that) will cost them politically.

Theoretically, going over the cliff will position Republicans to reach a "grand bargain" in January that includes tax cuts. The new year will create incentives for both sides to reach a compromise that restores some of the Bush-era tax cuts (except for high-income earners) and maintains the payroll tax exemption that will disappear at year's end.

A January compromise will allow Republicans to claim that they remain the party of tax cuts. Unfortunately for them, to get the cuts that will help maintain their brand (even though Democrats will want them, too), Republicans will likely have to agree with healthcare reforms that they have always opposed, like allowing the government to require competitive bidding for medical equipment and other items purchased by federal health-care programs.

Medicare and Medicaid reforms outlined by the Center for American Progress and generally supported by Democrats are projected to save $385 billion over 10 years, without affecting eligibility or benefit levels. Republicans have their own proposals for saving billions more in healthcare spending, but most of them come from delaying eligibility and raising costs for recipients. The credit for such reforms will go to Obama, not to Boehner, Ryan, Cantor, McConnell, et al.

That same Republican leadership will want to restore some of the cuts to the military budget that will result from going over the fiscal cliff and Democrats will want to do some of that, also. But they won't want it worse than the Republicans will and will be able to bargain for other things they want more, like a little bit more stimulus spending and reduced cuts in education and human service spending.

All of that compromising is going to make Republicans look weak to their core constituencies. It's a painful prospect; agree to tax increases to avoid going over the fiscal cliff and tarnish their anti-tax, anti-government brand, or strengthen the perception that they are defending tax cuts for the rich and agree to a compromise afterward that makes them look like a junior partner in supporting handouts to Democratic constituencies.

The only possible basis for Democrats to oppose going over the cliff is the possibility that doing so will result in instant and significant damage to the economy. (Just three weeks ago in Compromise or Betrayal, I did advocate compromising with Republicans before going over the fiscal cliff. What can I say? Like Obama on gay marriage, my thinking has evolved.)But there are all sorts of ways the government can blunt the immediate effects of tax increases and sequestration, delaying the pain for long enough to pass a fix in January. Obama has lots of cards to play now. After the cliff dive is done, his hand will be even stronger.

The Libyan War is...

A. a bad idea.
B. a necessary evil. Innocent people are dying. U.S. intervention will keep Gaddafi from murdering his people.
C. not the outcome of constitutional deliberation and process.
D. a sign of Obama's weak leadership
E. a good idea.
F. What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a (probably incorrect calculation of) national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.

There is a G, of course, namely that the whole idea of intervention in Libya is confusing and difficult to assess. The probabilities seem fairly high that, if Americans were to respond to a poll asking such a question and offering A through G as possible responses, a plurality would likely admit confusion and choose G. A good number might also support the idea that some sort of humanitarian intervention is necessary. A relative few would be likely to choose A, a bad idea.

On Tuesday, March 22, the Washington Post op-ed page featured five pieces offering some sort of counsel in regard to the choice. The five opinion writers, Anne Applebaum, George Will, Michael Gerson, Richard Cohen and Eugene Robinson, arguably came down on the side of B, C (with a leaning toward A), D & B, D & B, and F (or at least, A), respectively.

Only Applebaum, in "Aim low on Libya," expresses strong support for intervention and excuses the week-long delay in getting there, arguing that quicker or more enthusiastic intervention would have resulted in a widespread perception of American war-mongering. It made sense in this case, she says, to wait for the British and the French to take the lead.

Will doesn't believe that Obama's reasons for intervening were constitutional, persuasive or grounded in a reasonable grasp of history. He calls Obama's observation that Gaddafi has lost all credibility with the Libyan people "meretricious boilerplate [apparently] designed to anesthetize thought." Will helpfully brings history into the discussion, citing the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War as experiences that could teach valuable lessons. His use of history would be even more effective here had he previously bothered to vigorously play the unconstitutional card in regard to the two wars against Iraq launched by the Bushes, father and son.

Michael Gerson, a speech writer for Bush II before he got his job as a Post columnist, endorses the attacks on Libya upfront in "Obama's late arrival," but then spends an additional 800 or so words complaining that Senators Kerry, McClain and Lieberman were quicker to arrive at the public conclusion that intervention was necessary. This appears to be so, but significance ought to be a criterion for the Post's op-ed pages.

