Why I’m supporting Dean – The short answer
Dave Rogers asks, in a comment to my posting about canvassing for Dean, why I’m supporting the Gov. Here’s my reply:
If you matched my positions up with the candidates’ (see the WBUR vote by issue quiz), it’d come out pretty much a wash among all of them except Lieberman. So, although overall I prefer Dean’s stances, I’m not voting primarily on the issues. There are two other reasons I’m supporting Dean.
First, I think he has the best chance to beat Bush. There are clearly reasonable arguments about this and I have never made an accurate political prediction. But it still seems to me that we can’t win by competing for the center. We did that and “lost” last time. We need instead to energize the base and bring in new voters. I think Dean has the best chance of doing that.
Second, win or lose, I think Dean is transforming politics. He’s giving people hope. (Despite what the Republicans and the media say, hope outweighs anger in the Dean movement, IMO.) He’s breaking the mold of traditional broadcast politics. He’s genuinely committed to giving citizens a voice and letting us self-organize. I think we (the grassroots) are laying the groundwork for something new and important. So, even if Dean loses the nomination, I will be proud to have worked for him.
Since beating Bush is my number one priority, of course I will work for and contribute to the campaign of whomever the Dems nominate…although my ardor will be dampened if it’s Lieberman.
Some friends of mine are considering switching from Dean to Bush (!) because they doubt Dean’s commitment to Israel. They are especially exercised by Dean’s referring to members of Hamas as “soldiers.” In context, though, he was calling them soldiers in order to support Israel’s policy of assassinating them. I don’t see how this indicates any weakness in his support of Israel, although it was obviously stupid politically.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Me too, Dave.
I flunked the quiz, vis a vis Dean’s positions, but learned from it as well. Now I can better answer my sister’s question about whether I’m for Dean or his campaign.
The answer is “yes.”
I have followed your ongoing campaign activities in support of Dean with great interest and as a non-US citizen I can only commend your desire for regime change at home.
I wonder whether you have any idea how shocking your casual support for extra-judicial execution appears to people outside the USA and Israel? You probably have all manner of ways in which you can assimilate this shocking idea into your otherwise liberal thinking, but perhaps you forget the meaning of the words themselves.
The idea that Dean should “[seek] to clarify his views on the Middle East after being criticized for saying the United States should be evenhanded in the region” is just astonishing. Why would you not want to be even-handed?
For as long as people who should know better continue to fuel the fire of international terrrorism by abrogating their own principles when it comes to the Middle East, we will all be in danger. If you support “selective assasination” (and the munitions used by Israel are not particularly selective) and “pre-emptive strikes” in the Middle East then who cares whether it is Bush or Dean who wins. Presumably, you would also support the use of these approaches in your own country. How would that work?
I know this is a contentious issue and I hope you will forgfive the intrusion (no flame intended – I recognise this is a blind spot for US liberals), but these days we are all endangered by these issues.
Good luck with the campaigning and thanks for all your thought-provoking writings in 2003!
Lee, you’re confusing me with Dean. I don’t support the Israeli policy of assassination.
That’s a relief – I aparently mis-read your short comment on the subject – thanks for clarifying. I just hope that as he comes closer to chance of victory, Dean does not bow to the inevitable pressure to lock himself into the same old failed foreign policies under cover of reaffirming his support for Israel.
Lee has a good point. American support of Israel has often gone far beyond reason.
It actually raises another point that Dr. Dean will have to contend with — how to manage typical Democrat “special interests.” He’s been able to win the support of two major unions, and I’m all for unions, but no good politican can simply be a sop to unions — they don’t want what’s best for the country, just what’s best for themselves (see: steel manufacturers). If Dean is going to do what’s right, he’ll have to be willing to deny special interests there every desire.
Now that’s attitude about plane-crash news!
Too Bad To Be Hip
Too bad to be hip, they say, and I see it that way, too. there are not many men who do the things that we do. we wait on coal trains, and ration junk for later times. a penny for your thoughts, they say, and we put in two cents worth. we are too bad to be hip.
Once down and you?re out. The One Above laid out rules of gold. early rushers made it there, some found fools gold, but others made proverbs, too bad to be told. we know what we care to about taste and goodwill, but if we care we don?t say so, because The One Above gave us ample reason to be full of ourselves.
Waylaid and bamboozled priest Bob made his bed. we sleep through the troubles that fill up his head. He mentioned the error that we tremble upon. but it don’t matter for nothing if we keep to the middle of deliberate values when He comes screaming on down. we just stay inside if we are able, and don’t if we can’t, that’s all. we call Hyperion, by name and by law, when there is no holy gift of salvation, or brazen promise of faith, to fall back upon.
Money is too easy, or is it? we ask, already knowing the answer that presumes all the facts. ?Power, honey, is greater than the most comfortable truth,? she says. I for one, at least, believe her in this. We need love and money, because we can?t stay young. Thoughts think us through, and we think we think them, just think! and we believe it, because it justifies who we?ve become, and one knows full well all the trouble it took! just look at the children. we tell them to grow up. do we really mean that? look at the struggles. how many died again today? how many? and how many will burn in a tempestuous hell? oh, well.
