Heart and Soul - The Race for DNC Chair

Whoever leads the DNC has to be willing to say that the performance by Joe Biden last week was grandstanding. If they are not willing or able to say it, they have no right to claim leadership of the party.

Kennedy: Fascist America

by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

01/23/05 -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to run for Attorney General of New York State.

He might announce his candidacy within the next two weeks.

He's the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the former Attorney General under his brother, John F. Kennedy.

In 2001, President Bush named the Justice Department building after RFK.

The young Kennedy attended the ceremony.

We asked him what he thought of President Bush naming the building after his dad.

He said he wouldn't comment on the record.

But he did call President Bush "the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history."

Not that he was enamored with Senator John Kerry.

Early in the campaign, Kennedy endorsed Senator John Kerry for President, but last month he expressed disappointment in Kerry's campaign and in the Democratic Party.

"The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt," Kennedy. "They are accepting money from the same corporations. And of course, that is going to corrupt you."

He has spent the last 18 years as a sort of private attorney general -- suing polluters to clean up the Hudson River.

Kennedy says that in the late 1960s, the Hudson River was "a national joke."

"It was dead water for 20-mile stretches north of New York City and south of Albany. It caught fire. It changed colors," he said. "Today, it is the richest water body in the North Atlantic. It produces more pounds of fish per acre and more biomass per gallon than any other waterway in the Atlantic north of the equator. It is the last major river system left in the North Atlantic, on both sides, that still has strong spawning stocks of all of its historical species of migratory fish."

He is seeking to close down the Indian Point nuclear power plant 22 miles north of New York City.

"After Chernobyl, 1,000 miles around the plant were uninhabitable. One hundred miles around the plant are permanently uninhabitable," he said. "One hundred miles around Indian Point would be all of New York City. So, imagine a world without New York City. Well, the terrorists already have. According to the 9/11 Commission, Mohammed Atta cased Indian Point before deciding to bomb the World Trade Center. But he believed, erroneously as it turned out, that the plant must be so heavily guarded, that it would be impossible to crash an airliner into it."

Kennedy charges that his appearance on MSNBC's Charles Grodin show in November 1996 got Grodin fired.

Kennedy was invited on the show to talk about his book and group by the same name -- Riverkeepers.

On the show, Kennedy ripped into GE, an owner of the network, for polluting the Hudson with PCBs.

On the show, Kennedy claimed that "every woman between Oswego and Albany has elevated levels of PCBs in her milk because of GE."

Grodin was soon thereafter fired.

Kennedy wrote a book last year that he hoped would change the direction of the country.

It didn't.

But it's a great book, nonetheless.

It's called Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004).

For the past couple of years, he's been giving 40 or so speeches a year, mostly in the red zone, mostly to conservative groups.

He speaks about the corporate attack on the country.

"There is no difference between the reaction I get from Republicans and Democrats, because Americans share the same values," Kennedy told us. "If you talk about these issues in terms of our national values, everybody understands it."

In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.

"While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as 'a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.' Sound familiar?"

He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring: "It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly grasped the lesson."

Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that "fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now. Because so much corporate money is going into politics, the Democratic Party itself has dropped the ball. They just quash discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive corporate power on American democracy."

© 2004 Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

I support and will work my butt off for any chair that is elected. Period. I'm just not close enough to the situation to make a judgement call. A chair has to work well with all different kinds of people, with different perspectives, different solutions. He has to be able to get along well with people he doesn't agree with. Not easy.

So I feel that people who are closest to the situation should do the deciding. I also agree with tutterfly who said that we don't need a "face" we need a strategizer!!! Anyone can be the face.

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011805Y.shtml

Interesting article about the silence of the media lambs regarding election problems.

Thanks for the info on the DNC. It's what we're calling in our cell "infrastructure" though that's not all it does. & we're talking about the WA Dem Party, primarily, which would be a smaller subset. When we had our last meeting, the first thing they whipped out & passed around was the organizational chart for the State Dem Party, essential knowledge if we plan to unify the state for things like organized voter lists and standardized voting procedures.

When I read the long article that I posted under the last topic (about Republican organization), it made me wonder how much corporate & taxpayer money went into creating that. Also, the sophistication was impressive. For example, how did they get access to the kind of databases on each citizen that tell things like how often we fly abroad? They bought them from companies that generate them, just like someone like Visa would. So they would automatically know not to bother someone like me - that it would be a lost cause.

On JohnKerry.com we used to get pretty riled at this one Texan who would go on about how organized the Republicans were & how much Rove knew. I wonder now if we should have been so sensitive (but his timing & approach was bad - not sure about intensions).

Resolute, great header post, if that's the right term. I'm having fun reading about the candidates for chair and checking out the various other leadership positions. Thanks for posting it.

Amy
I agree about that. I'll do the same. I got a nice letter from Ali Wade supporting Rosenberg & I like him but would definitely back the choice.