Bombing Gadaffi might get us to the end of the "old order in the Middle East" and lead to the "stability and prosperity [that] are powerful antitodes to the violent urges of nihlism and extremism," as Gerson writes. Then, again, maybe bombing, which the United States has engaged in from time to time these last many years, provides some sort of evidence that stability and prosperity are not always antidotes to violent urges.

Richard Cohen, who plays an establishment liberal to Gerson's establishment conservative in the pages of the Post, doesn't like the way Obama governs, either, but makes the case with a little bit more humor than Gerson. In "Uncle Miltie's plan," Cohen does make the helpful point that "the search for a Unified Theory of What Is Happening [in the Middle East] is futile" and details why. All the same, Cohen's chief criticism of Obama appears to be that the president lacks a unified theory. The administration, Cohen concludes, "could have made an argument for staying out [of Libya] or a more forceful argument for going in. Instead it made both. "Milton Berle now plays the White House," he writes. And, no doubt, also haunts Cohen's ambivalent dreams.

Way below the bottom of the fold comes Eugene Robinson's "The dictators we need." Perhaps placement on the page reflects the Post's assessment of the merits of Robinson's argument, but it does have the virtue of clarity. After noting that Gadaffi is a genuine villain, threatening to "turn all of Libya into a charnel house," a blunt description of the allied intevention "clearly intended to cripple the government and boost the revolt's chances of success," Robinson offers a real-politik survey of U.S. relations with other autocrats in the Middle East. He concludes with the observation that the world would be better off without Gaddafi, "but war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standards we set for defiant ones. If not, please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We'll know this isn't about justice, it's about power."

Perhaps Robinson's observation explains why, amidst all the opinions, pro, con and in between, we aren't hearing from Republican budget hawks about the cost of war. We never do.

But surely, in a country where state governments are moving to outlaw collective bargaining rights for public employees, and public school teachers are being pink-slipped for budgetary reasons, some strong right-wing voice could be heard shouting above the din that we are already spent more than one trillion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see Costofwar.com) and can ill-afford another engagement that will raise the cost by billions of dollars (Tomahawk missles cost $570,000 each, the F-15 that crashed a couple of days ago cost $30 million, the first day of combat in Libya coast an estimated $100 million). Alas, no such voice is to be heard.

Is it reasonable, to follow Robinson, to observe that most weapons manufacturers are Republicans, frequently generous campaign contributors, and huge fans of reorders for expensive weapons and expended munitions? I mean, in what other business does a reorder for a single item gross upwards of one-half million dollars?

On his Nation blog, in "Ten calls from Congress for a debate about war," John Nichols appears clear (oxymoron?) on one point: If it is to happen, Congress should authorize military action in Libya. The point is legalistic, perhaps necessary, historically venerated, and insufficient.

If Libya is a humanitarian tragedy about to happen, then any war effort mounted in response ought to be congressionally authorized. But if action is necessary, congressional authorization is not enough. And if Congress does not authorize, and tragedy occurs, what would be America's share of the blame? Further, by how much would a Congressional vote to authorize be delayed as a consequence of behind-the-scenes jockeying to put off such a vote? So, no, Nichol's apparent position lacks gravity and, hopefully, does the Nation an injustice.

But the Nation did editorialize on March 18 in response to the prospect of U.S. intervention. The editors have much to say and make many useful points about the sorry history of U.S. intervention in the Middle East (Libya's in North Africa, but who's counting?) and in Arab countries. I think the piece is a must-read, but I really can't tell if they mean to endorse no-fly zones or other intervention.

Here's the thing, G (the whole Libya-thing is confusing and difficult to assess) is the most understandable answer, but I keep thinking that if I were to remain mindful of the lies and misrepresentations that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq, that preceded the first Gulf War, that justified the embargo of Iraq (which may have caused the deaths of 1,000,000 Iraqis, including 500,000 children), that accompany U.S. aid to Israel and support the continuing oppression, dislocation and disenfranchisement of Palestinians, that excuse or obscure the human rights violations of a dozen key American allies, that hide the profits of war to a select few and shed theatrical tears for the losses of many, if I keep all those things in mind, then the only honest and reasonable answer for me to make is F (What kind of phony discussion is this? The war in Libya is another undeclared war based on a probably incorrect calculation of national interests that will cost the United States much more than it delivers and will fall far short of any reasonable humanitarian goal.)

