"Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting for the people of West Virginia," Senator Obama said today. "For what folks in this state have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students. We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American - by giving tax breaks to working families, offering relief to struggling homeowners, reversing President Bush's cuts to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever. That's what we could be doing instead of fighting this war."
There is nothing remotely transformational about this. Instead, it is part of the long-standing Democratic habit of promising a laundry list of benefits to discrete voting and issue groups. It is technocratic, transactional politics, utterly lacking in the broader argument that large-scale military spending of the sort we have seen in Iraq has led to 5% of our national economy being sunk into ventures that provide virtually no return on that investment or broader benefit to Americans. In fact, part of Obama's argument is that military spending on Iraq should be redirected to other types of military spending:
As President, Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq and redirect our resources toward pressing domestic and national security priorities. Ending the war in Iraq will help pay for Obama's priorities for the country, which include:(...)
Rebuilding our military capability by increasing the number of soldiers, marines, and special forces troops, and insist on adequate training and time off between deployments;
We need to reduce our spending on Iraq so that we can increase the size of our military? Pardon me for asking, but what exactly is the purpose of increasing the size of our military if wars like Iraq don't make any sense? What does it accomplish except to inefficiently suck money out of the economy and guard against an impending Canadian invasion force?
The broader point that needs to me made is not that Iraq specifically has prevented money from being funneled directly to your specific demographic group, but that excessive military spending in places like Iraq drains massive amounts of money from our nation as a whole. The Iraq war is our major national project right now, equivalent to the Apollo program or the New Deal. Do we want that as our national project? I don't think many Americans would agree. Do we want a series of transactions to specific demographic groups and issues to be our national project? Even if is vastly preferable to making the Iraq war our national project, the truth is that isn't very appealing either. We need a different framing around what we want our national project to be, and we need a Democratic leader who is willing to make that case to the country as a whole.
Tell me that instead of the Iraq war, maintaining a massive global military deployment or doling out a series of narrowly targeted government programs, we are going to do other great things as a nation. Tell me that we are going to have a New Deal for America. Tell me we are going to build a Great Society. Tell me that we are going to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Tell me that we are going to win and end the cold war. Hell, even tell me that we are going to secure freedom around the world, because at least that is a national project that sounds worthwhile. These are the sort of transformative proposals we need from Democrats, and right now we just don't have any. Technocratic, transactional politics just is not as appealing, and ultimately secures a non-ideological mandate and a lack of purpose for the country as a whole. Until we offer just such a sense of purpose, we will never complete the progressive realignment towards which the progressive movement has been building for nearly a decade. Fighting for working families, homeowners, and Social Security recipients, however noble, just doesn't cut it.
Update: For further context, here is the rest of the linked article, starting from the point were the above quote ends:
As President, Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq and redirect our resources toward pressing domestic and national security priorities. Ending the war in Iraq will help pay for Obama's priorities for the country, which include:
Keeping the sacred trust with our veterans;
Rebuilding our military capability by increasing the number of soldiers, marines, and special forces troops, and insist on adequate training and time off between deployments;
Covering all Americans and reducing health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family;
Putting college within reach by providing a $4,000 refundable tax credit available at the time of enrollment;
Creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance existing federal transportation investments that will provide at least two million new U.S. jobs;
Providing a middle class tax cut of up to $1,000 for working families;
Strengthening retirement security and protect Social Security; and
Investing in a clean energy future to wean the U.S. off of foreign oil and to lead the world against the threat of global climate change
That is absolutely a laundry list. Further, there is nothing broader under which the list is framed. What is the overarching idea, here? What is the theme? What is the project? All I can see is a list of discrete legislative ideas that are not connected in any overt manner. Give me the theme, the purpose, and the connection. As long as we lack that, we are not providing the country with any particular direction.
Update 2: For even more context, here is the entire speech. It is basically a really, really long list of things we could do instead of continue the Iraq war. As in a 20 minute list. And there just isn't anything connecting it all:
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