Open Left - Right to respond

Right to Respond: Nina Hachigian on IMF Funding

Chris Bowers — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:30:00 GMT

As per our Right to Respond policy here on Open Left, here is Nina Hachigian's response to my Tuesday article You Can't Be Serious.

In Defense Of My Views On IMF Funding
Chris Bowers took major exception to an article I recently wrote supporting US funding for the IMF. I was motivated to write the article by the neocon rants equating money for the IMF to money down the drain - despite the fact that the IMF was bailing out countries that the US would certainly not let fail, at a fraction of the cost of us trying to do it alone. As I wrote, that is an argument that I don't consider very serious.

But some progressives in Congress also wanted to tie the IMF funding to specific changes in how the IMF conducts its business, with an eye toward more sensitivity to poor countries and greater transparency. I am very sympathetic to these goals, and this argument IS serious.

I think we should give the new Administration a chance to engage, however. It is sometimes hard to remember, but we are coming off of eight years in which the US disparaged and belittled multilateral organizations and often ignored them. The Administration now, wisely, wants to reengage. From the IMF, the US wants not only to continue to save countries from bankruptcy, but also to become a forum for examining China's undervalued currency. In pursuing a broader agenda, the Administration can and has pushed for reforms, with some success, and we should give that approach some time to work. It shows more respect for a multilateral process that involves many countries than does categorical US demands. Moreover, if we attach hefty conditions, other countries might too, and that will complicate the whole process greatly.

Second, we are still in the throes of a once-in-a-century economic crisis. The IMF has already relaxed some of its conditions to ensure that it can act quickly and not cause additional social harm. But I fear that some of the new requirements that the members of congress want, like requiring Parliamentary approval for loan packages, could slow the process down too much at this juncture, and, in the end, cause more harm.

Finally, the US has been pushing hard for underdeveloped countries to get more of a say in IMF decisions. That pressure has had resulted in a marginal increase in voice for the underrepresented, with the promise of more to come. The answer to the problem of badly designed loan packages for poor countries is for poor countries themselves to have a greater hand in decision-making.

This article is cross-posted from the Wonk Room.

Michael Lind Responds

Matt Stoller — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:52:39 GMT

Earlier today, I echoed a claim by Stirling Newberry that New America Foundation fellow Michael Lind had lifted his work on the monetary order's relationship to the rise of constitutional orders, in particular the moment we are in right now which is being dubbed the fourth American republic. Lind wrote me a response, and asked me to publish it. I've retracted my blog post, apologized to Lind, and asked Stirling to respond as to the substance of his claims. It's really not my fight and I shouldn't have tried to adjudicate, I was just hoping to bring attention to Stirling's claim, which you can find here.

Lind's response is below.

Dear Matt Stoller:
I've been alerted to the fact that on your blog you have relayed a false charge that I plagiarized my recent Salon article on the dawn of the fourth American republic:
It's worth noting that Michael Lind is plagiarizing Stirling Newberry's Fourth Republic concept, which Stirling wrote about for years while the Republicans were ascendant. Lind is a so-called 'radical centrist' at the New America Foundation, so I suppose it's not a surprise that he's swinging with the times and stealing the intellectual capital of a progressive. That's how things work in DC.
Before I read your nasty and groundless attack on me a few minutes ago, I had never heard of Stirling Newberry, just as I had never heard of you (I generally don't read partisan opinion blogs). According to the Wikipedia entry on Mr. Newberry, he is a composer who writes a political blog. It appears that he has never published any articles or books on political issues, only entries on his own blog and musical scores.
Mr. Stoller's Wikipedia entry cites a blog entry of February 22, 2005, entitled "The Rise of Rove's Republic." I assume that it was from this that you and he claim that I stole my ideas about American history without acknowledging his priority.
Not only was I unaware of the existence of Mr. Newberry and his blog until my attention was drawn to your piece half an hour ago, but I set out my own scheme of three American republics in my book The Next American Nation, which was published nearly fourteen years ago in 1995 but substantially written by 1993. I then used a variant of it again in the book I co-authored with Ted Halstead, The Radical Center, and yet again in a history of the American social contract published by the New America Foundation last spring.
The idea of discussing American history in terms of successive republics is inspired by France, as educated people ought to know. It was not original with me back in 1995. Bruce Ackerman had used his own scheme earlier, and before that Theodore Lowi had spoken of two republics. As I am scrupulous about giving credit where credit is due, I cited both of them in my Salon article, before setting forth my own version of the concept, which differs from theirs.
I would be pleased to give Mr. Newberry, the never-published composer-blogger, credit for yet another variant of the scheme, if his proved interesting, on the grounds that I had never heard of him and had therefore overlooked his ideas on the subject.
However, instead of complaining that I overlooked him and asking me politely to cite him next time, he has accused me of lifting the idea from him. You, without doing the basic research that an honorable person would do before putting up an accusation on the Internet, then repeated the charge and amplified it by including a groundless attack on the New America Foundation, which I co-founded.
It appears that Mr. Newberry's first mention in his obscure blog of the idea of a fourth republic came a decade after I developed the idea at length in The Next American Nation in 1995. I would have to be a time traveller, to steal from Mr. Stirling in 2005 and then go back in time to plagiarize him in 1995 and 2001.
Unless Stirling Newberry claims to have come up with the concept in 1991-93, when I was researching and writing The Next American Nation, and can prove a) that he had published the idea and b) that he published it in a venue that was well-known enough that I could be expected to have encountered it, his charge of plagiarism cannot hold up.
While Mr. Stirling's blog is obscure, The Next American Nation is very well-known. It was a New York Times Notable Book and has been in print continously since 1995. It is assigned every semester in universities around the country, and I've been told of two dissertations that were based on it. So it would appear that if anyone is to be accused of plagiarism, it is the opinionated composer with a vanity weblog, Stirling Newberry.
But I won't accuse him of plagiarism, because I don't know the circumstances, and for all I know he was unaware of my extensive use of the concept from 1995 onward and got the idea not from me but from Bruce Ackerman, or Theodore Lowi, or the ultimate source, France itself. Unlike Mr. Newberry and you, I don't make false accusations against people.
I'd appreciate it if you would post this letter on your blog. I've never read your blog before, but I promise to do so, to see if you are honorable enough to retract this malicious accusation, now that its falsity has been demonstrated.
Sincerely yours,
Michael Lind