Regardless, having gone to war (again), let us conclude with a prayer, Mark Twain's War Prayer, which includes this (among its many lines):

"help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns
with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;"

and so on.

The Right Attacks Planned Parenthood

When Acorn came under attack by the Right, I underestimated the depth and seriousness of the assault. The videos produced by young, right-wing zealots conveyed the impression (to some audiences) that ACORN was an edgy organization with a fraudulent social agenda whose employees stood ready to assist underworld-types how best to game the system. In truth, ACORN was edgy and hard-charging and and populist.

At the time the videos surfaced, I thought ACORN might get in a mild bit of trouble, but that it would matter little. ACORN, as I thought of it, was an over-the-hill organization with a stale agenda. I may have been right in some respects--that ACORN was tired (and undernourished)--but it turned out that the organization was indeed in deep trouble. And I entirely ignored the possibility that if a group working at the grassroots for affordable housing and a living wage, and against predatory lending, was erased, neither justice nor a movement that believed in justice would be well-served.

Now ACORN is gone. It took less than a year from the time the organization came under fire until it went under. And now, Planned Parenthood is under a similar attack.

When it happened to ACORN, the right did not know it could destroy a center/left organization. It took awhile for most right-wing organizations to recognize the opportunity that was presenting itself. That's not the case this time. The Right knows what is possible. The Right is mobilized. The Right has learned lessons about how to pursue and amplify the attack. The Right knew another attack was coming.

Of course, Planned Parenthood isn't ACORN. Planned Parenthood is a bigger organization with a better foundation, a larger constituency, more resources and more access to resources. All to the good, because Planned Parenthood may be facing a fight for survival here. And if there's still a Left out there, it better show up for this fight.

So Lincoln Won, Now What?

Has progressive zeal gone awry?

Yes, Blanche Lincoln, the Democratic senator from Arkansas, opposed the public option and the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), but that sort of thing from an Arkansas senator shouldn't come as a big surprise. Bill Clinton, our emeritus president, also from Arkansas, did worse. He pushed through a welfare reform that further impoverished millions of families, single mothers and their children, in particular. Clinton also made the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and other pro-business trade agreements, the law of the land. But somehow, most progressives went along, sourly perhaps, but voted for him for reelection, anyhow. The alternative in the era of Newt Gingerich was much worse.

But Lincoln got no such break from labor unions, the Daily Kos and moveon.org. Unions spent more than $10 million in an effort to defeat Lincoln and elect Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in the Democratic primary. From the start it was clear that Halter was no liberal. He simply allowed himself to be framed as a politician to the left of Lincoln. Only true believers practiced in self-deception could pretend that Halter would be an improvement.

Arguably, a better health care bill might have passed if Lincoln had been a supporter of the public option. But had she voted for the public option, she would have faced a true right-wing opponent, more formidable than Halter. And who is willing to claim that Lincoln was the principal obstacle? How about Joe Lieberman, who progressives haven't been able to get rid of either, even though he comes from Connecticut, where it ought to be far easier to elect a liberal? But progressives haven't been able to manage that trick, and even supported Ned Lamont, a multi-millionaire businessman with a thin record of opposition to the Iraq War and no other credentials, in a futile and disheartening effort to dislodge Lieberman in 2008.

"Political movements tend to unravel gradually, but on Tuesday [progressives] seemed to be imploding in real time," wrote the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, an off-again, on-again liberal himself, in "Liberals gather, and yell." A bit hyperbolic, given that Milbank was merely observing a "gathering of progressive activists organized by the Campaign for America's Future," rather than, say, tens of thousands assembled in some amphitheatre at a critical moment for change. But Milbank was writing about the angry demonstrations that continually disrupted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech at the event. Hopefully, the rudeness was therapeutic and activists aren't also considering Pelosi a problem that leftists need to tackle electorally.

Milbank quotes Robert Borosage, organizer of the event, outlining the disappointments stacked up since Barack Obama's election:

"Progressives have grown ever more dissatisfied, and for good reason...Our hopes or illusions were shattered:escalation in Afghanistan, retreat on Guantanamo, no movement on workers rights or comprehensive immigration reform, dithering on 'don't ask, don't tell,' reverses on choice, delay on climate change and new energy."

