You are the heirs of one of the country's great traditions – the progressive movement that started late in the 19th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century. I call it the progressive movement for lack of a more precise term. Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician.
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This is what's hard to believe – hardly a century had passed since 1776 before the still-young revolution was being strangled in the hard grip of a merciless ruling class. The large corporations that were called into being by modern industrialism after 1865 – the end of the Civil War – had combined into trusts capable of making minions of both politics and government. What Henry George called "an immense wedge" was being forced through American society by "the maldistribution of wealth, status, and opportunity."
We should pause here to consider that this is Karl Rove's cherished period of American history; it was, as I read him, the seminal influence on the man who is said to be George W.'s brain. From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley, who was in the White House from 1897 to 1901, and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley. Hanna had one consummate passion – to serve corporate and imperial power. It was said that he believed "without compunction, that the state of Ohio existed for property. It had no other function...Great wealth was to be gained through monopoly, through using the State for private ends; it was axiomatic therefore that businessmen should run the government and run it for personal profit."
Mark Hanna – Karl Rove's hero – made William McKinley governor of Ohio by shaking down the corporate interests of the day. Fortunately, McKinley had the invaluable gift of emitting sonorous platitudes as though they were recently discovered truth. Behind his benign gaze the wily intrigues of Mark Hanna saw to it that first Ohio and then Washington were "ruled by business...by bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." Any who opposed the oligarchy were smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, "or worse." Back then they didn't bother with hollow euphemisms like "compassionate conservatism" to disguise the raw reactionary politics that produced government "of, by, and for" the ruling corporate class. They just saw the loot and went for it.
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The mighty progressive wave peaked in 1912. But the ideas leashed by it forged the politics of the 20th century. Like his cousin Theodore, Franklin Roosevelt argued that the real enemy of enlightened capitalism was "the malefactors of great wealth" – the "economic royalists" – from whom capitalism would have to be saved by reform and regulation. Progressive government became an embedded tradition of Democrats – the heart of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and honored even by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who didn't want to tear down the house progressive ideas had built – only to put it under different managers. The progressive impulse had its final fling in the landslide of 1969 when LBJ, who was a son of the West Texas hill country, where the Populist rebellion had been nurtured in the 1890s, won the public endorsement for what he meant to be the capstone in the arch of the New Deal.
I had a modest role in that era. I shared in its exhilaration and its failures. We went too far too fast, overreached at home and in Vietnam, failed to examine some assumptions, and misjudged the rising discontents and fierce backlash engendered by war, race, civil disturbance, violence and crime. Democrats grew so proprietary in this town that a fat, complacent political establishment couldn't recognize its own intellectual bankruptcy or the beltway that was growing around it and beginning to separate it from the rest of the country. The failure of democratic politicians and public thinkers to respond to popular discontents – to the daily lives of workers, consumers, parents, and ordinary taxpayers – allowed a resurgent conservatism to convert public concern and hostility into a crusade to resurrect social Darwinism as a moral philosophy, multinational corporations as a governing class, and the theology of markets as a transcendental belief system.
As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed - to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington - the same Grover Norquist – has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" – one of the states – "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.
It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime. I'll be frank with you: I simply don't understand it – or the malice in which it is steeped. Many people are nostalgic for a golden age. These people seem to long for the Gilded Age. That I can grasp. They measure America
Father and son, June 13, 2003, Maineonly by their place on the material spectrum and they bask in the company of the new corporate aristocracy, as privileged a class as we have seen since the plantation owners of antebellum America and the court of Louis IV. What I can't explain is the rage of the counter-revolutionaries to dismantle every last brick of the social contract. At this advanced age I simply have to accept the fact that the tension between haves and have-nots is built into human psychology and society itself – it's ever with us. However, I'm just as puzzled as to why, with right wing wrecking crews blasting away at social benefits once considered invulnerable, Democrats are fearful of being branded "class warriors" in a war the other side started and is determined to win. I don't get why conceding your opponent's premises and fighting on his turf isn't the sure-fire prescription for irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence. But I confess as well that I don't know how to resolve the social issues that have driven wedges into your ranks. And I don't know how to reconfigure democratic politics to fit into an age of soundbites and polling dominated by a media oligarchy whose corporate journalists are neutered and whose right-wing publicists have no shame.