For Netroots Platforms

netrootsplatform — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:23:30 GMT

Last week, Chris Bowers wrote a essay, Against Progressive Platforms, arguing that Platforms in general and the Netroots Platform in particular, were pointless.

This response was created by 16 members of The Netroots Community using the democratic, collaborative writing tools at MixedInk.com. For more about how it was created, see here. It can be republished only if accompanied by this note.

Chris, thanks for your post. There's a few things in it that we'd like to address - and we appreciate that your "right of response" policy allows us to do that directly at Open Left.

You object to platforms in general as an outmoded 20th century construct, with no legal standing, that no one pays attention to and that government will not follow. Those are valid points - for the old 20th century style of platform building. It has, indeed, traditionally been a top-down process, conducted in smoky rooms, behind closed doors, by a select group of anointed party leaders.

But the impetus for this platform was anything but totalitarian. The Netroots Platform is not a manifesto, not something we pledge allegiance to, and definitely not the last word. Just a democratically achieved document that provides those who read it some idea of what a few score participatory democrats who thought hard about the subject and debated it among themselves think the Democratic Party ought to stand for. It embodies the potential of so many of the netroots positives you cited. It was creative, innovative, pluralistic, elastic, decentralized, and completely organic. We're not carrying cattle prods to keep anyone in line. We are hardly armband-wearers portrayed in your post.
We do see the value in having a progressive platform, if it's crafted in the right way. While true that "progressives" are just a loosely connected group of people with different perspectives, passions, and ideas, there is clearly a unifying theme. Having a "platform" is like an organization having a mission statement; to the extent possible, it puts everyone on the same page. It doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with every issue, of course. But by having a unified voice and a clearly articulated position on a number of issues, we are better able to advocate a shared vision and hold our representatives accountable to it.

What was exciting about this process was that it depended on real participation and tapped the wisdom of a disperse crowd. Anyone was able to submit a plank from scratch, edit existing planks, remix the best ideas from different planks, and then rate them up or down. While some planks were weak, or even missing--we agree completely that the final output would have been better with more time and broader participation--the problem was not in the idea of having a platform at all. There is no doubt this would have been better and stronger with more participation--and with YOUR participation! If there's something you or anyone else didn't like, you had the power to come on in and fix it. If the community agreed with you, your version would have been chosen. The system is grassroots and 100% community driven.

We're disappointed that you missed the big picture. 165 people sat down after work and on weekends for the thankless task of writing policy from scratch. This is exactly what democracy can and should look like. We would have hoped you could highlight the enormous potential for citizen involvement in policy making that this demonstrated, rather than emphasizing a single line from a huge, multi-pronged policy document that you didn't agree with 100%.

Many people have said they were sorry they did not participate at the time, or that they, like you, would have added or edited further. Rather than nipping a promising collaborative endeavor in its tender bud, we are open to continuing the project, perhaps in a slightly different shape. We welcome the opportunity to hear from you and your readers about how to improve this process next time, and will pay close attention to the comments. We hope you'll join us on our next adventure in people powered governance!

Sustenance For The Progressive Soul

Chris Bowers — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:39:20 GMT

Each of the last two days on Open Left, we have had a fun and engaging conversation about a couple of possible progressive cultural shifts. The conversations, with excellent comments, were "The Rise Of The Non-Fictional Aesthetic" on Thursday, and "More On The Shifting Aesthetic," on Friday. The two main topics of discussion were a possible shift in the aesthetic qualities of progressive art this decade, and also the apparent shift in cultural focus of progressives away from institutions like academia and literature and toward institutions like direct activism and political media. Emptywheel provided a great article on the discussion, too.

All of this discussion was started by Jennifer Nix in a Huffington Post article entitled "Resurrecting Literature: Sustenance for the Progressive Soul." As part of an occasional tradition here at Open Left, Jennifer has penned another piece to continue the discussion, as part of our Right to Respond policy for progressive organizations and individuals.

