andym
andym's JournalThe main attack on democratic candidates since the 90s has been their integrity.
1988 Dukakis .. Willie Horton, card carrying member of ACLU nonsense
90s the Clinton investigations/scandals
2000 Al Gore as an exaggerator.. Invented the Internet nonsense
2004 Kerry. Swift boated
2008 Obama .. Rev Wright, Saul Alinsky nonsense
2012 exception
2016 Benghazi and email server attacks prepared years in advance
Many of the attacked had squeaky clean images prior to the attacks, like Dukakis, Gore , Kerry and Obama.
The only way to fight them is for people of public standing with auras of integrity to take very public stances against the attacks. Outrage from ethical people of high standing is needed.
That's why having surrogates defend Mrs Clinton from the continual attacks is of the greatest importance at the moment. Especially when congress tries to get back into the act.
Which VP candidate has the highest public perception of integrity?
Because of the relentless attacks on Hillary Clinton's integrity by the GOP in Benghazi and then the FBI email server investigation, almost every poll shows the public is wary of Mrs Clinton's honesty. The reason this works is that it plays on the theme that the Clintons are not honest--which really derives more from Bill Clinton and the scandals from the 90's. That's the main reason she is not leading Trump by double digits.
The best way to counter this is to choose a vp perceived as having the utmost integrity. That's because voters understand that people with integrity don't trend to associate with their opposites. Bernie Sander's endorsement of Clinton should help, as he is justifiably perceived by the public as a man of integrity. The next step is the VP and the people she campaigns with. Every time the public sees Hillary campaign with someone with impeccable honesty, she will gain in the public's eye.
So which prospective VP would have the highest perceived integrity? Warren? Perez? Vilsack? Kaine? Hickenlooper? Castro? Becerra? Brown?
"Forever Forward" Bernie campaign email from this morning
I am writing you today to express my deep pride in the movement – the political revolution – you and I have created together over the last 15 months. When we began this historic campaign, we were considered fringe players by the political, economic and media establishment. Well, we proved them wrong.
We showed that the American people support a bold, progressive agenda that takes on the billionaire class, that fights for racial, social, economic and environmental justice and that seeks to create a government that works for all of us and not just the big campaign donors.
We mobilized over 13 million voters across the country. We won 23 Democratic primary and caucus contests. We had literally hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the country. And we showed – in a way that can change politics in America forever – that you can run a competitive national grassroots campaign without begging millionaires and billionaires for campaign contributions.
Most importantly, we elevated the critical issues facing our country – issues the establishment has pushed under the rug for too long. We focused attention on the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in this country and the importance of breaking up the large banks who brought our economy to the brink of collapse. We exposed our horrendous trade policies, our broken criminal justice system, and our people's lack of access to affordable health care and higher education. We fought aggressively to address the crisis of climate change, the need for real comprehensive immigration reform, the importance of developing a foreign policy that values diplomacy over war, and so much more.
We have shown throughout this election that these are issues that are important to voters and that progressive solutions energize people in the fight for real change. What we have accomplished so far is historic – but our work is far from over.
This movement of ours – this political revolution – must continue. We cannot let all of the momentum we have achieved in the fight to transform America be lost. We will never stop fighting for what is right.
It is true that in terms of winning the Democratic nomination, we did come up short. But this election was never about me or any candidate. It was about the powerful coming together of millions of people to take their country back from the billionaire class. That was the strength of our campaign and it will be the strength of our movement going forward in the months and years ahead. In the coming weeks, I will be announcing the creation of successor organizations to carry on the struggle that we have been a part of these past 15 months. I hope you will continue to be involved in fighting to transform America. Our goal will be to advance the progressive agenda that we believe in and to elect like-minded candidates at the federal, state and local levels who are committed to accomplishing our goals.
In terms of the presidential election this November, there is no doubt that the election of Donald Trump as president would be a devastating blow to all that we are fighting for. His openly bigoted and pro-billionaire campaign could precipitate the same decades-long rightward shift in American politics that happened after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That rightward shift after Reagan’s election infected not just politics as a whole but led to the ascendancy of the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party – an era from which we are still recovering.
I cannot in good conscience let that happen.
