Three messages from the voters the Dems need to deliver

Tuesday can be an object lesson in democracy, for ourselves and for the world, but only if the messages sent by the electorate are delivered.

If there is anything like "business as usual," the frustration and cynicism factor will poison our Republic. This election will have meant no more than the Iraqi election staged by Bush & Co.

Three messages that need to be delivered:

• The war was a mistake and it is being run stupidly
• The kitchen economy is in the red and going the wrong way
• The culture of corruption needs to be wiped out completely
  

In reverse order:

Throw the Bums Out. That is what the voters did themselves, to a large extent. But their targets were not just the Conrad Burns of the Congress, but the "culture of corruption" that every Republican bears a responsibility for.

Voters want to see housecleaning completed with an exclamation point. Pelosi's "most honest and open Congress in history" is code for doing that. Fumigating the place.

But it has to go right into the corporate fraud and profiteering in Iraq and into the corporate fingers in the Medicare bill and Energy plan and every other piece of legislation. The lobbying firms on K street now are overloaded with ex-Republican legislators. Let them find honest work. "Witch hunt" is going to be used a lot. I still like "fumigating the place."

Strategically it is very important for Democrats to do this right. This is the opportunity to prove themselves to be the honest stewards of the public's business, and the chance to show, in the conservative metaphor, that the Republican Daddy is an unreliable drunk and cheat.

The Economy. The most pathetic thing about Dubya's news conference the day after the election was his befuddlement around the economy. "The economy is strong," he said, and shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment that voters turned out in droves against the party in power.

This guy just doesn't get it. He is completely out of touch with Americans on Main Street. I personally am infuriated by the top-heavy debt-loaded economy in which the Middle Class is the beast of burden.

But it was a different, less abstract anger about the economy that came to the voting booth. It was the Middle Class using the credit card to buy groceries and the working class choosing between health care and rent.

Income has stalled. The price of necessities like health care and energy and housing are going up. Corporations and the rich are grinning. That's why Bush doesn't get it. He can't see Middle America looking at the stack of bills on the kitchen table and wondering what happens if they get old or sick.

The War. When you run halfway around the world, invade a country rich with oil, and drag in a spurious national defense angle for justification, you have a built-in PR problem. When the war blows up in your face -- or in the face of your constituents' children -- you have a bigger problem.

The only thing that could have saved the Republicans would have been another 9-11. That would have meant they'd failed to protect us, but it would have raised the fear level high enough to hide this disaster in Iraq for another couple of months.

There simply has to be a change. Politically Democrats do not need to come up with the plan. They can let the president twist in the wind.

Every way out of this mess is ugly, so whatever is decided needs to have everybody's fingerprints on it. Morally, Democrats do need to push the pace and make sure competence is rewarded. And as above, the fraud and waste and war profiteering needs to be exposed and stopped. (Rebuilding the country is a good place to start returning Iraq to the Iraqis.)

If these clear pronouncements from the voting booth are acted on, Democrats can be the majority party for a long time. It will mean "your vote counts when you vote Democrat." It is just for that reason that Republicans will do everything they can to stop the messenger.

The current show of bipartisanship is going to be a one-way street.

It is up to us to make sure it happens, with support and -- if necessary -- criticism.

Three E's for framing - Economics, Ethics, Environment

The day after the election will come -- hopefully with good news. But whatever the news this year, the different direction the country needs to find leads right into progressives' strengths. We can only communicate effectively, both factually and in terms of underlying principles. Some thoughts.

Economics

The kitchen economy: The economy is just as important to people as Iraq, polls have shown, and people trust the Democrats. Rather than play with the Republicans' sound bites, we need to remove ourselves from the spreadsheets and graphs, sit down with the folks at the kitchen table and go over their bills with them.

We can look at the doctor bill, the insurance bill, the gas card bill, the heating bill, the college tuition bill, and yes, the tax bill. But we should itemize the tax bill for social security, schools, roads, police, national defense and the rest. And we should itemize the other bills for corporate profits in health care and energy and environmental degradation.

Then we can put the paycheck on the table. We can say a lot about the paycheck.

This kitchen economy is what the "first 100 hours" package of the Democrats is aimed at. God willing, we will see that passed early on. But we need to stay at that kitchen table until we fix health care. It is a matter of a family's security -- financial and physical. Shifting the deductions and insurance charges and doctor's charges from one bill to another is not so difficult. If we can make the point that we save by shifting from for-profit, complex, inefficient health care to single-payer coverage for all, we will have the game won.

Ethics

This is the appropriate lens for the Iraq War. Progressives do not need to get bogged down in what the best way out is. First of all, there is no good way out. Second of all, we should be trusting our military and diplomatic professionals.

Our issue in Iraq should be ethics, the lies that got us in, the hypocrisy of Bush's "democracy" when the real purposes were domination and oil, the cronyism and incompetence at the top, the corporate fraud and waste and profiteering. And be sure to measure the cost in lives as well as dollars.