In the extended entry, you can find Jennifer's latest musings on the subject. It is well worth a read.

For the past few weeks, ever since reading Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project, I've been ruminating on how to get artists and progressive activists engaged in a public dialogue. It seemed to me that while these two communities are very much part of the same continuum, over the past eight years there has been a kind of damaging divergence between art and life, for many progressive activists. I guess this thinking grew out of my personal experience in abandoning my own reading and writing of fiction for political activism when Bush invaded Iraq in my name. But, over time, I've also heard the stories of many other activists who turned away from art and literature as well, in favor of what they felt could have more immediate effect.

I wrote about how reading Hemon's book resurrected my belief in the power of literature earlier this week. For that piece, I also interviewed Hemon, and that discussion further opened my mind to what a resurgence of serious literature--reading and writing--could do for our wounded collective soul and our national imagination. Great literature creates a kind of empathy with other people's lives, with all its emotional, intellectual and philosophical complexities, in a way that no polemic or journalism, memoir--or warp-speed blogging--can do. Lazarus rocked my world because it magically weaves historical fact, autobiography, journalism, fictional narrative, and real and imagined characters into a work of art that draws haunting parallels between the anti-anarchist hysteria of 1908 Chicago, the violent nationalism and wars in the Balkans, and America's post-9/11xenophobia and politics of fear. More amazingly, it helped me to feel the struggles, as I sit here in lilly-white Marin County, of not only of the book's main characters, Lazarus Averbuch and Vladimir Brik, but of every Muslim, Mexican or dark-skinned immigrant--or citizen--in America today.

Chris Bowers reacted to my HuffPost piece here on Thursday, with his own tale of leaving literature behind for activism, but in doing so, I believe he missed the point of what I was saying. Chris interpreted his shift as being indicative of a rise of the non-fictional aesthetic, because--and I'm paraphrasing here--in the midst of the Bush assault, we can no longer ignore reality and spend our valuable time making up stories. Hemon had this response:
If it is true that eight years of crimes and depredation that have been inflicted upon the largely complicit, patriotic and complacent American populace lead to a greater need for "reality" than the ascendence of Reality TV fits into the picture perfectly. People on the left (and all over the place) are so disgusted with the ineffectuality of artifice that they had no choice but to turn to Project Runway or Big Brother, those beacons of non-fictional aesthetic...

Here is my guess: at the times of great societal changes there is a breakdown of reality-based aesthetics and a move toward the liberating properties of imagination. Witness the Romantics, or Russian art around the time of the Revolution, or Czech literature around 1968. Inversely, the powers-to-be insist on the unimpeachable value of self-evident reality. Scores of Eastern European writers were persecuted because, the accusation was, they had no respect for the reality constructed and maintained by the oppressive regimes. That is to say, they did not believe the lies and proposed different ways to interpret reality or, often, attacked its alleged self-evident qualities.

The Bush administration's attitude has always been that they can construct the most outrageous realities and then sell them as self-evident, much like Project Runway. That is what Karl Rove's famous remark dismissing journalists as a "reality-based community" referred to. Rove was--and still is--a reality creator, not a reality-interpreter. They have also taken over our language--I cannot say the word "freedom" any longer without retching, and "the war on terror" gives me hives. I cannot stand "freedom" and "the American people"--put me on the terror-watch list right now! The ascendence of "reality-based" aesthetic is not a form of resistance to the ideological and human atrocities orchestrated by the Bush regime. On the contrary, it is a symptom of the pressure against civic engagement which requires imagination and sovereignty of the mind. Citizens read books about other people. Subjects flip through channels and read about people like themselves because they cannot imagine a life different from this one. They cannot see that it does not have to be this way, that this is not the only available reality.

Which is all to say that if you want to organize a demonstration or establish a third political party or influence a legislation, reading a novel, let alone writing it, is not the way to go. But if you want to regain the sovereignty of your imagination and the right to resist the imposition of self-evident realities, if you want to restore the democracy of language, then you would be well advised to skip watching reality TV and read some novels. Say Jose Saramango's Blindness, which tells you a lot about the breakdown of a civic society, or Edward P. Jones's The Known World which tells you how the crime at the heart of a society corrupts everyone in it, or Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Way, which tells you how one carries history inside one's body. And once you have read these books, you go and kick some lying, oppressive, reactionary ass.

In my HuffPost piece, I was not arguing that we must "re-incorporate the fictional narrative back into our lives." I disagree with Chris's notion that all fiction involves an "inward-looking, confessional, disengaged, self-reflexive aesthetic of depression," but, like EmptyWheel wrote eloquently in this discussion, I also believe "fiction" is a very relative term (as does Hemon). Here's her take:
Human beings construct narratives. All narratives--whether they tell a story about an uppity black man running for President or about a prisoner who exacts the ultimate revenge--involve a great deal of artifice and linguistic craft. Further, the book Factual Fictions makes a compelling argument that the Anglo concept of "fiction" is a culturally contingent concept that arose out of a need to distinguish between "news"--that was subject to libel laws--and "fiction"--that could say whatever it wanted about people in power, so long as those people in power were not "real." Similar legally driven formulations of "fiction" exist in other cultures, and not every culture makes the distinction between "non-fiction" and "fiction." In other words, the terms "fiction" and "non-fiction" are really just convenient classifications for stories that helps people sort out library shelves and legal battles. Fundamentally, narratives are still narratives, which are necessary tools for the human creature to make sense of and interact with her world.