To have all of the work we have done in elevating our progressive ideals be dashed away by a complete Republican takeover of Washington – a takeover headed by a candidate that demonizes Latinos, Muslims, women, African Americans, veterans, and others – would be unthinkable.
Today, I endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our next president. I know that some of you will be disappointed with that decision. But I believe that, at this moment, our country, our values, and our common vision for a transformed America, are best served by the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Hillary Clinton.
You should know that in the weeks since the last primary, both campaigns have worked together in good faith to bridge some of the policy issues that divided us during the election. Did we come to agreement on everything? Of course not. But we made important steps forward.
Hillary Clinton released a debt free college plan that we developed together which now includes free tuition at public colleges and universities for working families. This was a major part of our campaign’s agenda and a proposal that, if enacted into law, would revolutionize higher education in this country.
Secretary Clinton has also publicly committed to massive investments in health care for communities across this country that will increase primary care, including mental health care, dental care, and low-cost prescription drug access for an additional 25 million people. Importantly, she has also endorsed the enactment of a so-called public option to allow everyone in this country to participate in a public insurance program. This idea was killed by the insurance industry during consideration of President Obama’s health care program.
During the Democratic platform proceedings in St. Louis and Orlando, we were victorious in including amendments to make it a clear priority of the Democratic Party to fight for a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, expand Social Security, abolish the death penalty, put a price on carbon, establish a path toward the legalization of marijuana, enact major criminal justice reforms, pass comprehensive immigration reform, end for-profit prisons and detention facilities, break up too-big-to-fail banks and create a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act, close loopholes that allow big companies to avoid taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens and use that revenue to rebuild America, approve the most expansive agenda ever for protecting Native American rights and so much more. All of these progressive policies were at the heart of our campaign. The truth is our movement is responsible for the most progressive Democratic platform in the history of our country. All of that is the direct result of the work that our members of the platform committee did in the meetings and that you have been doing over the last 15 months.
But none of these initiatives will happen if we do not elect a Democratic president in November. None! In fact, we will go backward. We must elect the Democratic nominee in November and progressive Democrats up and down the ballot so that we ensure that these policy commitments can advance.
It is extremely important that we keep our movement together, that we hold public officials accountable and that we elect progressive candidates to office at the federal, state, and local level who will stand with us.
As part of that effort, we still have a tremendous amount of work left to do in the Democratic Rules Committee that will be meeting in the coming weeks. We have to enact the kinds of reforms to the Democratic Party and to the electoral process that will provide us the tools to elect progressive candidates, to allow new voices and new energy into the Party, and to break up the excessive power that the economic and political elites in the Party currently have. As with our fights on the platform committee, that will only be possible if we stand together.
You should know that I intend to be actively campaigning throughout this election season to elect candidates who will stand by our agenda. I hope to see many of you at events from coast to coast.
In conclusion, I again want to express my pride in what we have accomplished together over the last year. But so much more must be done to make our vision a reality. Now more than ever our country needs our movement – our political revolution. As you have throughout this historic campaign, I ask for your ongoing support as we continue through the fall and beyond.
On a personal note, I cannot say with words how appreciative Jane and I are of the kindness, dedication and love we experienced from so many people across the country. We are deeply touched by it and will never, ever forget it.
Please let me know that you will stand with me to defeat Donald Trump, and to elect candidates who will stand by our agenda as part of the future of our political revolution. Add your name now.
Forever committed, forever fighting, forever forward,
Bernie Sanders
Bernie successfully used the nomination process to advocate for progressive ideas
Bernie successfully used the nomination process to advocate for progressive ideas, and the Democratic platform has been influenced by his policies, with even further modification possible at the convention. But Bernie actually wants these policies to become reality-- that's why he ran in the first place as a Democrat, and not as an Independent or third party. He knows the platform is only a guide, that can easily be forgotten in the heat of US politics. That's why he will continue to push for these policies, and those in his movement who are not too disappointed, who understand that progressive change is a long term goal will hopefully keep up the good fight, especially by running for local offices. He has pushed the needle leftwards in the Democratic party, and it is important that this continue. Bernie now more than ever needs the support of progressives to keep the pressure on.
