The "Nation:" "The Strategic Class" (How they Control all of us) Must Read

[KoKo]

The Strategic Class" (A Must Read for Why Kerry & Dean had problems)


Everyone here on DU should read this article. It answers so many questions about why Kerry/Edwards couldn't talk about Iraq and why Dean was drowned out, why Hillary and Biden tow the line and why we aren't going to win elections again until we get some new blood in our party and support the "dissident Think Tank's" that are emerging from disatisfaction with the traditional. Clean up our voting machines but also make sure our candidates answer to us and not the "Strategic Class."

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The Strategic Class

Ari Berman

Central to the liberal hawks' mission is a challenge to other Democrats that they too must become "national security Democrats," to borrow a phrase coined by Holbrooke. To talk about national security a Democrat must be a national security Democrat, and to be a national security Democrat, a Democrat must enthusiastically support a militarized "war on terror," protracted occupation in Iraq, "muscular" democratization and ever-larger defense budgets. The liberal hawks caricature other Democrats just as Republicans long stereotyped them. The pundits magnify the perception that Democrats are soft on national security, and they influence how consultants view public opinion and develop the message for candidates. In that sense, the bottom of the pyramid is always interacting with the top. It matters little that people like Beinart have no national security experience--as long as the hawks identify themselves as national security Democrats, they're free to play the game.


Today, despite the growing evidence that the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq have been a colossal--some would say criminal--failure, what's striking is how much of the pyramid remains essentially in place. As the Iraqi insurgency turned increasingly violent, and the much-hyped WMDs never turned up, the hawks attempted a bit of self-evaluation. Slate and The New Republic both hosted windy pseudo-mea culpa forums. Of the eight liberal hawks invited by Slate, journalist Fred Kaplan remarked, "I seem to be the only one in the club who's changed his mind." TNR's confession was even more limited, with Beinart admitting that he overcame his distrust of Bush so that he could "feel superior to the Democrats." Pollack took part in both forums, and then earned five figures for an Atlantic Monthly essay on "what went wrong." Even at their darkest hour, the strategic class found a way to profit from its errors, coalescing around a view that its members had been misled by the Bush Administration and that too little planning, too few troops and too much ideology were largely to blame for the chaos in Iraq. The hawks decided it was acceptable to criticize the execution of the war, but not the war itself--a view Kerry found particularly attractive. A "yes, but" or "no, but" mentality defined this thinking. Having subsequently pinned the blame for Kerry's defeat largely on the political consultants or the candidate himself, the strategic class has moved forward largely unscarred.

Biden and Clinton still have more influence than antiwar politicians like Ted Kennedy or Russ Feingold. No one has replaced Holbrooke or Albright. Pollack continues to thrive at Brookings and, despite never visiting the country, has a new book out about Iran. Shortly after the election, Beinart penned a 5,683-word essay calling on hawkish Democrats to repudiate "softs" like MoveOn.org and Michael Moore; the essay won Beinart--already a fellow at Brookings--a $650,000 book deal and high-profile visibility on the Washington ideas circuit. Subsequently a statement of leading policy apparatchiks on the PPI publication Blueprint challenged fellow Democrats to make fighting Islamic totalitarianism the central organizing principle of the party. Replace the words "Al Qaeda" with "Soviet Union" and the essay seemed straight out of 1947-48; the militarized post-9/11 climate of fear had reincarnated the cold war Democrat. A number of leading specialists signed a letter by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century asking Congress to boost the defense budget and increase the size of the military by 25,000 troops each year over the next several years. The "Third Way" group of conservative Senate Democrats recently introduced a similar proposal.

-SNIP-

Those insiders who doubt the wisdom of a hawkish course often get the cold shoulder if they stray too far from the strategic line. After criticizing the rush to war, Ivo Daalder of Brookings became the foreign policy point man for Howard Dean's insurgent campaign. Many of Daalder's colleagues at Brookings and elsewhere sharply criticized Dean, and afterward unnamed Democratic insiders bragged to The New Republic that Dean's advisers would never work again. That, of course, didn't happen, but Daalder and others have since tempered their opposition rhetoric. Today Daalder blames the antiwar movement for Dean's defeat and calls for more troops in Iraq.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050829/berman

[Mythsaje]

1. Elect a Dem war-hawk

and erect a kinder, gentler obnoxious empire.

The corporate-controlled so-called "liberals" are the reason I never had much faith in the party from the beginning. I respect Howard Dean because he's willing to stick a thumb in their eye and call them liars when it's time.

While I believe the U.S. should be strong on defense, it is not, nor should it be, our role to use our power to prey on weaker nations in the interest of profit for corporate America. Especially not to the detriment of the common American citizen.