The point I was hoping to make in my HuffPost piece was that as activists, we must not lose sight of art or its value to the work we do and the sustenance and inspiration it can provide. It's not that we have to follow the "activist path" or the "artist path" either, which was another point that my conversation with Hemon drove home for me. We can do both. That realization made me want to have these issues discussed in public forums, particularly on the progressive political blogs, because I believe bringing more art into our mix will have a profound effect on our individual and collective imaginations.
In fact, I now believe that in much the same way that the progressive blogs have opened up the national discourse and increased civic and political engagement, these same blogs can help to usher in a very necessary resurgence of serious literature in this country.

During the Gilded Age, in America and Europe, newspapers ran short stories and serialized novels. The greatest novelists of the time, including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, Mark Twain, William Thackeray and Joseph Conrad published their works of fiction in installments in daily newspapers. Because this format was more affordable, people outside of the upper class had access to books for the first time. The publishing phenomenon sparked a growth not only in the number of people desiring to read, but also in literacy rates.

With newspapers cutting book sections and reviews-and entire news operations shrinking by the day-progressive political blogs could help to integrate literature back into American life. We know the value of pulling people out of their consumer-driven television comas, and getting them reading, informed and connected. Bringing literature back into people's everyday lives will provide sustenance for the progressive soul and lead to more hope, engagement and action. Hemon is hopeful about this possibility as well:

Somehow, somewhere along the way thinking while reading became undesirable, a lot of readers started reading for comfort, not for doubt...To me, this is at some level definitely connected with the decrease in civic agency--people are afraid to think for themselves and then voice those thoughts in a public space. There is a loss of intellectual self-confidence all across the board, for capitalism prefers a non-thinking consumer to a thinking citizen. The restoration of public space in blogosphere, I think, alleviates that problem. I hope it can also provide space for a resurgence of serious literature.

There are many ways this could work. Certainly, political blogs that have book salons could be discussing more novels (I've seen a few discussed here and there, but I'm talking about a sustained effort). Political blogs could partner with literary blogs to have online forums to discuss the books and to dream up possible collaborations inspired by these novels. Progressive blogs could also serialize novels and run short stories. Literary blogs are doing some of this, but we need more cross-pollination between these disparate corners of the blogosphere. Perhaps literary blogs could be invited to join political blog communities, much like Jane Hamsher has brilliantly done at Firedoglake, with her stable of political blogs, to increase audience and amplify voices. Guest fiction editors from literary blogs, and literary critics from magazines, could introduce more literature on politics blogs, and guest political editors could introduce lit-blog readers to more political reporting and activism. Mixing it up will most certainly lead to new readers for both political and lit-blogs, and could help to democratize literature in American life once again.
If you have a political blog, and would like start featuring fiction, contact me via LiteraryOutpost. I can start you off with The Lazarus Project and can offer excerpts and art to run on your blog. I can also put you in touch with some literary blogs if you'd like to start a dialogue or partnership of your own. Let's open up the public space for serious literature again. It will help to build bigger blog communities, but more importantly, it will further awaken the country's imagination to new and better--and possible!--realities.

Won't that be refreshing after eight years of Bush?

People On The Ground Know What They Want

Arshad Hasan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:51:27 GMT

And we listen to those people.

Earlier, Matt called out Democracy For America on why we endorsed Christine Jennings. Here's why - Democracy for America is a bottom-up organization. We have a unique endorsement process which starts with progressive activists on the ground. DFA members in Christine Jennings' district have been clamoring for an endorsement and we respect our members and believe they know what's best.
When we've talked to those grassroots activists, they talk about how engaged and involved Christine is; she comes out for meetings, events, and really listens to and respects people. They talk about the work she's done the last few years on election integrity - an issue of great importance in the district. In fact, one of our statewide leaders, Susan Smith, talked about how she's become much more of a fan of Christine's since the last election. I talked to Kindra Muntz, one of our in-district leaders, and she characterized Christine as a compassionate listener and a real fighter. I trust Susan and Kindra. I trust our local leaders on the ground. Those leaders look to DFA and to our endorsement process to give a powerful voice to on-the-ground progressive grassroots activists.

DFA members in Florida's 13th Congressional District know what type of candidate they want a whole lot better than anyone else. Trusting our members is what makes DFA so powerful and unique. It is why we backed candidates like Donna Edwards in Maryland, Jerry McNerney in California, and Deval Patrick in Massachusetts.

Christine Jennings is a strong progressive candidate who will work on the issues that motivated our members to get involved in her campaign in the first place: ending the War in Iraq, providing health care to all Americans, and resolving the climate crisis. Christine is running against a knuckle-dragging Republican, Vern Buchanan, who I can assure you will not work to advance a progressive agenda.

The question is not why did DFA endorse her campaign, but how could we not?