Borosage isn't sniping from the sidelines. He co-founded the Campaign for America's Future and is a prolific writer and commentator. A piece he wrote for the Huffington Post prior to Obama's 2008 victory, "A New Progressive Era?" provides a helpful comparison between the political reality facing Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time of his 1932 reelection and political reality as it looked to a smart leftist in the fall of 2008.

But how things looked in 2008 seems a far cry from how things are in 2010. There is probably not a single Republican senator who needs to protect himself or herself from a political attack from moderates within their own party. Substantial minority though they are, the rules of the Senate work absolutely in their favor, and vulnerable Republican incumbents face bigger problems from Tea Party activists and the extreme right than they do from Democrats. And for more than a year, since the passage of the stimulus bill in early 2009, Senate Republicans have recognized that recession and widespread economic distress have created a volatile and emotional electorate just as likely to take out their anger on incumbent Democrats as on Republicans. It is this development, and the decision by Republicans to rejigger themselves as the "party of no," that has led to dashing our progressive "hopes or illusions." The hopeless, reactionary mood that characterizes a considerable part of the electorate is part of the wall against which progressive illusions have been shattered.

But why would anyone wish otherwise? Illusions, after all, do not provide a sound base on which to begin building strategy? It was far easier for the Republican minority to develop an effective legislative stance in the chaos created by the worst recession since 1929 than it was for Democrats. Borosage's Huffington Post piece makes clear that, even under ideal conditions, there never was going to be unity among Democrats: "For Obama, the greatest obstacles to pursuing progressive reform are likely to come from his party's conservative Blue Dogs and Wall Street DLC New Democrats." Perhaps, he should also have taken pains to point out that Obama, himself, is no progressive, only a breath of fresh air; a smart leader willing to do the right thing in cooperation with a cohesive progressive movement able to focus effective political power, if such a movement actually existed.

It is still less than two years since Obama's election victory. It is barely 18 months since Obama took office with the country headed toward double digit unemployment. Arguably, the labor movement has less political power to focus now than it had a mere 10 years ago, just before Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and president Andy Stern led several other unions out of the AFL-CIO, in an ill-fated attempt to reverse labor's decline. The fact that AFSCME and SEIU could scrape together $10 million to oppose Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas primary tells us very little about what the labor movement is capable of doing or what it ought to do next. But it looks somewhat like a tactical indulgence, spending money and lashing out becoming a sort of consolation for strategic failure.

Labor, and all progressives, ought to take a closer look at the political realities of this moment. No, we are not out of Iraq, but we are going to be. We are escalating in Afghanistan, but I see no sign that we are really hunkering down for an even longer war there. A higher likelihood is that we will leave both Iraq and Afghanistan over the next two to three years because we cannot afford to be there any longer. Yes, that point begs the question of whether or not we could ever afford to be either place. Worse, we will be leaving chaos behind in both countries, the forseeable result of a warlike, confrontational and theatrical foreign policy, but a policy that the Obama administration did not create. More problematically for progressive Democrats is that a specific plan does not exist for reengaging parts of the world which have been long neglected or exploited by U.S. policies.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, perhaps, the biggest foreign policy challenge of all to progressives. Israel has no secure future as an occupying power. But many Jewish progressives believe firmly that Israel should be supported as a Jewish state within pre-1967 borders. Talk about illusions from which we all must one day awaken.

A country cannot be both a theocratic state and a democratic state. Even if it is founded by, or on behalf of, Holocaust survivors. That may help make Israel a sentimental favorite for many, but in the modern world, it is not possible to play fast and loose with the rights of other peoples, no matter the gloss put on the act. If there is to be peace, Israel must give something on many points, forcibly evacuating settlements, returning to pre-1967 borders, acknowledging right of return on some basis, if only for compensation purposes.

And the United States is Israel's principal enabler. Without U.S. foreign and military aid, Israel would be bankrupt. And its weapons industry, now an exporter to all sorts of governments with dubious human rights records, has been built and sustained by U.S. aid. The American administration that finally reduces, ideally cuts off, such aid will help Israel to recognize some part of the injustices that have been perpetrated by the Jewish state, and create a more realistic basis for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ultimately, Israel will even have to choose between being a Jewish state, privileging some, and being a democratic state. But that crisis comes later.