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What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" – and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work – our work.
Ideas have power – as long as they are not frozen in doctrine. But ideas need legs. The eight-hour day, the minimum wage, the conservation of natural resources and the protection of our air, water, and land, women's rights and civil rights, free trade unions, Social Security and a civil service based on merit – all these were launched as citizen's movements and won the endorsement of the political class only after long struggles and in the face of bitter opposition and sneering attacks. It's just a fact: Democracy doesn't work without citizen activism and participation, starting at the community. Trickle down politics doesn't work much better than trickle down economics. It's also a fact that civilization happens because we don't leave things to other people. What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of democracy will never go out as long as there's one candle in your hand.
So go for it. Never mind the odds. Remember what the progressives faced. Karl Rove isn't tougher than Mark Hanna was in his time and a hundred years from now some historian will be wondering how it was that Norquist and Company got away with it as long as they did – how they waged war almost unopposed on the infrastructure of social justice, on the arrangements that make life fair, on the mutual rights and responsibilities that offer opportunity, civil liberties, and a decent standard of living to the least among us.
"Democracy is not a lie" – I first learned that from Henry Demarest Lloyd, the progressive journalist whose book, "Wealth against Commonwealth," laid open the Standard trust a century ago. Lloyd came to the conclusion to "Regenerate the individual is a half truth. The reorganization of the society which he makes and which makes him is the other part. The love of liberty became liberty in America by clothing itself in the complicated group of strengths known as the government of the United States." And it was then he said: "Democracy is not a lie. There live in the body of the commonality unexhausted virtue and the ever-refreshed strength which can rise equal to any problems of progress. In the hope of tapping some reserve of their power of self-help," he said, "this story is told to the people."
This is your story – the progressive story of America.
Pass it on.
Yes, pass it on. This is our story — the story of those who would create a fairer society, an effective society, a true democracy.
For more on Karl Rove's obsession with McKinley and Mark Hanna, see Harold Meyerson's "The Cult of Karl" in The American Prospect.
Thanks to the indispensable Cursor and also the proprietor of bigEastern.com for calling the speech to my attention.
With all of the dissension regarding the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and Jeb Bush's inexplicable infatuation with it, why isn't anyone commenting on the connection that the governor's (and the president's) brother, Neil Bush, has with the FCAT?
I recall reading in this newspaper last year that Neil Bush was the CEO of Ignite Inc. of Texas, the company that developed program software that helps students prepare for the test. It costs $30 per student per year and was being tested in Orlando.
Based on my recollections of Neil Bush's banking difficulties back around the time of his daddy's term as president, I'm wondering why this angle hasn't been investigated? How many schools have opted to buy this?
It certainly appears from talk around the communities and the editorial pages that the majority of us feel that the FCAT is given too much weight and are wondering how to reconcile it with the "No child left behind" motto.
Linda DeTroyer
I suppose it's left to vigilant letter-writers and obsessive bloggers to connect the dots, to reconcile these stories, and to create context and perspective in a soundbite world.
Mainstream journalists and editors are still AWOL, not unlike the young George W., whose porous and doubt-riddled history, deceptive or (at best) meaningless pronouncements, and blank stare characterize America as a hollow facade that allows an imbecilic dynasty to mock its own citizens as well as the rest of the world.
Remember, anthrax = bacteria, monkeypox = virus. Remember too that alleged anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill was a medical doctor, a biomedical scientist, a monkeypox expert, and an unpublished novelist, having written...
a novel about a bioterror attack on the United States, titled "Emergence" and set in Washington. The weapon used in the fictional attack is bubonic plague.
In the manuscript, an Iraqi terrorist acquires a significant cache of the bacteria, then builds a wheelchair with a hidden spray gun, which he dispenses while touring the White House.
The manuscript goes into minute detail about the size of the droplets in the spray and how many bacteria each droplet holds. The novel's protagonist, an American biodefense scientist, helps bring the epidemic under control.
