A proposal for a progressive agenda

http://scholarsandrogues.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/a-proposal-for-a-progressive-agenda/

A proposal for a progressive agenda July 10, 2007

Posted by Brian Angliss in globalisation, National Security, Reform, conservatism, Public Health, ambassador, citizenship, private military contractors, progressives, 2008 election, gerrymandering, corruption, diplomacy, military, Economics, politics, Health, FEMA, energy, Trade, Afghanistan, Democrats, Republicans, Iraq War, Environment. trackback



Over the course of the last several years, we have experienced the results of failed Republican policies. The subjugation of all other foreign policy objectives to national defense has created a situation where we are literally less safe for having our soldiers fighting abroad1. Lower taxes are bankrupting the government, leading to a wholesale crumbling of our roads and public buildings, public education, public health and safety, and even our national security2 due to lack of maintenance. Smaller government, originally intended to improve efficiencies by moving supposedly bloated government programs to private industry, has created a government that is unable to perform its most basic duties, such as protecting its citizens and enforcing its laws. Freeing markets from strict federal regulation has resulted in the corruption of Enron and Adelphia Communications3 as well as a massive increase in real poverty. And the focus on family values has produced a cultural environment that is singularly unfriendly to non-traditional families, scientific and medical research, and even immigration.

There are many, many reasons that the Republican agenda has failed. The Republicans have had near total control over all three branches of government for much of the last seven years, giving the GOP the opportunity to run the country very nearly as they would choose. In the process, the United States has seen what the present Republican Party leadership wants the country to look and function like, and the United States is not generally happy with what its seen. A small sampling of examples include a war of choice in Iraq that has increased the threat to U.S. citizens internationally and has created a cause celebre for al-Qaeda and copycat organizations4, Enron swindling citizens and shareholders out of billions of dollars with the tacit approval of the federal government5, the utter failure of the federal government to manage the Katrina disaster6 and the ongoing failures of leadership in the rebuilding of New Orleans, across-the-board cuts to programs designed to help alleviate poverty7 and educate our nation’s youth along8 with massive unfunded federal educational mandates9, and an increase in the number of hospitals and pharmacies refusing to dispense medical treatment and drugs due to personal moral qualms that conflict directly with professional codes of conduct10.

While these specific examples, along with too many others to list, could explain the failure of the Republican agenda, there is actually another equally important reason the Republicans have failed. Fundamentally, the ideas of the modern Republican Party leadership have been found incapable of addressing the problems facing the United States, both domestically and internationally.

Thankfully, progressives have their own ideas that will prove successful at addressing the myriad of issues that We The People will face over the next several years.

First, progressives should focus on repairing United States’ national authority. Our ability to get things done internationally is not only dependent on the massive military stick we possess, but also on our dynamic economy, our diplomatic prowess, and our historical position as the “city upon a hill”11 that other nations look up to. In order to strengthen our economy, progressives should push for a repeal of many of Bush’s tax cuts12 and oil company subsidies13, continued fiscal discipline with “pay-go” budget policies14, inclusion of all the costs of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the annual budget15, and federal policies that inspire personal savings over personal debt. Diplomatically, progressives should oppose the appointments of political donors to ambassadorial positions16 over better qualified professional diplomats, bring the United States into multilateral organizations like the International Criminal Court17, and ensure that the United States government treats all prisoners according to recognized international standards of conduct, such as applying the Geneva Conventions18 to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and prosecuting military officers for the illegal actions of underlings over which they were responsible19. At the same time, progressives will show that the United States again deserves to be looked up to as a model for human rights, especially if the policies of extraordinary rendition20, CIA detentions in secret prisons21, and torture22 are publicly reversed, apologized for, and restitution is made to individuals affected by these policies. And finally, our degrading military power could be bolstered by initiating a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq, hiring more soldiers in order to reduce the length of deployments, and reducing our national dependence on mercenary units23 and corporate profiteers24 to feed, transport, and equip our soldiers.

Second, progressives must focus on increasing public investment. The government relies on public investment to run our courts, to maintain the nation’s roads, dams, and public education, to ensure our national authority, and to keep Americans healthy and safe in their daily lives. Without greater public investment, and the financial sacrifices such investment entails from all Americans, the federal government will be unable to perform its duties. Our entire justice system is overtaxed, and significant investment is necessary to increase the number and quality of our public defenders25, to add more immigration judges to expedite immigration cases26, and to rehabilitate criminals so that recidivism drops. In addition, our nation needs significant public investment in addressing the fundamental social and economic factors that convince too many youths that crime is their only way out of the projects27. A significant public investment in our nation’s crumbling interstate highways and bridges, collapsing or leaking flood-control levees and dams, high-voltage electricity lines that are insufficient to prevent brownouts and blackout28 is required to reverse years of neglect, and we must fully fund the numerous unfunded mandates strangling our public education system with weeks of testing and administrative corruption29. As mentioned above, the national authority of the United States is suffering due to insufficient public investment of time, attention, and money, and progressives must correct the GOP’s mistakes in this area. And finally, without significant new investment in public health and safety, our nation’s citizens will not feel safe eating the food they purchase from their grocers30, nor will they and their employers be able to afford medical treatment. This will ultimately lead to a loss of competitiveness in the globalized marketplace and losses in productivity on the job.

