The Nation editor encourages Democrats to challenge platform

[govegan]

The intensifying efforts of grassroots and progressive Democrats to have an impact on their Party’s 2004 national platform received a major boost today when the editor of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, urged the publication’s readers to sign petitions being circulated by the campaign of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich calling for an exit strategy in Iraq, healthcare reform, and new fair trade agreements.

Criticizing the current draft of the Democratic platform that will be voted on this weekend in Miami, vanden Heuvel wrote, “I think it's shameful that the current 16,000-word document fails to even acknowledge existing divisions among Democrats on future policy toward Iraq.”

The Nation Editor also cites “a strategically-savvy Open Letter to the Platform Committee,” written by longtime political activist Tom Hayden and acknowledged supporter of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Hayden wrote: "We progressives are not the happy campers that certain self- selected spokesmen describe in the New York Times. Our surface acceptance of the Party's current direction arises from deference to our respected nominee and our common loathing of the Bush Administration. We are loyal to our partisan objective of defeating Bush, but loyal as well to those principles which we believe are shared by a majority of Democrats and Americans.

http://www.kucinich.us/misc/nation.php

[President Jesus]

1. Katrina is a BIGTIME Democratic supporter

This is one impressive list...
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?city=New+York&st=NY&last=vanden+Heuvel&first=Katrina

[Lefty Pragmatist]

2. Hmm...

On the surface of it, this seems like such a short-sighted and counter-productive suggestion that I'm hopeful there's some intelligent direction behind it. Perhaps the idea is that when Kerry/Edwards rebuff a symbolic lurch to the left, the GOP criticisms of them ostensibly being ultra-liberal won't stick?

[govegan]

3. From a post to Katrina's editorial

A close friend writes: "Here is something I ran across in the new Collected Poems of Robert Lowell (sorry, I know poetry isn't your thing). It's in a note to The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket, a famous poem in his first collection. In an interview from 1963, Lowell said, 'If I have an image for , it would be taken from Melville's Moby Dick: the fanatical idealist who brings the world down in ruin through some sort of simplicity of mind.' Now who does that remind you of?"

The ultra-fanatical idealogues are those who usurped the authority of the American people, and who decided that ruling without the consent of the governed was apropos. Consumed by blind, fanatical greed with a generous helping of power-lust and motoring about on the wooden leg of a faux election.......well, you know how the story goes.

More realistically, "the concern of all Americans should be whether the Bush Administration and its hand-picked government truly intend to allow democratic elections this next January, or defer democratic sovereignty for Iraqis until the US-led coalition prevails militarily over the insurgency. " (From Tom Hayden's letter.)

Or should the concern of all Americans not be whether the neofascists intend to allow democratic elections on the North American continent in November?

As Katrina wrote: " In the Senate, Robert Byrd has been an eloquent advocate of an exit strategy, one that is 'orderly and astute, else more of our men and women will follow the fate of Tennyson's doomed light brigade.' Representative Jim McDermott and much of the Congressional Black Caucus have also called for a clear and coherent roadmap for US withdrawal."

Highlighting the failures of Bush and his cohorts is essentially bootless without clearly articulated alternatives that spell out the benefits for the American electorate of Democratic leadership.

[G_j]

4. Influencing the Party platform: state and national

From the Kucinich campaign:


Influencing the Party platform: state and national
A message from Scott Hinchee, Convention Field Coordinator

July 7, 2004

Dear supporters,

Please join us in our efforts to influence the Democratic Party platform. This Friday and Saturday, Kucinich staff and supporters will represent your concerns at the one and only meeting of the Democratic Platform Committee in Miami, Florida. Our platform work is already attracting attention and support. An Associated Press article posted Friday has been picked up by newspapers across the country (read article) and the editor of The Nation magazine is calling on her readers and all Democrats to join the Kucinich campaign in pushing the Democrats by signing our petitions and writing letters to the Platform Committee (read article).