Plague, like anthrax, is bacteria. An educated novelist like Hatfill would know enough to go "into minute detail" about weaponizing bacteria, despite his publicly trumpeted virological background.
Neither the anthrax nor the monkeypox events have been adequately explained. There is nothing concrete to say that they are related — or unrelated.
An uneasy feeling tells me that Steven Hatfill's plot is still thickening.
The former top executives at WorldCom ruled with unquestioned authority, steering the telecommunications company into multibillion-dollar acquisitions on a whim and intimidating underlings who questioned their conduct, according to two reports released Monday.
A report by former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh outlined a corporate culture thoroughly dominated by former Chairman Bernard Ebbers and ex-Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan, fostering an environment that led to the largest U.S. bankruptcy and an $11 billion accounting scandal.
A second investigative document, produced by lawyer William McLucas at the request of the company's new board, offered searing details about how Sullivan and other key finance executives cooked WorldCom's books to hide that the real numbers were falling short of Wall Street's expectations.
In one incident cited by the investigators, accounting executive Buford Yates told an underling who questioned the company's books, "Show those numbers to the damn auditors and I'll throw you out the (expletive) window."
Just how ineffectual a business was Worldcom? Besides those whimsical multibillion dollar acquisitions, there were also whimsical investments in the Trent Lott Leadership Institute (Guardian):
WorldCom's gala contribution [$100,000 to the Republicans at a fundraising gala attended by President Bush] was a routine part of its $3m a year lobbying effort in Washington, aimed at influencing tax policy and the planned deregulation of the long-distance telephone market – legislation to which WorldCom is opposed.
The company focused on cultivating Mississippi politicians, particularly the Republican leader in the Senate, Trent Lott.
Three years ago WorldCom contributed $1m to the University of Mississippi to help set up the Trent Lott Leadership Institute, just a few weeks after the Mississippi senator had appointed a company official to an advisory panel on the issue of taxing internet sales.
Another recipient of WorldCom largesse was the attorney general, John Ashcroft, who took $10,000 in contributions from the firm for his 2000 Senate campaign. It was unclear yesterday whether Mr Ashcroft would excuse himself from the investigation of WorldCom, as he had done in the case of Enron, another campaign contributor.
Cowards, liars and thieves, every one of them. Like "military intelligence" of the Vietnam era, "corporate culture" is the signal oxymoron of our (expletive) times.
Q: So we're not out of the woods [with respect to the risk of an economic depression]. A: You know the expression "You should live so long?" After a 16-year cycle of boom, it is unreasonable to expect the readjustment to take less than 16 years. We are in for a very long period where the economy will not grow very much. This is intensified on a world basis by the deteriorating caliber of our political leaders. Bush has no fiscal sense whatsoever and is radical in his approach. The Republicans live solely to make the rich richer. The Democrats have no leaders or leadership and are barely conscious of the major issues of the day, which include growing unemployment, lack of affordable housing for the poor and the low end of the middle class, lack of health insurance, deterioration of our infrastructure -- our bridges, roads and sewer systems -- growing water shortages, drugs and crime. Just to name a few of the major issues. One of the major things they overlook is that we are currently spending $350 billion for military purposes. Meanwhile, Russia spends something on the order of $40 billion and China spends $20 billion. We spend more than all other countries together. At the same time, we are spending no more than $20 billion or so for children's health and correspondingly very small sums for education. Congress also spends all its time debating whether we should spend billions on anti-ballistic missiles, which any knowledgeable scientist would tell you cannot possibly work. The public, on the other hand, doesn't feel that extra submarines and needless new fighter planes really increase their standard of living. I am not a pacifist, and I want us to be strong, but we could easily save $200 billion a year by rationalizing the Pentagon and still be far and away the strongest nation in the world.
Q: What are your thoughts on Iraq? A: We all wanted to get rid of Hussein, who is a very evil man. However, the price that is being paid in human lives and properties and the chaos that is inevitably ensuing in Iraq was far too great a price to pay for this war. It is totally unjustified. If we were to take on every evil man who runs a country, we would have at least 15 or 20 wars on our hands.