We are facing an environmental disaster in the Gulf that highlights the limits to which corporations can act in a broader interest. The BP oil spill will help build support for climate change legislation, but whatever does pass, it will fall far short of what we wish for. So, obviously, will Wall Street regulation. Most members of Congress, in both the House and the Senate, will fight fiercely against efforts to raise taxes on the rich, and to raise the ceiling on social security taxes to cover more of the salaries of higher-income people. But some modest form of that could happen, especially if progressives let go of dreams and focus a little more on realpolitik.

It is somewhat surprising that so soon after Obama's apparently game-changing victory in 2008, so many Democratic incumbents turn out to be facing difficult reelection campaigns in 2008. And the idea that Illinois Democrats may turn out to be too weak to hold Obama's Senate seat is a major shocker. But the Republican party does not have the stature or the policy proposals to take real advantage of the national bad mood. Any rightward shift by Republican candidates sufficient to satisfy Tea Party activists during primaries will undermine those candidates in general elections. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, looked like a goner in Nevada, until Republicans nominated the extremely right-wing Sharon Angle. The smart money now is on Reid's reelection.

But the survival of moderate Democratic incumbents in difficult races does little for progressives. It simply seems vastly superior to challenging those incumbents in Democratic primaries. It is true that a frightened and panicky electorate is hardly a good audience for complicated progressive policy campaigns. But it should be obvious that expensive campaigns aimed at punishing Democratic incumbents for apostasy are counter-productive, if not also the desperate act of a movement with few, or no, ideas.

What's left then? In "Progessive Strategy in the Obama Era," posted on the Huffington Post website, activist Deepak Bhargava argues that there are no shortcuts. The progressive challenge in a deeply divided country is to admit "that we have a long way to go to win hearts and minds" and to "put the emphasis on organizing and recruitment, and social movements."

Right now the only viable progressive movement, Bhargava says, is the immigration movement. This ignores, I think, an environmental movement that has never stopped educating and organizing on college campuses and in communities. It also glosses over the domestic and international peace mobilizations in 2002 and 2003 that delayed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The related experience of millions of young Americans who took to the streets to oppose war at that time remains important, but it must be conceded that the peace movement proved unable to capitalize on those mobilizations. It is painful to think that most Americans still do not see the logic of peace and justice arguments, and are easily persuaded that government is the problem.

I am no particular fan of organizing efforts like, say, Organizing for America, the substantially web-based effort to keep supporters engaged that grew out of the Obama campaign. But it has kept a million people engaged in political action in some form and connected to each other. This is no small accomplishment. I don't know the numbers for Robert Borosage's Campaign for America, but it, also, aspires to overcome the isolation that demobilizes progressives and to focus them on a longer-term agenda. This is key.

Unless we understand what long-term progress would look like and develop strategies and tactics that teach us patience and allow us to pursue half-a-loaf outcomes, we will founder on frustration and anger with the difficult political reality that challenges us. We will dither away millions opposing Blanche Lincoln. And we will duck the hardest issues, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for which Americans will not admit responsibility. And we will drown in a sea of crude oil, and languish in a stagnant, poorly regulated economy, and bemoan our individual fates.

Columnist Kathleen Parker Says Stupak Was Betrayed

A bad column concludes with a loaded image

Bart Stupak, the pro-life congressman from Michigan's Upper Peninsula is taking a lot of fire for his role in passing the healthcare reform bill on Sunday. A Catholic, Stupak has been a hardliner in his opposition to the use of federal funds to pay for abortion. But, "when all the power of the moment was in his frail human hands, he dropped the baby," wrote Parker in a Washington Post column, "Stupak's original sin."

Parker goes on to argue that in becoming one of the few Democrats who originally voted against the bill to change his vote and enable passage, Stupak proved to be "weak and overwhelmed by raw political power." Worse, perhaps, he was deceived by the obvious fraud of an "utterly useless" executive order, which falsely promised "that no federal funds will be used for abortion."

Stupak, Parker says, knew he was being deceived; after all "the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explained to him...the only way to prevent public funding for abortion was for his amendment to be added to the Senate bill." Besides, even Obama "is well aware of the uselessness of his promise," wrote the apparently omniscient Parker.

Of course, all this is actually contested terrain and Parker, a usually more reasonable, if also right-wing, observer of Washington politics, should know this. Yes, the Catholic bishops claimed that the bill would expand federal funding for abortion, but a very influential association of catholic hospitals said that the bill would not do so.