Locally I agree with the group I'm working with - that we are in dire straits til we get more organized & as grassroots volunteers we are the ones who know what a volunteer needs to be effective. We want leadership in the state who supports this & is in tune with this. So we will put pressure on whoever it is & work with those next under that person (legislative district heads, county people etc.)

I think same could be done at the national level. The DNC has to work as closely with the Dem candidate as the RNC does with the Republican candidate. I used to not want to bring up the Republicans and sound competitive or perhaps petty but just enhance the fine qualities of our great candidates & spread the word.

Now it's different. If it's war they want them I'm ready, on their terms. We will never have all the corporate money but we will have alot of people & focussed & committed.

less serious:

http://www.americade.info/melons.htm

Take a break!

Also, the sophistication was impressive. For example, how did they get access to the kind of databases on each citizen that tell things like how often we fly abroad? They bought them from companies that generate them, just like someone like Visa would. So they would automatically know not to bother someone like me - that it would be a lost cause.

Posted by: DiAnne at January 25, 2005 12:27 AM

DiAnne - you are very right - this is a very sophisticated type of marketing that companies pay strategy consultants millions of dollars to come assess their companies and operationalize "treatment strategies" This is precisely what the Bush campaign did - not just determining campaigns by demographics, but getting a fully layered - almost three dimensional "view" of the customer - and then interacting and customizing messages for them, accordingly. Very chilling that they are doing a lot of work to determine what the potential wants and needs are of their voting prospects - and then abra kadahbara - presto chango - that's what Dubya and his policies will be.

Oh well, give Bush's group a gold star for learning the lessons of Himler and his propaganda machine so well.

Or is that Goebbels?

Ron Chusid is back from his vacation and has been prolifically posting his views on the news this evening...

Justices Uphold Use of Drug-Sniffing Dogs in Traffic Stops - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=264

Voter Suppression is Wrong, Regardless of Party - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=263

Kerry News - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=261

The Rights of the Individual vs. The State - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=260

And from Sandy...
Cosponsor the Democratic Agenda - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=265

I dig the watermelon art. Who would've guessed that people from Woonsocket are so creative!

According to this article, Democrats are starting to get some backbone:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - Trying to show that they remain a force despite their reduced numbers, Senate Democrats on Monday threatened new hurdles for President Bush's cabinet choices and expressed deep misgivings about the planned Social Security changes at the heart of this year's Republican agenda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/politics/25dems.html

Oncall:
That's right. Whoever it is, I hope they will put a stop to grandstanding and will become a more unifying and loudspoken advocate for all of us.

Indy:

We have a battle ahead when our media is corporate owned, our government is corporate owned, and our election equipment is corporate owned too.

More people need to start pounding that drum; everyone in their cells and communities and celebrities and authors too.

We will take back our country person to person. That's why even when I'm not "cell building" I'm telling every person I speak to in a store, gas station, restaurant these truths.

I'm hoping to eventually start a mini-news to distribute.

Shrub to "ask" Congress for another $80b for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing total thus far to $280 BILLION... and 120,000 troops will remain for another 2 yrs.

Seems like a perfect time for a tax cut.

For the standard bearer of the elephant party, this guy sure is an ass.

I'm not sure this is a "move towards the middle" as the article implies. Most "pro-choice" people are not PRO-abortion but instead are "pro-sex education and pregnancy prevention."

And though the author of the article appears to want to inspire dismay by "liberals", I disagree that there is a move to the middle.

Though this author points out that Hilary addressed those with "strong beliefs" about antiabortion, she did not in any way imply she'd take those rights away.

And just from a personal standpoint, I know several "pro-lifers" who put words into actions and have invited teenage girls to live with them, welcomed them and their babies into their homes, "adopted" them as members of their family and raised them with their own children. Maybe those are the people who we need to acknowlege care about life and life after birth. Maybe we can put aside our differences to see that some people truly are not just "pro-birth". (I do not state this out of trying to stir trouble here, but more out of trying to recognise the people I know who put their money where their mouth is.)

January 24, 2005
Senator Clinton Speaks of 'Common Ground' on Abortion
By PATRICK D. HEALY

LBANY, Jan. 24 - Proposing new political language about abortion rights for the Democratic Party, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said today that friends and foes on the issue should come together on "common ground" to reduce the number of "unwanted pregnancies" and ultimately abortions, which she called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."

Mrs. Clinton, in a speech to about 1,000 abortion rights supporters at the state Capitol, firmly restated her support for the Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, Roe v. Wade. But then she quickly shifted gears, offering warm words to opponents of abortion - particularly members of religious groups - asserting that there was "common ground" to be found after three decades of emotional and political warfare over abortion.

Mrs. Clinton is widely seen as a possible candidate for the party's presidential nomination in 2008, and her remarks signaled that she could be recalibrating her strong identification with the abortion-rights movement as the Democratic Party engages in its own re-examination of its handling of the issue in the wake of Senator John Kerry's loss in the 2004 presidential race.