In a word--screw the DLC and everyone aligned with it.

[Raster]

7. War and weaponry should not be profit centers and feature products.

It is unconscionable that our largest industry is now weaponry and warfare. And the sad, sad fact is that on a person-to-person basis, no one wants to be a nation of warmongers, of killers. Scream it from the fucking rooftops, do you know why we can't have peace? Because people like the bush* family won't be able to make a profit. And there's plenty more like them around the world.

[Mythsaje]

8. Don't I know it...

war profiteers, bullies, and arrogant, insufferable pigs (and that's an insult to pigs)...

Greed is their religion, money their One True God, and to hell with anyone who disagrees or--god forbid--gets in their way.

[Jim Sagle]

9. It's all Good Cop, Bad Cop. The Pugs feed you the broomhandle.

The Dems will kindly and gently tase you.

[Mythsaje]

11. Good cop bad cop

is a good analogy, I think.

[bemildred]

13. Good cop, bad cop is perfect.

They are both on the same side, and it ain't yours.

[newswolf56]

2. Link is no good. And this is one article I'd really like to read.

[KoKo]

3. Here's a working link...sorry..don't know what happened it's a Must Read

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050829/berman

[glitch]

4. here you go

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050829/berman

[Mojambo]

5. I read that one

I felt very badly about Democratic chances in 06 after reading it.

The Democratic party is still very sick, I know the doctor is working very hard, but there is still some cancer in the Democratic party.

[KoKo]

12. I think the most hopeful sign there in Article is "Dissident Think Tanks"

that are emerging to replace the "Brookings and Carnegie Peace Endowment (Sheesh...Carnegie "Peace Endowment" supporting Iraq War) sort of makes one pause and think, doesn't it. :-(

Anyway if one read the article, carefully, there are some hopeful signs.

Dean getting the head of DNC because Grassroots State Organizations who vote on DNC were MAD AS HELL is one hopeful sign. We grassrooters out here in our states trying for Election Reform and State Government Reform going from the bottom all the way up the Ladder is another Hopeful Sign.

I think this article is really good because it "Defines the Problem" we Dems were clueless about...that exists, and explains why Kerry/Edwards had so much trouble against Swift Boat Lies and other things.

There IS a REAL GRASSROOTS REFORM MOVEMENT out there....get on board...seek it out...it's there..and many of us posters here on DU are involved in it, if you seek out our posts. Folks are trying for reform.
We can only be successful if we GAIN in numbers.

This article defining the Problem does a lot towards finding the reform.. I hope anyway.

[eridani]

20. Let's not forget our major advance in the CAFTA fight

There was substantial support for NAFTA among "new" Dems, but the CAFTA vote, even though we lost, had 95% of Dems against it and 95% of Repubs for it. This is a result of extensive lobbying by the base. I think we can do even better in the future.

[KoKo]

6. Link has been fixed in Original Post...so clicking on it should work.

Thanks...

[newswolf56]

10. Thanks to all of the above for a working link.

(Actually I left DU then accessed The Nation directly to read the article: it's in the "Most Emailed Articles" feature, for which scroll down.)

[newswolf56]

14. I think Berman's essay ultimately demonstrates three facts:

(1)-The extent to which the Democratic Party has become -- like the Republican Party -- a wholly owned subsidiary of the oligarchy;

(2)-The underlying explanation for the Democratic Party's absolute betrayal of American working families and the poor not only on Iraq but on fuel prices, the bankruptcy law (which literally re-imposes lifetime indentured servitude), NAFTA, CAFTA, the Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit, the destruction of the social safety net, etc. ad nauseum.

(3)-That the only way to make sense of what is being done to us -- that is, the only way to formulate an analysis adequate to explain it and thus fight back -- is to view it all from the perspective of class struggle.

Viewed as class struggle, everything that is happening now, everything that has happened (including 9/11), falls into place as part of a global campaign by the capitalist oligarchy to impose a massive take-back: the post-Soviet, post-New-Deal restoration of monopoly capitalism to all its former malevolence and savagery as expressed not only by the war (which facilitates skyrocketing oil prices and thus the concentration of oligarchic wealth) but of everything else as well: downsizing, outsourcing, increasing prices, declining wages -- the methodical reduction of all workers to defacto wage-slavery.

The problem is that the Jihadist threat from without is every bit as real as the oligarchic threat from within. The question is how to combat both. Given the extent to which the Democratic Party has been co-opted (and therefore nullified) by the oligarchy -- an ugly truth made all the more obvious by Berman's article -- the probability is that any satisfactory solution will have to come from outside the party's ranks: perhaps a new third party, but in any case almost certainly not from any of today's likeliest political figures. I think it was working-family America's sense of already being betrayed by the Democratic Party that -- more than anything else -- produced Bush's victory in 2004 and also yielded the Bush victory-by-fiat out of the chaos of 2000.