--Arshad Hasan
Executive Director, Democracy for America

A Defense of Obama's Position on Private Military Contractors

Matt Stoller — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:46:42 GMT

This piece is written by Laura A. Dickinson, Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law It it titled 'Regulating Private Military and Security Contractors'.

I want to thank Matt for allowing me to respond to his recent post concerning private military contractors (and in particular Sen. Obama's position on regulating such contractors).

I am a law professor who has studied these issues for some time. An article I have published on the subject can be found here, my recent Senate testimony on contracting is here, and my forthcoming book, Outsourcing War and Peace (Yale Univ. Press) also addresses these questions.

Matt took Sen. Obama to task for focusing on regulating private security contractors rather than banning them outright. Indeed, Matt went so far as to write, sarcastically: "Yes, let's regulate mercenaries. Awesome." His comments raise important questions about how progressives should approach the issue of military outsourcing and what the truly "progressive" position is.
I can tell you from my study that regulation is desperately needed. Right now there are more contractors than troops in Iraq, which is an enormous shift in the way we project our power overseas, at least as compared to how we've done it in the last fifty years. It's not clear precisely how many of them are authorized to use force, in tasks such as providing security or conducting interrogations. But estimates of the number of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan range from 10,000 to 30,000. And we've seen from recent reports that contractors are committing abuses, but for the most part are escaping punishment or accountability. There have been numerous high-profile cases in which contractors reportedly used excessive force, from the contract interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison who supervised the troops who sexually humiliated and otherwise abused detainees, to the Blackwater security guards, who, working under a contract to protect State Department diplomats, fired into a crowd of civilians in Baghdad's Nisour square. There have also been numerous instances in which contractors have reportedly overcharged the government (and therefore taxpayers). Also, because there is so little transparency (only now are the agencies developing a system to actually count all the contractors in a unified way), we don't have sufficient information about the problems that might be arising on the ground.

The regulatory approach could (and should) take many forms:

1. Legal Regulation

This should include expanding the power of our federal courts to criminally punish contractors who commit abuses overseas. Right now, there is some ambiguity as to whether the law covers contractors like the Blackwater guards from the incident last fall who were working for the State Department. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) Expansion Act--which passed in the House , and which Sen. Obama is championing in the Senate, would close this gap. It would also go some distance toward improving enforcement, by creating in-theater teams of FBI agents to investigate cases and mandating some reporting to Congress. I think we should go even further, requiring DOJ to set up a dedicated office devoted to prosecuting contractors with the requirement to report regularly to Congress (right now, the authority is fragmented throughout the U.S. attorney's offices, weakening oversight and political incentives to prosecute).

2. Reforming the contracts and increased governmental oversight

The contracts themselves should say more about specific human rights provisions, training, and so on. We also need to have a sufficient number of trained, qualified governmental monitors to oversee them, and we should government personnel embedded with the contractors. Moreover, the agencies need a more unified approach so Congress can better do its oversight job. At the time of the Blackwater incident from last fall, for example, State and DOD had different rules on the use of force for security contractors. State did not (as DOD has long done) require its contractors to aim in the direction of the threat when they were faced with a threat that allowed them to use force.

3. Transparency and increased 3d party monitoring

Transparency is a huge issue. If the State Department can report annually on the human rights abuses of countries around the world, it should be required to report regularly not only on the number of contractors but on how many incidents have occurred in which contractors have fired a weapon or injured a person, and whether this was an excessive use of force. Congress did recently expand whistleblower protection for contractor employees, which should help, but Congress should require the State Department and DOD to provide such reports. Also, there's room for 3d party NGOs and other groups to do more monitoring and rating of firms, which they could do better if there were more transparency.

4) Evaluation of waste/cost savings

No one knows if contracting saves taxpayer money, and there's lots of evidence to suggest it doesn't. We need to evaluate this. Legislation sponsored by Senator Webb would create a Commission to study precisely this issue (though President Bush issued one of his infamous signing statements when he signed the bill that would create the Commission).

Sen. Obama, as noted above, has been in the forefront of the fight to extend legal regulation over contractors. This strikes me as a strongly progressive and absolutely necessary step. So, should he be faulted because he does not go farther and call for banning security contractors, in particular, outright? I think not, for two reasons:

First, the issue of banning security contractors is more complicated than one might suppose, since, if we want to begin the drawdown of troops in Iraq we're likely going to need them even more, at least in the short and medium-term. Also, I think progressives might conceivably support limited use of security contractors, particularly if those contractors have sufficient training and oversight. Indeed, human rights and humanitarian organizations regularly must use security contractors in conflict zones. In addition, limited use of security contractors might enable more effective relief operations in humanitarian crises, peacekeeping operations, and so on. For interrogators, on the other hand, I think it's questionable whether we would want to use contractors in any circumstances. Thus, we might profit from a more nuanced approach that focuses on specific areas where contracting is particularly problematic rather than rushing to the conclusion that they are always to be rejected.

Second, even if, in the end, you think that at least some forms of outsourcing should be declared off-limits does not mean that taking regulatory steps is not also absolutely necessary and a progressive move. Indeed, I think that only by building a consensus for reining in private security contractors will we even begin to move in the direction of banning their use altogether. In any event military privatization is not going away for the foreseeable future, so I think Obama should be applauded, not faulted, for at least seeking to respond to that reality.