Bernie understands that United States politics is dominated by a two party system. Given the poor results of third parties in the United States at the Presidential level-- even popular ex-President Teddy Roosevelt couldn't do it, Bernie chose the only way available to him to advance a progressive agenda. That he performed so well, greater than expected, is a testament to the man and his ideas. Not only that, but he knew that real change comes from the bottom up-- the most recent example being way the GOP changed after Goldwater lost in 1964 to result in Reagan and his conservative mind set dominating American politics. That's why he wants his followers to enter local politics. Progressives are still far from being a majority in this country, and the conservative Reagan ideas like continual tax cuts still resonate with too many citizens.
As President, Bernie's greatest contribution, beyond deep-sixing bad trade polices, would have been to have the bully pulpit. There was little chance that any his programs (or Hillary's) would have passed without an unlikely Democratic supermajority in the Senate and control of the House. That's why he wants Hillary Clinton, a more conventional politician, to appoint a progressive VP, and give him/her some access to the bully pulpit. The same way that Joe Biden has asked for a moonshot cancer effort, a VP can cast national attention on progressive issues.
Today's endorsement shows that Bernie obviously plans to work with Hillary Clinton to keep moving the Democratic Party leftward. But understand that he still needs the support of his supporters to help him reform the Democratic Party from within. Helping Hillary Clinton to be elected is critical to prevent the momentum from shifting backwards to the hacks of the Right. A Right wing President would try to do away with the federal government programs that help ordinary citizens, make progressive change impossible by destroying infrastructure, poison the citizenry through the bully pulpit, and appoint right wing justices to the supreme court who will make Citizens United look like a liberal policy. Bernie understands the consequences of this election all too well.
Modern history of free trade vs protectionism. Is protectionism really a progressive value?
I think the real answer is that trade policy has really been a nationalist value, in the best sense of that word-- used to promote national well-being for quite a long time.
Who were the biggest proponents of protectionism in the relatively modern era?:
Well in the late 19th century-- the GOP strongly believed in protectionism from before Grover Cleveland through Taft (and the early 20th century progressives largely went along) until Hoover. However, the protectionist policies helped build the American economy in that era.
But...
Herbert Hoover is thought to have worsened the world-wide depression by promoting protectionism and the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. He was a strong supporter of strong nationalistic, protectionist trade laws. Herbert Hoover is the spiritual godfather of modern protectionism and the Great Depression that partially resulted from his policies are why so many very liberal Democrats were free traders.
Although FDR began the process of reducing tariffs, it wasn't until Truman that things really changed. The end of WW2 made the US the dominant world power and marked a shift to free trade. It has been argued that the strong free trade policies which were established by Harry Truman and favored by Democratic stalwarts such as JFK helped to rebuild the global economy AND was greatly in the US' interests, since the US dominated the world economy in the post-war period. The creation of the World Bank was strongly supported by Truman. So it's no surprise that even the most liberal of Democrats were mostly strong free traders like George McGovern. Although there was concern about the rise of multinationals in the 1970s (recognized by McGovern's platform) the connection to the consequences of free trade was not made.
Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama have continued the mid 20th century push for free trade. But the equation began to change in the 1980s (and even before) as greater global competition began to eat into America's economic dominance. By the 80's Japan had begun to be a serious competitor in cars and electronics, when earlier they had been known as best for creating junk. Believe it or not made in Japan once meant inferior quality (in the 50's and 60's). So free trade became more and more of a mixed bag-- some American industries continued to grow (high tech) while many traditional industries (eg steel) completely foundered. The economic changes have been consequential, and probably irreversible.
Now almost 70 years from Harry Truman and his colleagues strongly set the US and the world on a free trade course, there is talk of re-evaluating US free trade policies. This election cycle has finally brought needed light to be shined on the consequences of free trade. Bernie Sanders and Trump have both pushed for more protectionist polices (as did Ross Perot more than 20 years ago), and recently Hillary Clinton has decided that the TPP should not be supported. The pendulum may be shifting.
But if you look at the list of protectionists versus free-traders, i think that it is clear that neither free trade, nor protectionism is really a liberal/progressive or conservative policy per se, but really one that both parties tend to coalesce around when it becomes clear that the current policies are leading the country astray.
Summary:
Notable Protectionists: Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover
Free traders: Harry Truman, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter (helped push for NAFTA in 1993), Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama.
Note the absence of correlation with other economic political ideology.
