A New Social Contract

[Adelante]

For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda. Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. The war in Iraq has undermined the conservative case for unilateral military intervention and U.S. omnipotence. Economic insecurity has led Americans to question the rhetoric about "big" government, while President Bush's embrace of new federal programs has undermined GOP promises to cut spending.

The long Democratic primary battle masks the fact that the party faithful agree on the basic outlines of a new social contract. It fits a post-industrial society that was barely visible when Lyndon B. Johnson was ramming a series of landmark measures through Congress.

-snip

Now, Democrats are grappling with insecurities faced by entire families, that institution conservatives always claim to represent. The past three decades have produced growing economic inequality and a shrinking middle class. Younger Americans no longer expect to enjoy as good a life as their parents did. Wage-earners fear for the future of their jobs and incomes. No family is secure.

This is the reality of a global, nonunion economy that the new agenda attempts to address. But before the reunited Democratic Party can start to make a forceful case to the nation, it will have to address its great weakness. Democrats have not yet been able to equal what was perhaps Franklin Roosevelt's greatest political success: to offer a bold foreign policy to match his domestic ambitions. FDR had an internationalist vision: that the United States should use military force only against clearly defined threats and with the aid of international, democratic institutions. This vision, with some exceptions, defined America's stance in the world until Vietnam.

That debacle destroyed LBJ's presidency, and the question of how America should act in the world has haunted his party ever since. Democrats have no coherent view about foreign policy that differs from that of conservatives. They agree on finding a way out of Iraq and halting nuclear proliferation. But Democrats are vague about how to combat terrorists (and how to evaluate the threat itself), don't have a clear strategy for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and are fearful of questioning the size and substance of the military budget. This weakness gives John McCain his best chance to delay or defeat a new liberal awakening.

Yet if Democrats find a way to address Americans' insecurities about their economic futures as well as the future security of their nation, they may be able to emulate the only liberal president who ever managed that difficult feat. And for that achievement, FDR became one of the greatest and most beloved leaders in our history.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002273.html

[Prophet 451]

1. Democratic foreign policy is weird

The Dems seem terrified of being attacked by the right-wingers who are going to attack them anyway. What needs to be done is:

1) Combat terrorism with a, yes, law enforcement approach, backed up with, if necessary, military force. That was the approach that Bill Clinton took and although the right loves to rewrite history, it bloody worked. John Kerry was right, you'll never eliminate terrorism entirely. It's simply not possible to un-invent a tactic but what you can do is catch (alive, if possible), try, convict and either jail or execute the terrorists themselves. Bombing the shit out of MidEast nations at random is not working.

2) Cut the military budget by 15-20%. The US does not need to spend $610 billion (not counting either war or the intelligence "black" budget) on it's military. That's more than the rest of the world combined, the raise in the military budget this year alone is larger than the entire military budget of any of the next five largest militaries. The world is rapidly moving away from inter-nation hot wars which means most conflicts in the near future will likely be limited scale interventions. The US military is currently not trained or equipped to perform that role properly. Modernising the military and scrapping the obsolete and/or worthless weapons systems will save most of that budget reduction alone.

3) I have no idea how to solve the Israel-Palestine mess but one place to start would be peace talks chaired by, let's say, Jimmy Carter (who is near universally regarded as a fair and reasonable man). The US has the muscle to force Israel to abide by any reasonable compromise due to it's aid to Israel.

4) If Iran wants nuclear power AND are willing to accept UN nuclear inspections, let them have at it. While no-one wants to see Iran with a nuclear weapon (personally, I don't want to see anyone with nuclear weapons), they have a legal right to peacefully pursue nuclear energy.