"New Year's Resolution: Don't Apologize for Democrats"--Jeff Cohen

[KoKo]

New Year's Resolution: Don't Apologize for Democrats

by Jeff Cohen | December 29, 2009 - 10:54am

I'm old enough to remember that when Democrats are in majority power -- controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- they are capable of horrific policies. With Lyndon Johnson in the White House, most Democrats in Congress went along with Vietnam escalation. And with President Clinton, some leading Congressional Democrats joined mostly Republicans in backing the anti-worker, anti-environmental NAFTA.

The good news -- during the eras of Vietnam and NAFTA -- is that large numbers of progressive activists stood fast to their principles and vocally opposed those wrong-headed Democratic policies. They didn't follow Democratic leaders over the cliff or pretend that Democratic presidents are automatically "on our side" or well-intentioned.

If it was wrong for Bush to bail out Wall Street with virtually no controls, then it's wrong for Obama. If indefinite "preventative detention" was wrong under Bush, then it's wrong under Obama. If military occupation and deepening troop deployments were wrong under Bush, then they're wrong under Obama.

Imagine if McCain had defeated Obama in 2008 and soon tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. I have little doubt that activists would have mobilized major opposition, denouncing the reality of more U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq combined than even Bush had deployed.

But as Obama goes about tripling the troops in Afghanistan, with more U.S. soldiers in war zones that Bush ever had -- and proposes the biggest military budget in world history -- many activists have lost their voices.

-snip-

And back then we lacked the most awesome tool ever invented for independent grassroots mobilization: the Internet.

The Net has helped unleash a golden age for independent media -- and for journalists unafraid to challenge leaders of both parties: folks like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Arianna Huffington, Matt Taibbi and Amy Goodman, to name a few.

Thanks to the Internet and independent media, progressive activists are more fully and more quickly informed about national and global issues than ever. Yet many activists are poorly represented by national netroots groups that often function as appendages of the Democratic leadership.

While independent progressive media are booming on the Internet, the largest netroots political-action groups are sorely lacking in independence.

Be it resolved: In 2010, we will not apologize for indefensible Democratic policies, and we will no longer support netroots groups that fail to resist such policies.

MORE at.......

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25788

---------------


Jeff Cohen

Jeff Cohen is a journalist, media critic and founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. In 1986, he founded the media watch group FAIR. His latest book is "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media". He was an on-air commentator (and "Donahue" senior producer) at MSNBC in 2002-2003; a weekly "News Watch" panelist on Fox News Channel from 1997 to 2002: a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" in 1996. His columns have been published in dozens of dailies, including USA Today, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday and Atlanta Constitution. He was a columnist at Brill's Content. In the mid-1990s, he co-wrote the nationally syndicated "Media Beat" column (with Norman Solomon). In 2003, he was the communications director of the Kucinich for President campaign.

[aaronbav]

1. K&R - It is WELL past time to take to the streets!

[Vidar]

2. Highly recommended.