1972 Democratic Party Platform is so progressive as to be off the scale today
Here is small selection of it:
note that it is very long-
George McGovern was to the left of nearly every Democrat today and it shows in the Democratic Party platform:
National health insurance, regulations on multi-national corporations to prevent job export, civil rights for everyone (sexual preference was not explicitly mentioned though), pro-environment, 2.50 minimum wage (14.38 today) etc
Be surprised!
I'm not sure this year's platform is really as progressive. Go to the link below and read the whole platform. It's amazing.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29605
Also, it doesn't include all of the ideas that McGovern ran on, including a minimum income for everyone, by issuing a check to every adult for $1000 (worth about $5800 today)
Jobs, Income and Dignity
Full employment—a guaranteed job for all—is the primary economic objective of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is committed to a job for every American who seeks work. Only through full employment can we reduce the burden on working people. We are determined to make economic security a matter of right. This means a job with decent pay and good working conditions for everyone willing and able to work and an adequate income for those unable to work. It means abolition of the present welfare system.
To assure jobs and economic security for all, the next Democratic Administration should support:
A full employment economy, making full use of fiscal and monetary policy to stimulate employment;
Tax reform directed toward equitable distribution of income and wealth and fair sharing of the cost of government;
Full enforcement of all equal employment opportunity laws, including federal contract compliance and federally-regulated industries and giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adequate staff and resources and power to issue cease and desist orders promptly;
Vastly increased efforts to open education at all levels and in all fields to minorities, women and other under-represented groups;
An effective nation-wide job placement system to entrance worker mobility;
Opposition to arbitrarily high standards for entry to jobs;
Overhaul of current manpower programs to assure training-without sex, race or language discrimination for jobs that really exist with continuous skill improvement and the chance for advancement;
Economic development programs to ensure the growth of communities and industry in lagging parts of the nation and the economy;
Use of federal depository funds to reward banks and other financial institutions which invest in socially productive endeavors;
Improved adjustment assistance and job creation for workers and employers hurt by foreign competition, reconversion of defense-oriented companies, rapid technological change and environmental protection activities;
Closing tax loopholes that encourage the export of American jobs by American-controlled multi-national corporations;
Assurance that the needs of society are considered when a decision to close or move an industrial plant is to be made and that income loss to workers and revenue loss to communities does not occur when plants are closed;
Assurance that, whatever else is done in the income security area, the social security system provides a decent income for the elderly, the blind and the disabled and their dependents, with escalators so that benefits keep pace with rising prices and living standards;
Reform of social security and government employment security programs to remove all forms of discrimination by sex; and adequate federal income assistance for those who do not benefit sufficiently from the above measures.
The last is not least, but it is last for good reason. The present welfare system has failed because it has been required to make up for too many other failures. Millions of Americans are forced into public assistance because public policy too often creates no other choice.
The heart of a program of economic security based on earned income must be creating jobs and training people to fill them. Millions of jobs—real jobs, not make-work-need to be provided. Public service employment must be greatly expanded in order to make the government the employer of last resort and guarantee a job for all. Large sections of our cities resemble bombed-out Europe after World War II. Children in Appalachia cannot go to school when the dirt road is a sea of mud. Homes, schools and clinics, roads and mass transit systems need to be built.
Cleaning up our air and water will take skills and people in large numbers. In the school, the police department, the welfare agency or the recreation program, there are new careers to be developed to help ensure that social services reach the people for whom they are intended.
It may cost more, at least initially, to create decent jobs than to perpetuate the hand-out system of present welfare. But the return—in new public facilities and services, in the dignity of bringing a paycheck home and in the taxes that will come back in—far outweigh the cost of the investment.
The next Democratic Administration must end the present welfare system and replace it with an income security program which places cash assistance in an appropriate context with all of the measures outlined above, adding up to an earned income approach to ensure each family an income substantially more than the poverty level ensuring standards of decency and health, as officially defined in the area. Federal income assistance will supplement the income of working poor people and assure an adequate income for those unable to work. With full employment and simpler, fair administration, total costs will go down, and with federal financing the burden on local and state budgets will be eased. The program will protect current benefit goals during the transitional period.