Further, executive orders do matter, as Parker likely also knows. They may not be a matter of law, but they guide how federal employees interpret and implement laws. And, in this particular instance, Obama's executive order has been blasted by pro-choice groups who feel betrayed by the president's action. In "Order on abortion angers core backers," Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights is quoted blasting the executive order, which has created a new "obstacle to abortion," she said.

But Parker may very well think that Northrup is crying crocodile tears, pretending to disappointment in order to further the liberal conspiracy advancing the cause of big government against the wishes of the American people. Indeed, Parker has caught the symbolism of a gesture that the rest of us may have missed--Stupak has been betrayed.

"After the Sunday vote, a group of Democrats, including Stupak, gathered in a pub to celebrate. In a biblical moment, New York Rep. Anthony Weiner was spotted planting a big kiss on Stupak's cheek.

"To a Catholic man well versed in the Gospel, this is not a comforting gesture," Parker wrote.

Though the phrase resists linear interpretation, Parker's meaning is clear. Stupak is hardly the Christ, but Parker judges him betrayed--his betrayal more properly understood if one recognizes that Weiner is the Judas figure, the betrayer in Parker's passion play. Parker has chosen here to speak directly to the good Christian commie-hunters mobilized in tea parties. Talk about original sin.

Pass the Health Care Bill and Move On

Time's a-wasting and the economy, education reform and other action that could help the Democrats in November are hanging fire.

The health-care bill before Congress now will have to be approved in the Senate by reconciliation, the process that requires only 51 votes. Of course, Democrats are running scared in the House, also; finding 216 votes there to approve President Obama's health care plan is apparently no sure thing, says majority whip James Clyburn (see the Washington Post story, "Democrats upbeat on health-care bill," here).

The urgency and anxiety Democratic members of Congress feel about voting for the health care bill are provoked by fears that voters will punish them at the polls in November. Republicans, says House minority leader John Boehner are doing "everything we can to make it difficult, if not impossible, to pass the bill." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) has an opinion piece in today's Post that excoriates Democrats for using reconciliation to "achieve political victory" by passing legislation that will drive up insurance premiums, federalize "the regulation of insurance, [narrow] consumer options and [reduce]competition among providers."

Ryan uses Congressional Budget Office estimates to support his claim that insurance premiums will rise. But, he fails to mention that the CBO also estimates that the CBO also estimates that the bill will reduce the budget deficit by an amount somewhere between $920 billion and $1.7 trillion between now and 2030. Given the projected escalation of the deficit over the period, the estimated reduction is a tiny piece of the puzzle, but a critique that uses CBO estimates without acknowledging that the proposed reform does begin to reduce the deficit undermines Ryan's claim to objectivity in the matter. Further, when Ryan, as part of a House majority, had an opportunity in 2003 to control health care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, he voted with the majority in the House to pass the Medicare Modernization Act, which blocked Medicare from doing so. That action has already added billions to the deficit. Of course Republicans argued at the time that the act was aimed at controlling the expansion of government, but its real consequences were to protect the profits of pharmaceutical companies.

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson also says that the health-care bill is a cost-control illusion, but his piece depends on the false hypothesis that the bill is only about covering the uninsured. On his way to pointing out that covering more people is hardly a cost-control effort, Samuelson completely ignores the many features of the bill, like state insurance exchanges, policing of medicare overpayments and initiating movement towards value-based Medicare payments rather than fee for service that are aimed at controlling and reducing health care costs.

In a column in the Wall Street Journal, "Health Reform Passes the Cost Test," Harvard professor David Cutler, an Obama health care advisor, reviews ten potential cost-control measures and scores the health-care bill based on the degree to which the bill relies on each measure. Cutler concludes that the potential savings over the next 20 years from passing this bill now are 10 times greater than CBO estimates.

Rounding up votes for the bill in the House is also made more difficult by resistance from anti-abortion Democrats, but even the Catholic Health Association, a group representing Catholic hospitals that do not provide abortion, has indicated support for the bill. At this point it should be obvious that controlling health care costs is perhaps the most critical long-term variable in reducing the deficit to manageable levels. It should also be clear that no single bill will ever achieve that goal and that passing this bill now is a defensible part of a sustained effort to establish health care justice in this country and avoid ruinous deficits in the future. Democrats frightened by the prospect of facing angry voters in November should recognize three things:

1. Failing to pass this health care bill will not soothe angry voters, either, but it will help to define a Republican attack on timid, ineffectual Democrats.