Ms. Clinton has been a visible and very public defender of abortion rights, appearing at a huge rally in Washington last spring and denouncing what she called Republican efforts to demonize the abortion rights movement.

While she acknowledged in her address today that Americans have "deeply held differences" over abortion rights, Mrs. Clinton told the annual conference of the Family Planning Advocates of New York State, "I for one respect those who believe with all their heart and conscience that there are no circumstances under which abortion should be available."

In addition to her description of abortion as a "tragic choice" for many," Mrs. Clinton said that faith and organized religion were the "primary" reasons that teenagers abstain from sexual relations, and reminded the audience that during the 1990's, she promoted "teen celibacy" as a way to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

"The fact is, the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place," Mrs. Clinton said.

Mrs. Clinton also called today for the Bush administration, religious groups, supporters and opponents of abortion rights and others to look beyond the abortion rights divide and form a broad alliance on other issues that she suggested as less incendiary: sex-education programs for teenagers that included abstinence education, emergency contraception for women who have recently had unprotected intercourse, and family planning.

The speech was also notable for a stream of statistics and data that, Mrs. Clinton's aides said afterward, were included to underscore her view that the reduction of "unwanted pregnancies" could be a unifying issue for supporters and opponents of abortion rights.

At one point, for instance, she drew gasps from some in the audience by mentioning that 7 percent of American women who do not use contraception account for 53 percent of all unintended pregnancies.

Several women in the audience reacted positively to Mrs. Clinton, whose remarks were interrupted by applause several times and ended with a standing ovation. But they also said her language and themes seemed politically calculated to deal with the abortion "freak-out" among Democrats, as one audience member put it, and reach out to independent and conservative voters in hopes of broadening her base of support for a possible 2008 presidential run.

Mark

Woonsocket? Are you sure it wasn't Storla?
or Meckling?

I too continue to be amazed at the lack of morality in the Republican hierarchy, all the while I m impressed with their knowledge of human cognition.

When I heard that Ken Mehlman spoke about creating highly imagistic short videos to be shown in fitness centers, while people walk the treadmill, row, and ride the stationary bikes, I knew we were in Orwell-land.

Over the centuries, fascistic governments have used various forms of hypnosis--religion, trance, alchohol, etc. to create passive recipients of misinformation.

And here they are--appealing to the lower brain processing centers, creating deep-seated beliefs in absurd lies.

It all makes horrible sense.

Diane, this is waaay off topic.... but you've gotta see this. Does this make you want to move back?
http://www.woonsocketsd.com/page9.html

I would also point out that while the paper reported the name of the woman with the bumpersticker, they did not name the man who followed her into the store & harassed her.

1st ammendment??!! We don't need no stinkin' 1st ammendment!!

Sticker stuck in cop's craw
He's subject of probe after coming unglued over bumper theme

By Brian D. Crecente, Rocky Mountain News
January 25, 2005

A Denver police sergeant is under investigation for allegedly threatening to arrest a woman Monday for displaying on her truck a derogatory bumper sticker about President Bush.

"He told her that this was a warning and that the next time he saw her truck, she was going to be arrested if she didn't remove the sticker," said Alinna Figueroa, 25, assistant manager of The UPS Store where the confrontation took place. "I couldn't believe it."

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3495709,00.html

Resolute:

" This is precisely what the Bush campaign did - not just determining campaigns by demographics, but getting a fully layered - almost three dimensional "view" of the customer - and then interacting and customizing messages for them, accordingly. Very chilling "

I understand how insidious this marketing strategy by the RNC is and even chilling but I think that McKlewin wrote about this in the 60s and in Marketing of A President. To me it shows that the RNC is years ahead of us in their marketing and while I am not happy with it, we better get on board as long as it doesn't get into violating privacy rights.

Anyone ever find where the right to keep your ballot private is?

For those who do have an opinion on DNC chair, here's a list of each state's DNC members:
http://www.changetheparty.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=59

Rosenberg has the list on his web site too, but I didn't think I needed to list it twice.

I just hope we get somebody who understands we don't have to move in any direction at all. We've just got to break through the false arguments of the Republicans. Nobody wants what they're doing, look at Bush's approval ratings. They win on sloganeering based on lies, false logic and rationalizations. We've got to stop responding to election year propaganda as if it were reality.

Oh, and one more thing. Be sure and sign to cosponsor the Democratic Agenda legislation. And please please read it, there is ALOT of really good stuff in here!

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=265

Posted by: Sandy at January 25, 2005 02:44 PM

I agree.

Resolute, insightful blog, as always. As a whole, imo, most progressives are way behind even a basic understanding of the layering that seems to fall like manna from the 'wingers tongues.

But, we will catch up. We'll do what this diversity bunch does so well... we'll diversify. :-) Some will work on message, some on process, some on policy, some on pipelines.

:-)