Q: Are you worried that we'll invade Iran or Syria? A: The public thinks we won the war and that it is over. They don't realize we are going to keep more troops in Iraq than we thought. The deficit will grow. We are not going to win the peace. Iraq is so divided internally it makes Afghanistan look like one unified group. Do you think soldiers know how to straighten out a country? They know how to make war. Do you think the State Department has the people and the training to help the country rebuild? Do you think we have anything like that? No, of course not. Another evil that exists today, and one that is going to prolong our recession and one we could do something about, is the situation of the municipalities and the states, which in the boom period built up tremendous costs and activities and now don't have enough revenues and are, as a group, facing a shortfall of $70 billion a year. This will entail substantial contractions in many important areas of public employment, even after the tax-cut bill, which gets them about $20 billion.
Q: We have elections coming up next year. If the downturn persists, won't people vote their pocketbook? A: In elections, 60% of the people don't vote. The 40% who do vote are people who are beholden to one political party or the other. What is in the public's interest is not represented in the electoral part of our so-called democracy.
Q: Isn't it when times are tough that people finally get interested in the issues? A: Well, you are young, and you have optimism. I don't have it anymore. I lost it. I tried awfully hard to kindle interest in these things. I supported them. I've worked for them, and I've failed. The public seems indifferent to what could be a very severe collapse of the economy and political system. The United States may go under. Look at Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, people don't have water. There is a 300% or so inflation rate per annum, transportation is broken down, people cannot get to their jobs, 65% of their industry is shut down and the black market in food is soaring. Although this is an extreme case, the Congo and other African countries are similarly situated. The tax-cut bill will ultimately have negative effects on the our economy, because it increases the disparity of income and wealth between the wealthy and poor.
Q: You can't be suggesting that we'll end up like Zimbabwe? A: I'm suggesting we may end up like Zimbabwe. Or Japan. When you consider that some major iconic industries in this country -- the automobile business, the steel business, the telephone business -- are lost or have at least suffered enormously.
Q: But isn't this part of a long cyclical trend? Manufacturing has been moving offshore for some time. Won't these industries be replaced with new "icons?" A: Technology is a replacement, to some degree, but even there we are beginning to get very strong competition from abroad. We are becoming like England. We are becoming less important. The dollar is depreciating, and it is just beginning its descent because of our perpetual trade deficits and federal budget deficits. Foreigners will not only not invest in our bond and stock markets but will be pulling money out.
Q: Except that raises the question of where are they going to put it? A: Gold. Perhaps diamonds. Old Master paintings.
Q: What's your solution? A: Spend money for the infrastructure, reduce government, cut military spending by $200 billion, repair and build housing for the poor and middle class.
[…]
Q: People seem to feel that Europe is much more at risk than the U.S. A: They face the same risks we do.
Q: But at least we are pulling out all the stops. A: What are we doing? Giving the rich a tax cut and the poor a very tiny one -- is that pulling out the stops? Have you seen a program to build public housing? Have you seen a program to fight drugs intelligently?
Q: What about the monetary stimulus? The low interest rates? A: That cannibalizes the future.
Q: You don't think any of that is useful? A: We would have had a real recession sooner but it might have been over already if Greenspan hadn't lowered interest rates. The best thing that can happen is a good fat recession because that produces the changes that we are hoping for but that are not yet happening.
[…]
Q: What do you expect come fall 2004? A: I expect we will be sitting here and having the same interview. I don't see any change in sight. I don't see the Democratic Party trying to revolutionize itself. The Democrats have all become sheep. Young people have the expression about living outside the box. No one is living outside the box here. There is only one great country: Norway. I didn't come from Norway, but I lived there. It is monolithic. There are 3.5 million people. It is the most constructive country in the world. They're for peace and they were just named as part of the enemy by al Qaeda. If you want a wonderful country, it's Norway. In my next incarnation, I hope to be born a Norwegian.
Very entertaining, if you like this sort of thing. It should still be on newsstands all week.