Electronic machinations use particular configurations to establish connections within an atomic design. we play there. it helps us move. why else would nature be given to me and my kind? if not given, then taken, and reduced to waste and craft, for the asphyxiating boredom that is inevitable, so people occupy things for profit, and ratify agreements, and talk plain trash. We never say all that we mean, simply because we don?t know all that we mean, we just think we do, or pretend to, for the sake of identity, self-certainty, and political advantage.
In the morning the news is fresh and alive. it doesn?t matter what the stories say, though, only that it is the morning. that?s all. we love it. it burns off the night. that?s all. now we can continue to weave our great story of western civilization and emancipation and conflagration. or just hunt to eat. the women know that. were things any different before Sigmund Freud? no, not one silly iota, really.
and if I go crazy, this will be just proof of that. and if I become wealthy, then this will serve rather as proof of my fame. because there are no real things, nor pure thoughts, just unstructured times. things fade; they fail. and thoughts are tight shadows of their values in our brains. time cuts straight through what they all seem to be. even when we eat them, they still disappear, just like we all do eventually, too, in it. to some, this is a revolutionary view, but to others, I am just too bad to be hip.
David: just noticed I missed out the word “sorry” in my last post – I think I owe you an apology for jumping to conclusions….
Lee, you absolutely don’t owe me an apology.
thankyou
As a Jew who is also concerned about Dean’s commitment to Israel, I’m quite glad he’s starting referring to members of Hamas as “soldiers.” I disagree with them, but that doesn’t change the fact that I recognize that they are fighting for something they believe in, misguided and deluded as they may be, especially about the possibility of victory. I’d also like to see him stop referring to any of the Islamic soldiers as “terrorists”, Al Qaeda and any others, and start referring to them as “soldiers,” which is what they are. Calling them soldiers doesn’t mean you have to stop fighting them.
The Islamic soldiers haven’t done anything that soldiers from all other nations have done throughout the years. Wars have always been fought by attacking civilian populations. That’s nothing new. Sherman slashed and burned his way through the South during the Civil War, and it was all directed against civilians. So did Napoleon. So did Caesar. There are many more examples.
But I don’t think the issue here is whether Israel is right or not, at least not regarding the US election. The issue is Jewish support for Dean and the Democrats in general. Liberal Jews have traditionally been one of the Democratic stalwarts, and their support is very much needed now, financially and otherwise. And for the first time in a long time, many of them are leaning towards Bush. So it’s important that Dean make it clear that he’s not going to change what has been a long-standing Democratic position. (At least not until he’s actually in office.)
As far as “assassination” goes, I hate seeing anyone killed, but I really don’t understand why people disagree with this policy. It also has been a standard practice during war. (And the Israelis and Palestinians are definitely fighting a full on war now.) There was a plot to assassinate Hitler towards the end of WWII, and most people seem to think of those who did that as heroes. I certainly do. It depends on who you’re trying to assassinate. Are you saying they shouldn’t have tried? If assassinating someone who’s leading their country towards war and destruction stops the war, isn’t it better that that one person die than many innocent civilians, most of whom are usually children? No one likes it, but sometimes it’s the least of the possible evils.
Perhaps if we could get the viral meme that is religion out of global politics we could actually make some progress on issues like the “Middle East problem.” As it is, peace between the Israelies and Palestinians is impossible. Even if a majority of people on either side want it (which I’m not entirely sure is true), there are enough people on both sides of the line who do not want peace at all. They can and will prevent peace from ever occuring. They can and will kill to prevent it. They can and will die to prevent it.
It is my belief that these people’s views are in no small way based on religion. That is to say, based on archaic, superstitious, fact-denying world-views for which there isn’t the slightest shred of actual evidence.
People like George Bush are in it as well. it’s well known that Evangelical Christians in the United States are supporting Israel out of insane religious concerns (in addition to pandering to the Jewish vote, it seems). Religion and religious people holding the world hostage again. Standing in the way of justice and freedom and progress. What a surprise.
Wait a sec… Isn’t Dean Jewish? Don’t you think that might influence his policiy vis-a-vis Israel? Just a thought…
Mike, Dean immediately said that calling them soldiers was a mistake. The word is a land mine because many people think that “soldier” implies legitimacy whereas Hamas is a terrorist organization. There is actually an important disagreement here: Are Hamas and Al Qaeda military, terrorist or criminal organizations? How one responds to these organizations depends to a large degree on how one answers this. (Note: Of course one may come up with different answers for Hamas and Al Qaeda.]
As to why it’s not ok to assassinate enemies: 1. Israel is killing a bunch of innocents in the way that it’s going about it; 2. It legitimizes a policy that, if widely adopted, would make the world impossibly unstable, even if it caused some short-term good. 3. Similarly, it poisons the well so thoroughly that it makes it harder to get to the real aim of war: peace. IMO. I do see why it is such a tempting policy, though, and you certainly could devise situations in which I’d agree that assassination is the best course. To take the easy one: if Hitler could have been killed by an English sniper in 1941, I would have chipped in to buy him a scope. But assassination as a policy is a different matter.
Toss, no Dean is not Jewish. His wife is, and his children are and have been raised as Jews.