The system of income protection which replaces welfare must he a part of the full employment policy which assures every American a job at a fair wage under conditions which make use of his ability and provide an opportunity for advancement. H.R. 1, and its various amendments, is not humane and does not meet the social and economic objectives that we believe in, and it should be defeated. It perpetuates the coercion of forced work requirements.
Skepticism and cynicism are widespread in America. The people are skeptical of platforms filled with political platitudes—of promises made by opportunistic politicians.
The people are cynical about the idea that a rosy future is just around the corner.
And is it any wonder that the people are skeptical and cynical of the whole political process?
Our traditions, our history, our Constitution, our lives, all say that America belongs to its people.
But the people no longer believe it.
They feel that the government is run for the privileged few rather than for the many-and they are right.
No political party, no President, no government can by itself restore a lost sense of faith. No Administration can provide solutions to all our problems. What we can do is to recognize the doubts of Americans, to speak to those doubts, and to act to begin turning those doubts into hopes.
As Democrats, we know that we share responsibility for that loss of confidence. But we also know, as Democrats that at decisive moments of choice in our past, our party has offered leadership that has tapped the best within our country.
Our party-standing by its ideals of domestic progress and enlightened internationalism--has served America well. We have nominated or elected men of the high calibre of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Adlai E. Stevenson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson—and in the last election Hubert Humphrey and Edmund S. Muskie. In that proud tradition we are now prepared to move forward.
We know that our nation cannot tolerate any longer a government that shows no regard for the people's basic needs and no respect for our right to the truth from those who lead us. What do the people want? They want three things:
They want a personal life that makes us all feel that life is worth living;
They want a social environment whose institutions promote the good of all; and
They want a physical environment whose resources are used for the good of all.
They want an opportunity to achieve their aspirations and their dreams for themselves and their children.
We believe in the rights of citizens to achieve to the limit of their talents and energies. We are determined to remove barriers that limit citizens because they are black, brown, young or women; because they never had the chance to gain an education; because there was no possibility of being anything but what they were.
We believe in hard work as a fair measure of our own willingness to achieve. We are determined that millions should not stand idle while work demands to be done. We are determined that the dole should not become a permanent way of life for any. And we are determined that government no longer tax the product of hard work more rigorously than it taxes inherited wealth, or money that is gained simply by having money in the first place.
We believe that the law must apply equally to all, and that it must be an instrument of justice. We are determined that the citizen must be protected in his home and on his streets. We are determined also that the ordinary citizen should not be imprisoned for a crime before we know whether he is guilty or not while those with the right friends and the right connections can break the law without ever facing the consequences of their actions.
We believe that war is a waste of human life. We are determined to end forthwith a war which has cost 50,000 American lives, $150 billion of our resources, that has divided us from each other, drained our national will and inflicted incalculable damage to countless people. We will end that war by a simple plan that need not be kept secret: The immediate total withdrawal of all Americans from Southeast Asia.
We believe in the right of an individual to speak, think, read, write, worship, and live free of official intrusion. We are determined that our government must no longer tap the phones of law-abiding citizens nor spy on those who have broken no law. We are determined that never again shall government seek to censor the newspapers and television. We are determined that the government shall no longer mock the supreme law of the land, while it stands helpless in the face of crime which makes our neighborhoods and communities less and less safe.
Perhaps most fundamentally, we believe that government is the servant, not the master, of the people. We are determined that government should not mean a force so huge, so impersonal, that the complaint of an ordinary citizen goes unheard.
That is not the kind of government America was created to build. Our ancestors did not fight a revolution and sacrifice their lives against tyrants from abroad to leave us a government that does not know how to listen to its own people.
The Democratic Party is proud of its past; but we are honest enough to admit that we are part of the past and share in its mistakes. We want in 1972 to begin the long and difficult task of reviewing existing programs, revising them to make them work and finding new techniques to serve the public need. We want to speak for, and with, the citizens of our country. Our pledge is to be truthful to the people and to ourselves, to tell you when we succeed, but also when we fail or when we are not sure. In 1976, when this nation celebrates its 200th anniversary, we want to tell you simply that we have done our best to give the government to those who formed it—the people of America.
Every election is a choice: In 1972, Americans must decide whether they want their country back again.
