They never appear to define "The Left", but I believe that under that label they include everyone who opposes them. I believe advocates of that group label me "The Left", and thus find me necessary to ignore. Actually with my Southern Baptist, southern heritage, strong religious background...I would be the last they should label that way.
But Iraq changed things.
I believe a lot of those who are the nicer than Bush form of "those who push empire and the spreading of democracy."...are in think tanks and in one or two in particular.
The Right Web site has covered a lot of these groups. The one mentioned here is the Progressive Policy Institute, aka PPI.
Progressive Policy IntitutePlease note the tabs at the top. They share a website with the DLC. A partner group of theirs is the Third Way.
The Third WayI believe this is why our party is not any more eager to get out of Iraq than the Republicans. I believe they are in control. I believe they have the media on their side because war is profitable for corporations, and corporations in large part own the media.
I believe qualified candidates are kept out of races because they are not pro-spreading democracy...or to say it more harshly...not more pro-war. I believe things happened in the 04 primary, and perhaps in the other presidential races. If the power Democrats had wanted the votes counted....they would have been counted in a heartbeat.
I believe primary games were played and won by this group because the rest of us are not able to stop them....yet. The media on your side is a powerful tool.
Florida primary races manipulatedThe gist of that post is that anti-war, pro-choice candidates were booted out so those who were able to be groomed by the leadership were put in.
Here is some of the coverage at Right Web.
Right Web coverage of PPI“Don't look now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback—and not among the Republicans who have made it famous, but in the Democratic Party,” declared writer Jacob Heilbrunn in a May 28, 2006 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. In “Neocons in the Democratic Party.”
..."Concluded Heilbrunn: “It is amusing to see that at the very moment when hawkish realists are trying to extirpate the neocon credo in the Republican Party, it's being revived in the Democratic Party that first brought it to life.”
PPI, founded in 1989 by Marshall and Al From, is a project of the Third Way Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. As the think tank for the Democratic Leadership Council, the PPI says its mission “arises from the belief that America is ill-served by an obsolete left-right debate that is out of step with the powerful forces reshaping our society and economy.” PPI claims to advocate “a philosophy that adapts the progressive tradition in American politics to the realities of the information age and points to a ‘third way' beyond the liberal impulse to defend the bureaucratic status quo and the conservative bid to simply dismantle government.”
I agree it is no longer a left-right debate, but a debate between right and wrong and good and evil. Yes, good and evil. Invading and bombing the hell out of a country that never harmed us is evil.
More on their hawkish nature and their contempt toward "The Left", that ephemeral group that remains undefined.
In June 2006, PPI president Marshall opined in the Democratic Strategist that Democrats needed to “raid the red zone” and win over Republican voters. “Security will continue to dominate national politics for the foreseeable future. It is axiomatic that the American people are not likely to give power to a party they do not trust to defend their values and keep them safe,” Marshall wrote. “Democrats therefore must close the national security confidence gap that has dogged them since the era of Vietnam protests. This requires reclaiming, not abandoning, the party's venerable tradition of muscular liberalism—the Truman-Kennedy legacy that helped America win the Cold War. Updated for new threats, it offers the best answer to the challenge of Islamist extremism today.” Marshall suggests three specific tactics: “We must put security first—and mean it … Second, Democrats must convince the public that we are ready to take over the fight against Islamist extremism … Third, Democrats must recognize that since 9/11, patriotism has become the most potent values issue in U.S. politics” (Democratic Strategist, June 22, 2006).
And the Left:
According to its press release, PPI's security strategy “takes issue with left-wing activists who routinely call for deep cuts in military spending, reflexively oppose the use of force, and embrace an anti-trade, anti-globalization agenda that would damage the U.S. economy and condemn developing nations to perpetual poverty.” From the report itself: “Progressive internationalism occupies the vital center between the neo-imperial right and the non-interventionist left, between a view that assumes that our might always makes us right and one that assumes that because America is strong it must be wrong.”
There is one more paragraph in this very long article, one that especially concerns me.
In a January 2004 article titled “Stay and Win in Iraq,” Marshall took a blithely nationalist view of body counts in a war in which most of the dead are Iraqi civilians. “Coalition forces still face daily attacks but the body count tilts massively in their favor,” wrote Marshall, a leading voice for the liberal hawks in the United States (Blueprint, January 8, 2004).
The Iraqi dead are seemingly unimportant. I think the same ones who were hawkish for the Iraq invasion and bombing are alive and well in our party. I fear we might only get words to pacify us, and no action on stopping the war. Because it is after all what they wanted.
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