Edit: addition of last sentence.

[KoKo]

15. Interesting post...

agree with most of it. Sad thing is that no Third Party has ever managed to get enough votes to be viable.

But, I agree, it's time for a "Third Way" to get attention and try to get reform. The "Progressives, PDA" are attempting to "reform the Dem Party" without going "third way." In my state the "Progressives are former Nader, Kucinich, Socialists and Dean Actitivists working together against the DINO's." It's a hard battle and in many ways we are infiltrated by those trying to undermine our efforts. Still, in my Red State it's probably better to try to work from within than go third. We already have a very strong "Libertarian Party" which works lock step with the Repugs. They have tremendous power but really don't run candidates that are total Libertarian, prefering to find Repugs who will toss them a bone or two when they are elected.

We need to do better. It will take a long time to do a true third party that can get a coalition in my humble opinion...but it's worth hoping for. Our Dem party is struggling with factions and fractures that are so deep one wonders if we can hold together. All of us are hoping that Mid-Term elections will gain us the House and "Investigations of the "Bush Crime Family" can finally begin. But, what if we lose again? Or, what if we win and nothing significant happens to Expose the Bush lies and incompetence. What if a couple of hands are slapped and the rest is swept under the rug in the interest of "national unity?" Then there WILL be war within the Dem Party..and maybe the call for a "Third Way." :shrug:

[newswolf56]

16. Didn't see your reply until now or would have responded...

earlier; my apology. The factionalism you rightfully lament is not just a red-state phenomenon. I live in one of the blue states (Kerry 53 percent), and the Democratic Party here is still divided by the class conflicts that grew out of the Vietnam War: bourgeois elitists versus working folk, with many of the former driven out (and into the arms of the Republicans) by anti-gun hysteria and environmental zealotry. From what I've seen of other states, the same problems exist pretty much everywhere: too many blue-collar folk feel the Democratic Party has betrayed them -- not on "moral values" (a corporate-media red herring) but on paycheck issues like NAFTA, CAFTA, timber jobs, etc.

Interestingly, the late Jack Newfield predicted just such lingering Democratic divisions -- this in articles he wrote for The Village Voice during the early 1970s, mostly after the McGovern debacle. Too bad those reports aren't available online because they'd make interesting reading: especially their criticism of arrogant, trust-fund collegians and the collegians' unabashed scorn of working folk -- the final destruction of the coalition that enacted the New Deal and the Great Society.

[rodeodance]

17. going to a 3rd party to too risky right now!! I hope this does not happen

[newswolf56]

18. It would depend entirely on the nature of the going. If...

a labor/progressive party with an adequate analysis were to develop (especially if it sprang up around someone symbolic like Cindy Sheehan -- who as a working-family mother is doing much to heal the Left's lingering '60s class divisions), I think it could win, particularly with the Internet as a grassroots mobilization tool.

The sense of betrayal in this country -- of being sold out to the oligarchy by mercenary politicians -- is palpable; so is the associated anger. I have covered local and regional politics in the U.S. since the late 1950s and I have never seen anything even remotely like it. If the Democratic Party remains what it is today -- a wholly owned subsidiary of the oligarchy and therefore utterly indistinguishable from the Republicans on paycheck issues -- the 2006 and 2008 elections are already lost.

Mind you, I'm not saying a third party is the only way. It may still be possible to recapture the Democratic Party from the plutocrats and give it back to the people: that is surely my first choice. But I frankly doubt the oligarchy will allow it. I also know the sad history of third parties in the U.S.: another proof of the awful strength of the oligarchy. What gives me hope is the possibility that -- once a viable labor/progressive third party gets rolling -- large portions of the Democratic infrastructure will shed their Democratic Leadership Council shackles and join the movement.

And -- no -- I'm not talking about the Nader phenomenon. The Naderites are the personification of bourgeois elitists: the sort of pseudo-radicals who are now cackling with self-proclaimed "environmentalist" glee as fuel prices soar, smugly indifferent to the havoc these skyrocketing prices are wreaking among working families, fixed-income elders and the poor.

Best possible scenario would be for a labor/progressive movement to spring up outside the Democratic Party and then take it over -- purging the DLC class-traitors (for that is precisely what they are) without mercy.

[KoKo]

19. Labor/Progressive would be good....but look,the Airline Maintenance Folks

can't even get another union to "stand" with them.

It will be a very long haul...worth it..but way long that anyone would figure on being there to see the realization.