Jobs, Income and Dignity
Full employment—a guaranteed job for all—is the primary economic objective of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is committed to a job for every American who seeks work. Only through full employment can we reduce the burden on working people. We are determined to make economic security a matter of right. This means a job with decent pay and good working conditions for everyone willing and able to work and an adequate income for those unable to work. It means abolition of the present welfare system.
To assure jobs and economic security for all, the next Democratic Administration should support:
A full employment economy, making full use of fiscal and monetary policy to stimulate employment;
Tax reform directed toward equitable distribution of income and wealth and fair sharing of the cost of government;
Full enforcement of all equal employment opportunity laws, including federal contract compliance and federally-regulated industries and giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adequate staff and resources and power to issue cease and desist orders promptly;
Vastly increased efforts to open education at all levels and in all fields to minorities, women and other under-represented groups;
An effective nation-wide job placement system to entrance worker mobility;
Opposition to arbitrarily high standards for entry to jobs;
Overhaul of current manpower programs to assure training-without sex, race or language discrimination for jobs that really exist with continuous skill improvement and the chance for advancement;
Economic development programs to ensure the growth of communities and industry in lagging parts of the nation and the economy;
Use of federal depository funds to reward banks and other financial institutions which invest in socially productive endeavors;
Improved adjustment assistance and job creation for workers and employers hurt by foreign competition, reconversion of defense-oriented companies, rapid technological change and environmental protection activities;
Closing tax loopholes that encourage the export of American jobs by American-controlled multi-national corporations;
Assurance that the needs of society are considered when a decision to close or move an industrial plant is to be made and that income loss to workers and revenue loss to communities does not occur when plants are closed;
Assurance that, whatever else is done in the income security area, the social security system provides a decent income for the elderly, the blind and the disabled and their dependents, with escalators so that benefits keep pace with rising prices and living standards;
Reform of social security and government employment security programs to remove all forms of discrimination by sex; and adequate federal income assistance for those who do not benefit sufficiently from the above measures.
The last is not least, but it is last for good reason. The present welfare system has failed because it has been required to make up for too many other failures. Millions of Americans are forced into public assistance because public policy too often creates no other choice.
The heart of a program of economic security based on earned income must be creating jobs and training people to fill them. Millions of jobs—real jobs, not make-work-need to be provided. Public service employment must be greatly expanded in order to make the government the employer of last resort and guarantee a job for all. Large sections of our cities resemble bombed-out Europe after World War II. Children in Appalachia cannot go to school when the dirt road is a sea of mud. Homes, schools and clinics, roads and mass transit systems need to be built.
Cleaning up our air and water will take skills and people in large numbers. In the school, the police department, the welfare agency or the recreation program, there are new careers to be developed to help ensure that social services reach the people for whom they are intended.
It may cost more, at least initially, to create decent jobs than to perpetuate the hand-out system of present welfare. But the return—in new public facilities and services, in the dignity of bringing a paycheck home and in the taxes that will come back in—far outweigh the cost of the investment.
The next Democratic Administration must end the present welfare system and replace it with an income security program which places cash assistance in an appropriate context with all of the measures outlined above, adding up to an earned income approach to ensure each family an income substantially more than the poverty level ensuring standards of decency and health, as officially defined in the area. Federal income assistance will supplement the income of working poor people and assure an adequate income for those unable to work. With full employment and simpler, fair administration, total costs will go down, and with federal financing the burden on local and state budgets will be eased. The program will protect current benefit goals during the transitional period.
The system of income protection which replaces welfare must he a part of the full employment policy which assures every American a job at a fair wage under conditions which make use of his ability and provide an opportunity for advancement. H.R. 1, and its various amendments, is not humane and does not meet the social and economic objectives that we believe in, and it should be defeated. It perpetuates the coercion of forced work requirements.
Economic Management
The first priority of a Democratic Administration must be eliminating the unfair, bureaucratic Nixon wage and price controls.
When price rises threaten to or do get out of control—as they are now—strong, fair action must be taken to protect family income and savings. The theme of that action should be swift, tough measures to break the wage-price spiral and restore the economy. In that kind of economic emergency, America's working people will support a truly fair stabilization program which affects profits, investment earnings, executive salaries and prices, as well as wages. The Nixon controls do not meet that standard. They have forced the American worker, who suffers most from inflation, to pay the price of trying to end it.