On Foreign Policy Coverage

Matt Stoller — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:47:30 GMT

I wrote two pieces on foreign policy and politics (here and here) about John Edwards senior foreign policy advisor and Truman National Security Project principal Michael Signer. The gist of the piece was about how foreign policy wonks need to get more respectful towards politics, and vice vera. Signer responded on Democracy Arsenal, and has kindly allowed me to cross-post his piece here as part of a 'Right to respond'.

An essay I wrote in the Washington Post on Sunday about foreign policy coverage during this campaign has provoked a wide range of interesting and occasionally bewildering responses, from Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, AJ Rossmiller, Ilan Goldenberg, and Matt Stoller.

I will get to them in a moment, but first wanted to say that there was an extremely heartening sequence in the MSNBC debate in Cleveland last night. Tim Russert asked both candidates tough questions about Dmitri Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's handpicked successor as president.

As I'm still involved in the race in some ways, I won't comment on the particular merits of each answer, but the exercise proved my original point-when the media engage in a serious way in probing candidates on foreign policy, they can push the candidates to reveal ways they think and qualities they would manifest as commander-in-chief. I've included an excerpt at the end of this post.

Now, for the debate about coverage. Ezra, Matt, and A.J. all had approving, thoughtful posts both appraising the depth of this disaster and trying to explain its causes a little better. Ezra observed a lack of thoughtful, in-depth journalistic coverage of policy in general. Matt said we lack Krugman-esque journalists working on foreign policy.

This is exactly the constructive path we ought to take, and I just hope that some members of the MSM get in the game.

But then there were a couple of posts that took a different path-toward a blame-the-victim pattern that attempted to blame campaigns for the media's failure to cover their foreign policy proposals. I'd like to talk about this because I think it's actually a really instructive pressure point in this debate, especially for the blogs who are supposed to be keeping the MSM honest.

It seems to have begun with Matt Stoller, who has written two posts now-one intemperate and a little bizarre, the second a little more thoughtful and constructive. In the first, here's what he writes:

Here's what Signer writes.
This time around, the three top Democratic candidates all proposed assertive ideas for tackling major problems in roughly the same time frame. In April, May and June respectively, Obama, Edwards and Clinton all gave major speeches on national security. Obama called for "building a 21st-century military." Edwards proposed building a "mission-focused military." Clinton called to "rebuild our strength and widen and deepen [the military's] scope."
You'd think that journalists would do a comparative analysis of what the three candidates had proposed for the U.S. military in the coming decade; what they could do, practically; and what the speeches might predict about national security during their presidencies. But no.

No, Signer, that's what YOU think journalists should do, because you enjoy comparative analysis of bureaucratic sounding language that few outside of military think tanks understand. What political journalists cover is politics, and they don't do a particularly good job. That's obvious. That's been obvious for years. Why you run your foreign policy discussions as if they do cover substantive issues in depth is the question I have. The media's problems are the media's problems, but they should not obscure the fact that 'major serious policy addresses' are terrible forums to communicate major serious policy ideas, and that progressive foreign policy elites just don't tend to deal with politics or organizing or engaging with the public itself in a serious sustained fashion.
It's time that Signer look himself in the mirror and recognize that politics matters. If he or someone like him is not sitting in the room where the decisions about TV, direct mail, and organizing are made, then no one in the press will take his foreign policy addresses seriously. And you can blame the press if you want, but if 97% of a campaign budget is going towards something other than communicating foreign policy ideas to the public, then what exactly is being done to fix this problem?

What in the world is Stoller talking about?

Let's set aside the ad hominem tone (would looking at myself in the mirror really solve any of these problems?) and get to some facts about the interrelationship between the policy and political sides of a campaign.

I suspect my role as Edwards' foreign policy advisor was similar to my counterparts on the other campaigns. I was on our 8 a.m. daily message calls; I worked on statements on highly political subjects, like the Congressional authorization of Iraq spending bills, or the Iran Revolutionary Guard vote; I worked with our political and field folks on constituency efforts that fell squarely into the foreign policy and national security area (examples would include working with the veterans community on our health care proposals and working with the Armenian-American community on language about Turkey); and I was consulted on our direct mail and other paid media.

We also did a lot on the campaign that I would think would be "political" even in Stoller's estimation. We strongly opposed Hillary Clinton's vote to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and included this during the closing months of 2007 in almost everything Senator Edwards did in the early states.

Along these lines, we also saw the need to provide a substantive alternative to this Iran approach-so Senator Edwards delivered an address proposing an entirely new approach to Iran in Iowa City on November 5 titled "Learning the Lessons of Iraq: A New Direction on Iran."

This was very political. Senator Edwards was frequently confronting Senator Clinton on what he saw as a major foreign policy blunder, as was Senator Obama.

Again, you could have heard a pin drop in the mainstream media. We did see a piece in the New York Times' Caucus blog by Christine Hauser, but it basically just recounted the speech without any research or analysis.