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lets start here: "Our ability to get things done internationally is not only dependent on the massive military stick we possess, but also on our dynamic economy, our diplomatic prowess, and our historical position as the “city upon a hill”11 that other nations look up to."

Perhaps the problem is our 'massive military stick'? Perhaps we ought to finally, 60 years after the end of WWII, consider standing down from our wartime posture? Maybe it is the complete capitulation to the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about as he snuck out the door that is the problem?

"And finally, our degrading military power could be bolstered by initiating a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq, hiring more soldiers in order to reduce the length of deployments, and reducing our national dependence on mercenary units23 and corporate profiteers24 to feed, transport, and equip our soldiers."

Why are we deploying our soldiers outside of our borders at all? We need to stop thinking like this idiocy is a permanent condition that just needs to be managed better and start imagining a society whose military was actually a defense force and not a global bully.

You have a point about the military-industrial complex, but there's a practical problem with simply recalling all our soldiers from abroad and keeping them all within our borders - there really are people out there who want to kill us. Some of them are in Iraq, a lot of them are in the tribal region of Pakistan, and there are some in Indonesia, the Philippines, Iran, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, etc. And I have a difficult time imagining that passive defenses will be sufficient to keep them from killing U.S. citizens.

Beyond this, however, there's the issue of whether or not the U.S. has a moral obligation with regard to crimes against humanity. It's my personal opinion that the U.S. should not necessarily be the world's police (I believe that duty should fall to a strengthened U.N.), but neither should we permit rogue and failed states like Afghanistan under the Taliban, Ethiopia, and Sudan to either slaughter their citizens or harbor those who would attack us or our allies.

Finally, the United States is no longer self-sufficient, and in fact no industrialized nation can be considered such due to the petrochemical nature of our economies. For that reason, the United States has authentic national interests that extend beyond our borders. And the protection of those interests is as important to the common good of the United States as the protection of our physical borders is.

Even if we collectively decided to retreat within our borders, it would take decades or centuries to empower the rest of the world to handle the security details that our military performs for us today.

I'm afraid that, while your view appeals philosophically, it's simply not practical.

writing. :thumbsup:

"For that reason, the United States has authentic national interests that extend beyond our borders."

No we do not, not in the sense we currently use this to rationalize imperialism. Until we start working within defined international organizations as an equal we are stuck in our current rut, marching around the globe killing lesser nation's peoples, playing king of the hill with scarce resources that the entire planet depends on, and marching down a path that can only result in a global conflict that will make the catastrophes of the 20th century seem minor.

"I believe that duty should fall to a strengthened U.N." - yes, exactly. We have to stand down, but I am not arguing simply for isolationism.

We do not intervene to save people from genocide: we did nothing about rwanda and we continue to do nothing about darfur. We intervene when it is in our mercantile interest and/or our imperial interest, to do so, as in Kosovo, as in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, as in Somalia, and we cloak that in high sounding moral imperatives. Iraq is the classic and unambiguous example, but I think the case can easily be made that the same was done with a long list of our other interventions. I'd refer you to the body of work from Chalmers Johnson for some stunningly well documented research to back up that claim, but I am sure you are aware of his and other's related work in this area.

I agree completely that we need to work with the UN and other international organizations as an equal. Part of that comes down to paying up our UN dues and subjecting our citizens to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, among other things. But, to be blunt, it will take time to pull the international organizations <em>up</em> to our level in order to be our equal in handling security issues. Even our NATO allies aren't able to handle their duties without our help, and that's a significant problem. Until the international organizations are sufficiently well funded and invested in authority (the latter of which will require a major cultural change both in the U.S. and around most of the rest of the world), we will need a larger military presence, both at home and abroad, than I believe you're willing to support.

You're right about us not saving people from genocide, of course. However, I think that it would be far more moral to have a military that is capable and willing to step into places like the Sudan (even against the government's wishes) to stop genocide than it was to invade and occupy Iraq. Retreating entirely into our own borders would essentially eliminate our ability to do that, giving other nations an even freer hand to mistreat their citizens than they have now.

It will take decades to invest the U.N. and similar bodies with the authority they need to perform the duties that you and I agree they should perform. And it will take at least that long for the culture in the United States to change enough that you'd actually get national support for your position. In my opinion, you won't get there without first progressing through my suggestions first, and so my suggestions are perhaps more pragmatic on this issue than ideological, even though my ideology is quite similar to your own.

We had decades 30 years ago and we wasted them. Times up. We have to change radically and we have to change now or there is no exit from the path we are on. On many fronts, the crisis our intransigence and retreat from the brief interlude of moderate sanity in the late 70s has created does not allow for pragmatic solutions over decades.

I don't think we have a choice, because what we're talking about requires either time to implement the cultural changes or a autocratic federal government pushing through "progressive" ideas that would make the Bush Administration look downright libertarian.

If you have specific suggestions that you think would get the U.S. stabilized fast and that don't rely on suspending the Constitution or a retreat to isolationism, and that take the realities of our political system into account, I'd love to hear them.