In addition to stabilizing the economy, we propose:
To develop automatic instruments protecting the livelihood of Americans who depend on fixed incomes, such as savings bonds with purchasing power guarantees and cost-of-living escalators in government social security and income support payments;
To create a system of "recession insurance" for states and localities to replace lost local revenues with federal funds in economic downturns, thereby avoiding reduction in public employment or public services;
To establish longer-term budget and fiscal planning; and
To create new mechanisms to stop unwarranted price increases in concentrated industries.
Toward Economic Justice
The Democratic Party deplores the increasing concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands. Five per cent of the American people control 90 per cent of our productive national wealth. Less than one per cent of all manufacturers have 88 per cent of the profits. Less than two per cent of the population now owns approximately 80 per cent of the nation's personally-held corporate stock, 90 per cent of the personally-held corporate bonds and nearly 100 per cent of the personally-held municipal bonds. The rest of the population—including all working men and women—pay too much for essential products and services because of national policy and market distortions.
The Democratic Administration should pledge itself to combat factors which tend to concentrate wealth and stimulate higher prices.
To this end, the federal government should:
Develop programs to spread economic growth among the workers, farmers and businessmen;
Help make parts of the economy more efficient such as medical care—where wasteful and inefficient practices now increase prices;
Step up anti-trust action to help competition, with particular regard to laws and enforcement curbing conglomerate mergers which swallow up efficient small business and feed the power of corporate giants;
Strengthen the anti-trust laws so that the divestiture remedy will be used vigorously to break up large conglomerates found to violate the antitrust laws;
Abolish the oil import quota that raises prices for consumers;
Deconcentrate shared monopolies such as auto, steel and tire industries which administer prices, create unemployment through restricted output and stifle technological innovation;
Assure the right of the citizen to recover costs and attorneys fees in all successful suits including class actions involving Constitutionally-guaranteed rights, or rights secured by federal statutes;
Adjust rate-making and regulatory activities, with particular attention to regulations which increase prices for food, transportation and other necessities;
Remove artificial constraints in the job market by better job manpower training and strictly enforcing equal employment opportunity;
Stiffen the civil and criminal statutes to make corporate officers responsible for their actions; and
Establish a temporary national economic commission to study federal chartering of large multi-national and international corporations, concentrated ownership and control in the nation's economy.
Health Care
Good health is the least this society should promise its citizens. The state of health services in this country indicates the failure of government to respond to this fundamental need. Costs skyrocket while the availability of services for all but the rich steadily declines.
We endorse the principle that good health is a right of all Americans.
America has a responsibility to offer to every American family the best in health care whenever they need it, regardless of income or where they live or any other factor.
To achieve this goal the next Democratic Administration should:
Establish a system of universal National Health Insurance which covers all Americans with a comprehensive set of benefits including preventive medicine, mental and emotional disorders, and complete protection against catastrophic costs, and in which the rule of free choice for both provider and consumer is protected. The program should be federally-financed and federally-administered. Every American must know he can afford the cost of health care whether given in a hospital or a doctor's office;
Incorporate in the National Health Insurance System incentives and controls to curb inflation in health care costs and to assure efficient delivery of all services;
Continue and evaluate Health Maintenance Organizations;
Set up incentives to bring health service personnel back to inner-cities and rural areas;
Continue to expand community health centers and availability of early screening diagnosis and treatment;
Provide federal funds to train added health manpower including doctors, nurses, technicians and para-medical workers;
Secure greater consumer participation and control over health care institutions;
Expand federal support for medical research including research in heart disease, hypertension, stroke, cancer, sickle cell anemia, occupational and childhood diseases which threaten millions and in preventive health care;
Eventual replacement of all federal programs of health care by a comprehensive National Health Insurance System;
Take legal and other action to curb soaring prices for vital drugs using anti trust laws as applicable and amending patent laws to end price-raising abuses, and require generic-name labeling of equal-effective drugs; and
Expand federal research and support for drug abuse treatment and education, especially development of non-addictive treatment methods.
and much more....
Jury duty needs improvement: what if post doesn't break the alerted rule, but another rule?
I've already seen that come up. Perhaps an additional choice should be given for that.
Why the House sit in is really important
It finally looks like the Democratic House members have their spine up and will try to do something. And its practical politics of the kind we rarely see.