Congress is another hotbed of corruption, but Bush and Cheney are the poster boys for the subversion of the political process. Rumsfeld for incompetence. (I can't wait for the hearings)

The principle of the protective parent is at play here, but the issue of ethics targets the hierarchical principle of conservatives. These can't be the strong father they pretend to be if they're betraying the family like this.

Environment

Nothing plays better into the progressives' strengths than taking care of the environment. Competence, stewardship and prudence. It is important from a strategic point of view to get going on the environment, not only because we are so far behind already, but because it is the issue that is going to dominate the century. Democratic credibility will pay off big down the road. Republican obstructionism will hurt them bad.

Now let's see what the voter's say.

Republicans dump Iraq auditors

Incredibly, the already shoddy oversight of American spending in Iraq has been gutted by the GOP leadership. It happened in conference committee when the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was surriptitiously terminated.

The New York Times reports that

"Tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of [Inspector General Stuart] Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip...."
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"The provision was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of their Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference on the bill."

The NYT article by James Glanz appeared Friday, and has not seen the light of local media. Mirroring it was an article in the Washington Post which noted that although the Pentagon has spent about $250 billion in Iraq, "the Defense Department's inspector general's office has only two investigators and a half-dozen auditors working there. As recently as last year, it had none."

In other words, the Office of the Special Inspector General was the only significant oversight in town. Now it's gone.

Need any more proof of the connection between corporate corruption and the Republican power structure?

Thirteen out of fourteen projects by one contractor, Parsons Corp, had significant problems. One contract was to build 142 health clinics. "Only six have opened. Yet Parsons will not have to return any of its profit, nor is it likely to face any kind of formal punishment."

Here and elsewhere, contractors fall into a legal Twilight Zone where they can rip us off and place soldiers and civilians at risk with little fear of retribution. The Post reports that a 2000 law that was intended to hold contractors responsible for crimes in war zones "has never been tested." Several civil cases, including one where Halliburton truck drivers charged that the company knowingly sent them into a raging battle, have been thrown out because, as the judge ruled, the Army, not Halliburton, is ultimately in charge in wartime.

Incredible.

Bushit on the economy continues

Look who's misleading the public again:

“Americans are finding jobs and they’re taking home more pay,” Bush said. “The main reason for our growing economy is that we cut taxes and left more money in the hands of families and workers and small business owners.”

--George W. Bush, (last Friday)

That's not the economy here on the ground, Dub.

First, there's the taxes you don't admit.

• The health care tax -- premiums have doubled for employers and employees over the past five years.
  
• The corporate gas price tax -- gas prices went through the roof, generating hundreds of billions of dollars in profits for Big Oil.
  
• The deficit tax -- Every dollar borrowed by the Bush regime must be repaid. Yes. Taxes are down this year, on the rich, but the debt is exploding, but every dime has to be repaid, with interest -- with taxes. Maybe that's you. Maybe that's your children. But it's SOMEBODY'S taxes.

Then there's the fact that more money is not in the hands of "families and workers and small business owners."

• Most Americans are not sharing in the economic activity there is. Look it up at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
  
• Median family income adjusted for inflation has dropped $3,000 per year since 2000. Check out the Economic Policy Institute.
  
• The tax cuts have favored the rich, not the middle class. EPI again.

The tax cuts for the high rollers have very little to do with the economy's activity. What action there is comes from federal spending increases and the big time debt in the residential housing balloon. Wait till after the election.

Doc Hastings' ethics fail again

Bob Ney finally resigned, but not because of House "Ethics" Committee Chairman Doc Hastings. Doc has done everything he can to keep all the corruption -- and there's been a bunch -- under wraps, even while he gladhands the folks back home in Washington's 4th District. Four senior Republicans have resigned in the past two years amid scandal. Doc sees no evil.

Ney long ago pled guilty to corruption charges, but retained his House position until yesterday. As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said,

"The Republican leadership has allowed Bob Ney to receive his paycheck and benefits for seven weeks after his admission of guilt to criminal conspiracy charges -- it is an embarrassment to this institution and an insult to the American taxpayer. House Republican leaders have a long pattern of covering up and protecting Republican Members, and their culture of corruption comes at great cost to the American people."

No telling what else is going to come out after the election. If Hastings retains his House seat, it will be a crime in itself. Nobody has done more to nurture the culture of corruption than Doc.

No 1% Solution for Climate Change

A brilliant article by Julia Whitty in the latest Mother Jones sets it up for us vis-a-vis the global disasters being hatched by human-caused climate change. We need to realize these aren't happening somewhere else, they are in our neighborhood, in our back yard, and staying indoors is not an effective answer.

The twelve tipping points -- from the deforestation of the Amazon, which will turn that region from a huge CO₂ consumer to a net CO₂ producer, to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequent 23 foot rise in sea level -- are cogently described. But what is brilliant is not these narrative clips. What is brilliant is the weaving in of the 13th tipping point, "the shift in human perception from personal denial to personal responsibility."