2. Passing this health care bill now will create a space in which Democrats can force Republicans to vote against financial regulation and confront the failures of the No Child Left Behind Act. Let Republicans defend the indefensible.

Finally, the notion that political life should somehow be made risk-free is the real illusion, the equivalent of staying home and barring the door against all dangers, only to starve to death. The true glory of politics is that it sometimes requires courage.

How the Right, and the Rest of Us, Can Shrink Big Government

Musings of a Snow Shoveler

It was so quiet on DC streets yesterday, you could hear yourself thinking. The streets weren't completely impassable, but only a tiny number of vehicles drove by; the great majority of cars were stuck in snowdrifts and garages. High mounds of snow narrowed the roadways, absorbing much of the noise made by the mainly emergency vehicles and snowplows that did pass by. There were no trains running on the four lines of railroad track about a block away, and the blowers and fans that heat and cool the air for the hospital buildings nearby were, for once, inaudible. Humans were out and about, shoveling and talking and, somehow, the otherwise sound-deadening qualities of the snow facilitated the easy travel of conversational voices.

A neighbor two doors away shoveled vigorously east, so I shoveled vigorously west. We met halfway, a proud moment in the ongoing process of reclaiming the public right-of-way. Like the meeting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, it was a moment deserving of celebration, so, though we've lived on the same block for three years, Scott and I introduced ourselves to each other for the first time in history. Sadly, the neighbor to our east has failed to shovel his sidewalk, so the full corner-to-corner pathway remains incomplete.

But before the historic meet up with Scott, I couldn't help reflecting that the economic output in the very big East Coast neighborhood, ranging from as far south as, say, North Carolina, north to New York state and west to Pittsburgh had dropped dramatically. In fact, probably the single most productive activity in the whole megalopolis was moving snow around, a lot of it volunteer activity. My own snow moving output for the weekend, about six hours worth at a conservative $25/hour (snowplow drivers contribute much more) ought to add about $150 to the Gross National Product.

This thought got me to the further notion that if people who are most particularly incensed by big government really wanted to advance their cause, they could go out and do an hour's worth of volunteer activity every week on behalf of someone less well off, sicker or older than they are. Cutting grass, building a wheelchair ramp, making dinner, picking up medicine on behalf of someone who would not be able to do those things themselves, might, in fact, leave them undone would add huge sums to the GNP. Moreover, doing them would be preventative. They would improve quality of life for the beneficiaries, increasing health and well-being, and reduce the cost of future government intervention.

Say, for argument's sake, that 10 million people, otherwise consumed by political frustration about Big Brother, did engage in this sort of volunteerism for an hour a week and 50 weeks a year. At a conservative labor value of $20/hr., these activities would add about $10 billion to GNP. If 10 million more progressives, wishing to encourage such volunteerism and desiring to share directly in the community-building process were to match the effort, we could add another $10 billion to GNP and dial down ambient political heat in favor of light. If the same 20 million were to also give away their spare change to the homeless twice a week, we could inject another $2 billion annually into local economies. If all of this were to happen on a yearly basis, the total would equal a modest stimulus package, and it wouldn't take 60 votes in the Senate to make it happen.

Letter to the Washington Post, #4

In her Feb. 17 op-ed (“Call Me a Snob…”) Susan Jacoby asserts that we are living through a period characterized by “a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations” and says we ought to begin a national discussion on “the low level of discourse in a country with a mind taught to aim at low objects.”

But Jacoby doesn’t get us to an adequate starting point. Dumbness, arrogance and a shrinking attention span characterize a rising number of Americans, she claims. Unfortunately, these are not precise analytical terms; they are mere insults.

Perhaps a 1500-word piece does not allow sufficient space to make Jacoby’s point, but surely it’s room enough to at least mention the sustained neglect the American public school system has suffered over the last 30 years. My guess is that single parents with low-wage jobs, two-parent households with both parents in the work force, lack of childcare, crumbling school buildings, lagging teacher salaries, a shift of infrastructure investment from cities to suburbs and from schools to prisons, the increasing cost of higher education and the diminishing availability of need-based college scholarships have much to do with our collective lack of time and preparedness for the discussion Jacoby desires.

Shifting focus to the failures of policy-makers since the Reagan administration to honor and sustain the past achievements and real potential of high-quality universal public education might be a better place to begin that conversation.