http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/new-years-resolution-dont_b_404760.html December 30, 2009 "Huffington Post" -- For the new year, let's resolve: Don't defend Democrats when they don't deserve defending. And that certainly includes President Obama...When we mute ourselves as a Democratic president pursues corporatist or militarist policies, we only encourage such policies.
..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...
...By going soft on the White House or Democratic Congressional leaders, most netroots groups have undermined genuine progressives in Congress -- on issues from Iraq and Afghanistan to Wall Street and health care.
Instead of launching their health care reform efforts behind an easily-explained, cost-effective "Enhanced Medicare for All" bill co-sponsored by dozens of progressive Congress members, netroots leaders meekly made a "public option" their starting demand and pretended not to notice when Rahm Emanuel began signaling last spring that the White House had no intention of pushing for it...
...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. 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.
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