So, in sum, I just don't think you can blame the campaigns-they are all trying as hard as they can to make foreign policy a political issue.

But there's a deeper problem. Foreign policy does not, empirically, and should not, normatively, conform to the simplistic "politics" that Stoller seems to want it to, and that's for a good reason. At base, when candidates offer foreign policy proposals in a campaign, they are binding themselves in the future -- they are making commitments. For this reason, foreign policy is less relevant as an index of the back-and-forth of a campaign -- the "politics" -- and is more about the candidate's attempt to win an argument about being the best candidate for commander-in-chief.

As I wrote in my original article, foreign policy proposals can tell you a lot about a candidate:

Even if candidates fail to implement them in office, the proposals they put forth during a campaign are a reflection of their courage (or lack thereof), their intellectual depth, their fluency in difficult subject matter and their knowledge of history.

My argument is that because the candidates - on their own - do tons of foreign policy, the media ought to use these proposals as a platform to explore the candidates themselves, and that this the media's role and responsibility. Stoller, on the other hand, seems to be saying that, from the campaign's perspective, politics ought to come before the policy, and that if it doesn't, the campaigns are to blame for not giving the media enough of a horse race and show of attacks to "cover."

This is just too cynical for me to accept, and too condescending toward actual voters to be plausible.

Obviously, campaigns are engaged in a delicate dance between the thrust-and-parry of a campaign and the desire to convince voters that candidate A is more substantive and compelling than candidate B. Campaigns-which are comprised of human beings, after all-are aware that everyone likes a fight. But voters also like someone smart, with a vision, who has real ideas. In 1992, Bill Clinton would have gone nowhere without the very substantive bulk of policy proposals he had developed as head of the DLC and as a multi-term governor, whether you liked those ideas or not. Bobby Kennedy's book To Seek a Newer World, originally published in 1968, when he was running for president, is essentially a compendium of policy proposals, many of them on foreign policy.

Stoller, to his credit, softened his tone considerably in a second follow-up post.

Wonks need to get more political and more in touch with what it means to organize and fight for your foreign policy vision among voters themselves. But the other side of the coin is that, from what I've noticed, political operatives in the Democratic Party tend to seriously undervalue substantive arguments for a different way of governing.

Even if this is more balanced, I still don't see the point and am not sure Stoller really has facts at his disposal to support his proposition.

In this campaign season, there have been energetic and highly organized political/field/organizing campaigns with thousands of people, fancy schwag, and paid media campaigns on the following issues: Darfur (the Save Darfur Coalition), the military budget (Ben Cohen's Sensible Priorities group, whose pie-chart of our discretional spending was extremely visible and whose grassroots activists were dominant in both Iowa and New Hampshire), and global aid (Bono's ONE and DATA groups, whose activists were also extremely active and ubiquitous on the ground in the early states).&

The Edwards campaign met many times with these groups, worked with them on events, made several major speeches containing bold proposals on these three areas, was endorsed by Citizens for Sensible Priorities in Iowa, and had the most ambitious global aid proposals.

Yet, again, there was no substantive coverage of our politics, policy, and potential presidential leadership on these three issues-Darfur, the military budget, and global aid.

Has Stoller himself written about these issues?

Then Kevin Drum -- whose stuff I normally think is terrific -- wrote an atypically inapt post that obscured rather than clarified a couple of the issues under discussion:

[F]oreign policy by its very nature tends to be far mushier than domestic policy. Outside of Iraq the Democratic candidates sparred a bit over preconditions for meeting with foreign leaders and whether or not they supported covert strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, but at the level of speeches it was hard to suss out a lot of substantive differences. It's not an impossible task, but anyone trying it either has to admit that the differences are subtle (i.e., boring) or else run the risk of getting things completely wrong via close reading of ambiguous phrases. If candidates were willing to entertain foreign policy hypotheticals their differences would be a lot easier to figure out, but they're not. So we're stuck.
Of course, things weren't really all that different on the domestic side, were they? Domestic policy tends to be a little more specific, which makes for easier comparisons, but in the case of healthcare (to take an example) all that got us was an endless, dreary debate about mandates. That's interesting to wonks, but not to much of anyone else.
Signer suggests that foreign policy debates have been sharper in the past, but his examples are all from general elections, not primaries. This year should be no different. Iraq will still be the 800-pound gorilla, but the differences between John McCain and the Democratic candidate should be sharp enough to produce some foreign policy fireworks. Who knows? By the time October rolls around we might all be wishing that the press would shut up on the subject.

First of all, as I told Kevin later, my examples were from primary campaigns, so this was wrong. In my concluding graf, I wrote:

In 1959, John F. Kennedy was arguing that we had a "missile gap" with the Soviet Union -- and increased tensions with Moscow. In 1979, Ronald Reagan said that "negotiation with the Soviet Union must never become appeasement" -- and as president, he ratcheted up the Cold War. There are no guarantees, but what the candidates are saying about foreign policy this time around just might affect the course of history.

These examples were from contested primary campaigns where JFK and Reagan faced reasonably strong opponents, in 1959 and in 1979. So that was a mistake, and the argument -- that primaries are different from generals, and problems in the former less important (presumably) than in the latter -- also mistaken.