Politically, if they can get a vote on the gun bill, they will put the opposition GOP House members on record as supporting potential terrorists "rights". If they could win, they could give the NRA its first setback in 20 years. If they get no vote they still win, as this episode will be in the news for quite some time, reflecting badly on the GOP.
Is this the ideal bill that Democrats really want that will control the easy availability of powerful semi-automatic weapons? Of course not, for example, liberals who are civil libertarians are not going to be happy about denying people "rights" from the secret government lists. But the political damage to the GOP from refusing to allow this bill to go forward is more than worth it, because it creates a wedge that can help move a progressive agenda forward by weakening the GOP and encouraging Democratic opposition.
What is Bernie's real agenda now?
His real agenda is to enact progressive legislation that he has supported into law: single payer health care, a living wage (high minimum wage), reduce corporate influence on Americans etc. To get that done he or people who support his ideas need to be in position of power and his "revolution" is all about doing this.
Will he win the Democratic nomination for President at the DNC? No, and he clearly knows that, though many of his most ardent supporters as well as Clinton's most ardent supporters do not understand that he has already signaled that he understands the political reality. This will all play out over the next few weeks. Why not an official concession now? Because he has bigger fish to fry than his own nomination. He understands that this country does not have enough elected progressives and that there are large numbers of Americans who do not yet buy into progressive politics. That's a key reason why he did not win the nomination. That's why he is calling for supporters to run for office now. The groundwork for the kind of revolution Bernie envisions needs to laid. It's clear to many cognizant of political reality that even if Bernie had won the nomination and been elected that most of his agenda could not be enacted without a progressive supermajority in the Senate and a progressive majority in the House, which does not exist, and won't exist for some time, given GOP gerrymandering and the current political tendencies of American voters.
Why no third party run? He promised not to because he knows it would allow Trump to be elected and Trump will not only do direct damage to the nation but would counter the progression of Bernie's "revolution," and influence the American citizenry in highly counterproductive ways.
So what will he likely do? He will almost certainly reach an agreement with Hillary on terms that allow him to continue to promote his progressive politics. He will try to set the agenda through the platform, influence Clinton's policies and choice of advisers but much more importantly, he will try to do something analogous to what Goldwater, who was utterly defeated by LBJ in 1964, did for the GOP in creating a conservative revolution: Bernie will try to move the Democratic party toward more progressive politics from the inside by engaging energized citizens to participate, to run for office and to change the national dialogue. He will likely push for control of the DNC, but even falling short of that he will likely organize his supporters into a progressive movement to reform the Democratic Party from within, because as an outsider he knows full well the futility of third parties in American politics. He will also use his newfound national prominence to promote progressive causes in the Senate in a way that was impossible before this election.
Will Bernie become the next "liberal lion?"
It's very clear to many progressives that the loss of Ted Kennedy, the "liberal lion," so early in Pres. Obama's term has had a profound influence on the the President, his accomplishments, and the Democratic Party. Kennedy was the most powerful link to the FDR/JFK/LBJ Democrats and he exerted tremendous influence in the Senate and on the President.
One can strongly speculate that the ACA would look very different had Kennedy lived (and was not sick) even one more year, as he would have fought for a public option and had enough influence to perhaps keep Lieberman and Nelson under control. Not only that he would have certainly influenced the President on many policies near and dear to the President: a carbon tax, stronger corporate regulations, living wage etc. Especially given that the President is a consensus seeker, it would have been more than useful to have such a strong voice as Kennedy on the Left.
Kennedy's death left a vacuum that no one has really filled. Sure there are great progressive senators like Warren, Boxer and Bernie, but they have not yet achieved anything close to the influence of Kennedy. Bernie now has achieved national recognition and prominence. He stands clearly on the same side of most issues as Kennedy and may be in a position to exert more influence on the Democratic Party to move it leftwards.
I think his desire to fight for what he believes in the Democratic Platform and to encourage young people to run for office is absolutely the right thing to do. He has clearly signaled that he will support the Democratic nominee for President, though the strongest partisans for Hillary's and Bernie's campaigns don't seen to register this-- they are both in denial. He is now trying to maximize his influence, perhaps to try to become a new progressive lion, and I hope he succeeds.
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