Peter Beinart: A Democratic Call to Arms

A Democratic Call to Arms

By Peter Beinart

Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page B07

Republicans have been conquering their demographic challenge, while Democrats have not. Between 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush increased his share of African American votes from 9 percent to 11 percent, and in key states such as Ohio, he did much better than that. Among Hispanics, Bush's total rose from 35 percent to as much as 44 percent. But despite widespread talk about military disaffection over Iraq, John Kerry won only 41 percent of Americans with military experience. While active-duty, National Guard and Reserve voters are hard to poll scientifically, a survey last October by the Military Times gave Kerry a mere 18 percent. ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8741-2005Mar4.html
Democrats have been alienated from the military since Vietnam, almost as long as Republicans have been alienated from African Americans. They need a generational strategy to repair the rift. Criticizing the Bush administration for failing to provide current and former troops and their families the medical and other benefits they deserve is a start. So is developing a cadre of national Democrats with real defense expertise -- something the party has often lacked since Sam Nunn left the Senate and Les Aspin the House -- so Democrats can speak the military's language.

But the biggest problem is cultural. Democrats should acknowledge that at times the left's understandable anger over Vietnam degenerated into a lack of respect for the military. And they should make amends in very practical ways -- most significantly, as the Progressive Policy Institute's Will Marshall has pointed out, by shaming America's colleges and law schools into letting the military recruit on campus. Liberal students, faculty and administrators have the right to criticize the Pentagon's discriminatory policies toward gays and lesbians. But it is outrageous for them to treat the U.S. military -- especially in a time of war -- as a pariah. And Howard Dean should go to the college towns where his most stalwart supporters reside and tell them so.

Why should recruiters be given space on campuses?

it's becoming sad. :-(

Needs to put down the martini glass and go sign up at the nearest recruiter. Then, and only then, will his words have any credence.

money->mouth, Petey. And remember: Take the diapers off when they give you the physical.

I'mnot even going to waste the time addressing it.

:puke:

by inviting them to recrute at the next Young NDN and DLC meeting?

to do. I wonder if he's been getting some payola lately. For him to say anyone should be in the business of "shaming Americas colleges and law schools into letting the military recruit on campus." That's a shocking statement and sounds very right wing.

Why doesn't he sign up? He looks young enough to be able to serve.

Will Marshall, Beinart and the rest seem to fit better into the Repug Lite crowd and just enjoy giving the Corporate Media and the Repugs a way to dig at Dems and turn the conversations to themselves.

Beinart unsurprisingly fails to make the connection between rising tuition rates and military spending. I am currently attending classes as the City College of NY, and the campus anti-war network recently kicked recruiters off campus. One of the primary arguments for getting them off a campus primarily comprised of working-class students is that the rising tuition rates at schools such as CCNY is a direct result of increased military spending. So, the military then swoops in and tells these kids that they can get money for school through the military, when the military is the primary reason that they are having trouble making tuition payments!

However, I doubt that any of this matters to a child of privilege like Beinart. After all, he attended Yale, and never served a second in uniform. Yet, somehow he feels himself entitled to advocate muscular militarism from the sidelines, urging other people to go fight in his stead.

In short, he's a coward and a fraud. Contempt is too light a word for how I feel toward his kind.

Democrats have been alienated from the military since Vietnam
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This is incorrect, and it's a falsehood that the republicans always use to get votes. If only republicans served in our military, we would have never won a single battle. The list of right wing chicken hawks that are pro-war but did not want to serve is a long one.

I'm a veteran and I'm a Liberal. And there are a lot of Liberals just like me.

Garbage in, garbage out. Obviously you've swallowed corporate America's multitude of lies without question. A shame IF, you are either a dem or a green.

No way in hell that the hispanic vote increased in 2004 by a third over the 2000 election. This is evidence of nothing more than electoral fraud, rather than the dems being that much more unappealing to a minority voter block 4 years later.

As for the military vote, by all objective measures, the dems in 2004 should've picked up at least 10% more than they got in the 2000 election. The fact that they were reported to be more solidly behind the little chimp, constitutes more evidence of election fraud because it was substantially different than the projections.

Exit polls (across the nation). The ONLY way to tell if the reported vote squares with the actual (an imperfect science but deemed reliable enough for both parties to rely upon to predict the outcome. That is until 2004. All of a sudden, exit polls are nothing more than a distraction and have no basis in reality (really?). As far as I'm concerned the media push to discredit exit polls constitutes corporate complicity in the treason of stealing an election. Another instance of circumstantial evidence of election fraud.

Remember: it's the Republicans who've attempted to steal or illegally influence national elections; not the dems. To wit: Reagan making a deal with Iran to hold American hostages till after the election in exchange for illegally obtained weapons, and Watergate brought to you by Tricky Dickless.

Your self-rightous sophistry is nothing more than a red-herring.

Gyre

He lies. The only problem the Dems have is a media that would rather spout propoganda instead of report news. You are part of that media.