Act now to help influence the direction of the Democratic Party. We already have hundreds of supporters drafting letters urging the inclusion of the values that we are passionate about in the Democratic platform. In the next 24 hours, we’d like to double those numbers. Please direct your letters by email or fax to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. She is co-chair of the Platform Committee and represents the district in Cleveland next to Dennis. Her contact information is as follows:

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

As you know from our petition drive, the issues we want the Democratic Party to take a stand on are: setting an end date for the occupation of Iraq, creating a Department of Peace, switching to a universal single-payer health care system, canceling NAFTA and withdrawing from the WTO, recognizing LGBT equal marriage rights, and protecting civil liberties (repeal of PATRIOT Act). Please include any issues that you feel passionately about in your letters, but we ask you to specifically mention ‘U.N. in, U.S. out’ because we believe that a concerted lobbying effort on this issue could be of great consequence.

Recognizing state Democratic parties
At the state level, many of our grassroots state campaigns have been successful in influencing their platform. Two weeks ago, I wrote a letter of thanks (see: Kucinich Progressive Values Being Widely Embraced) recognizing a number of state campaigns that passed progressive, pro-peace planks and resolutions into their platform. After it was sent out, supporters in Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, Iowa, Idaho, and Minnesota brought to my attention similar measures that were passed or nearly passed (Idaho) by their state conventions. As it turns out, our campaign has accomplished even more than I initially reported. Let’s take another moment to recognize the well-informed and open-minded Democrats from these states who officially endorsed the following progressive values.

And please contact me if there was a platform plank or resolution victory in your state that has not been recognized!

Thank you to...

Alaska

Signing the Kyoto protocol, ratifying the Convention on Land Mines and joining the International Criminal Court.
Repealing the PATRIOT Act
Supporting the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace
Stop developing the National Ballistic Missile Defense Program and strive towards the elimination of all U.S. Weapons of Mass Destruction.
UN in; US out
Universal Single-Payer Healthcare

Hawaii

The elimination of the use of depleted uranium in the U.S. arsenal
Terminating all development, deployment, and testing of WMD’s
UN in; US out
Repealing the PATRIOT Act
Opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment
Supporting the creation of a Department of Peace
Voter verified paper trails for elections
Universal pre-kindergarten care and college education
Canceling NAFTA and withdrawing from the WTO
Reducing the military budget by 25% in order to spend more money on a domestic agenda.

Texas

Affirming a minimum living wage.
Supporting the break up of monopolistic agribusiness and protecting the integrity of the organic food standard.
The use of medical cannabis as prescribed by a doctor
A moratorium on executions
Creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace
Iowa

Creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace
Minnesota
(These resolutions were approved by the majority of the delegates at the Minnesota DFL Convention.)

Department of Peace
support for LGBT civil marriage rights
Canceling NAFTA and the WTO

Idaho

Idaho--often referred to as the most Republican state in the Union--was just 7 votes shy (out of approximately 200) of passing a Department of Peace resolution


Now is the time for us to build on this momentum and to send a strong message to the National Democratic Party. There is much that we can do!

Don’t forget, everyone is invited to join us in Boston during the week of the Democratic National Convention. If you are unable to travel to Boston, please make sure that your like-minded friends and family are aware of our exciting week of activities. We have a full week of workshops, social events, and rallies planned that will educate and inspire all who attend. In addition, our presence in Boston will draw attention to these issues that unite us. For more details about convention week activities or housing that we are making available, check out our website.

These are exciting times to be creating change. Together we will make this progressive vision a reality.

With gratitude,

Scott Hinchee
Convention field coordinator
[e-mail]

***

[LWolf]

5. I particularly liked this part:

On Iraq and other issues, vanden Heuvel argues, “Wouldn't the Democratic Party be a stronger--even a more unified--party if it acknowledged its differences? Disagreement will not weaken the urgency millions feel about defeating George Bush in November. And, besides, pretending that differences don't exist won't make it so. Honest debate could be an electoral asset for the Democrats, particularly since it's something these incompetents in the White House seem incapable of allowing.”

[robbedvoter]

6. Iraq who?