The author's dispassionate scientific eye lays out our near certain doom -- in this neighborhood -- should things not turn around. The same dispassionate eye deals with the scientific literature on the possibilities for salvation -- the potential for altruism, the dynamics of a society with cohorts of naysayers and of alarmists bracketing a range of other world views, the survival value of democracy, and more.

Her brief is fascinating and calming in a way for its vision -- vision both in terms of the view of the world and in terms of the process of seeing and that organ of insight which sees.

Whitty's piece gives a necessary balance to another piece out recently, the 700-page report by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, which concluded that a prudent approach to climate change which began immediately might cost only 1% of GDP and would avoid a price tag of up to 20% of GDP should we delay.

With all due respect to my fellow economist, and admitting I have not read anything other than the London Times account of the Stern Report, I object strenuously to the idea that we can manage the risk of continued environmental degradation with any certainty. We are not going to be able to send a check to the global warming account and drop it in the mail on our way to the Mall.

If one environmental system breaks, others will fall like dominoes, or like interrelated systems. It will do no good to live 30 feet above sea level, or far from a frozen Europe, or be able to afford some mitigating device. Part of the needed and eminently possible shift in perception is the fixing of a certainty that climate change is coming to our town.

Many of the studies cited and findings explored here in this look at the 13th tipping point posit small group or community frameworks. The shifts they describe will not work so long as we can hide out as one of a million, or one of a billion, or the one with a secret country home, or the one who doesn't have to take responsibility because we're doing other important work.

Five Bads Bush will push past the election

Anxiety over what Republican smears and dirty tricks might be at hand in the last days of the Congressional campaign may be dominating, but what is not said is more important than what is said, if past elections are any indicator.

Both Al Gore and John Kerry were roundly criticized for not focusing on the key Democratic issues of economy, environment and social security. Gore chose "character" and Kerry sort of chose the war in Iraq.

At the same time, hundreds of decisions the administration and or Congress have to make are being pushed beyond the election. In mid-November 2004, Condoleezza Rice replaced Colin Powell as Secretary of State and Bush unveiled his plan to privatize Social Security.

What are the issues that are being pushed beyond November 7, 2006? Here is a guess about five:

1. Mark Foley -- Keeping his record intact, House "Ethics" Committee Chair Doc Hastings, from Washington's 4th District, will issue no findings or reports on any ethics violations. Arguably the most corrupt Congress in the past 100 years looked clean to Do-Nothing Doc. Oversight is a Congressional responsibility the GOP has confused with "overlook" in the cases of Hammer DeLay, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, the Abramoff coterie, and Iraq. Hastings' motto as "Ethics" Committee head has been "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
   


2. The End of Democracy in Iraq -- Although not getting the media attention of "stay the course," the term "democracy" has also fallen from the official sound bites coming out of the White House. The pretense of a functional democracy in Iraq is over except as a myth for Middle America. The need for that myth will end with the closing of the polls on election night. The new regime propagated by the Neocons will be authoritarian and ruthless. It may arise under the guise of partition.
   


3. The Economy -- The "political business cycle" is the practice of the incumbent executive to concentrate expenditures so as to gin the economic till in the months leading up to the election. Occasionally a compliant Fed will arrange interest rates to help. No doubt this most corrupt regime of the past 100 years has done all it can in this regard. But the ability of the Republicans to push the issue of the economy past November 7 is in part due to the absence of Democratic emphasis on this issue.
   
   Massive and rising indebtedness (both public and private), a tremendous $3 billion per day trade deficit, and the demonstrably growing gap between the rich and the rest of us are big issues to Americans. An ABC news poll demonstrated this: 22 percent identified Iraq as the most important issue for voters in the midterms, but 21 percent picked the economy, and economic issues like health care (13 percent) and gas prices (5 percent).
   


4. The Coming Attack on Iran -- The neocons would love to attack Iran. This is similar to the privatization of Social Security, in that it cannot be admitted before the election, but any strength at all for Republicans' war mongering will be immediately translated into a drumbeat to attack. The neocons have spotlighted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has no constitutional authority or power in the Iranian government. At present the logistic support centers are not in readiness, but with the elections behind them, don't be surprised if the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove team to starts trying to justify such an invasion. It may be that the near certain massive disruption to oil flows that are sure to follow will cause the administration's corporate con backers to rein in such a plan, if they can. A Democratic Congress could apply brakes as well.
   


5. The Immigration Policy Fiasco -- The 700 mile, $1.2 billion fence along the Mexican border will be continued so long as it feeds a favored corporation, but the immigration issue will be quietly discarded. Its only purpose was to give the right wing something other than Iraq, the deficit, corporate corruption and administration incompetence to talk about. Adjustments to NAFTA and the trade rules that have cut the incomes of the poorest Mexicans in half are a practical route to slowing migration north. But don't expect that to happen anytime soon.
   

As we go forward, progressive influence will be determined on how well we frame the issues and set the agenda around the economy, environment, social security and health care, development, of developing nations, and interaction with the international community.

After the election, the question will be, "What next?" Calm competence will be the order of the day. A Democratic win will be only the first step in the campaign to take the country back.