Second and more important, what does Kevin mean when he wrote that foreign policy is "mushier" than domestic policy? Again, an example from the Edwards campaign. Here are the proposals Senator Edwards made on Iran-a very hot political issue, an active front between all three campaigns, and at a moment when national press attention was white-hot-on November 5 in Iowa City:

End the "preventive war" doctrine. As president, Edwards will ask his National Security Advisor to remove President Bush's explicit endorsement of "preventive war" from his National Security Strategies. And he will ask his Joint Chiefs of Staff to form military plans in accordance with the national security strategies that we know can keep us and our allies safe-not discredited and dangerous ideological fancies.
Use bolder and more targeted economic sanctions. First, we must fully enforce the Iran Sanctions Act, a law Congress passed to let the president punish companies that do business with Iran's extremist regime. Second, we must work multilaterally-most importantly, with our Western European allies-to strengthen economic sanctions on Iran. Third, we must completely shut down all Iranian access to the American financial system.
Use incentives: Edwards believes we should also use "carrots"-diplomatic measures to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions and support of terrorism. Iran, which right now cannot even process its own oil and imports the majority of its fuel, needs greater energy resources. We should draw Iran into compliance through incentives including increased refinery capacity. We should also lead a multilateral effort to create a regional fuel bank that Iran could use for peaceful purposes. Finally, we should use the possibility of bringing Iran into multilateral economic organizations, including the WTO, to draw Iran's elites into pressuring the regime to change course and abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Reengage with Iran: We should chart a new course for diplomatic relations with Iran by expanding low-level talks between government officials on both sides in a neutral country.
Reengage with other major nations on the challenge of Iran: We must work with China and Russia on the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions. Both nations have economic relationships with Iran on trade and energy. But both nations also have a strong interest in stability in the Middle East. And neither nation wants the nuclear club to expand. In place of the wayward and ad hoc diplomacy of the Bush Administration, we need more effective and strategic reengagement with both China and Russia. We need to make Iran a top-level priority in our bilateral relationships with both countries. We must work with both Russia and China on how they can achieve their economic goals through alternatives that will not assist Iran's military nuclear capability. In the first year of his administration, Edwards will convene a conference with his Secretary of State and representatives from the "E.U. 3"-Great Britain, France, and Germany-Russia, China-and Iran. At this conference, we should discuss a way out of the stalemate caused by the Bush administration.

Is Kevin seriously saying that this (and there are dozens of examples from all of the campaigns of similar proposals) lacked specifics?

But again, there was really no coverage-and it can't be because of Stoller's explanation, that our campaign was somehow apolitical, or because of Kevin's explanation, that it was somehow more "mushy."

I return to my original argument-which is very simple, really. The mainstream media ought to be doing more probing, serious, analytical coverage of foreign policy.

And maybe some of the blogs should be as well!

Common Cause Responds

Matt Stoller — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Common Cause Communications Director Mary Boyle emailed me this response to my post criticizing her group for refusing to ask McCain to obey the law.

After reading your rant about what you describe as Common Cause's "remarkable legacy of failure," my first reaction is to suggest that you might want to talk to your doctor about upping your meds.

Most of your post seems to reflect a basic disagreement over whether Common Cause should be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, or of the progressive movement, or of the lefty blogosphere. We were founded by John Gardner, a Republican who served in the Johnson administration, and we have always been proud of our bipartisanship and independence. We do not believe that either major political party is free from corruption or has a monopoly on good government as a political issue. We believe Americans want a change away from partisan gridlock.

We are proud to have Jim Leach as our new board chairman. This is a man who, while in Congress, stayed away from partisan confrontations and concentrated on working in a bipartisan manner on the process issues that define Common Cause. He is an environmentalist who lost his 2006 race in part because he refused to allow anti-gay literature the National Republican Congressional Committee wanted to distribute.

At a minimum, you cannot possibly expect to be taken seriously when you accuse us of helping John McCain "evade responsibility for the Keating 5 scandal" when Common Cause filed the original ethics compliant against the Keating 5. Common Cause has limited resources, and the fact that we have not unleashed a legal and public relations attack on every politician you happen to find offensive (Joe Lieberman, Al Wynn, John McCain, etc.) does not make us prisoners of a blind faith in non-partisanship. In fact, we often -- but not always -- find ourselves as coalition partners with some of the very groups who meet with your approval, such as MoveOn. We spent a great deal of time, energy, and money working to draw public attention to the DeLay scandal, among others, and if you are going to call us "losers" it would be nice if you showed some familiarity with the range of projects we have taken on in recent years.

As for our organization "remaining silent" during the "latest ridiculous episode," apparently referring to McCain and public financing, I would direct you to work we did in Iowa and New Hampshire, working with dozens of activists to get the candidates to sign a pledge committing to support full public financing for congressional campaigns-not only did we get several major candidates on the record, but we ran full page ads in the largest papers in Iowa and all of the daily newspapers in New Hampshire listing who had signed on and who had not. McCain and his photo were clearly in the "not signed on camp." (And we should note that, after the Iowa ad ran, both Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson promptly returned a signed pledge.)

Last week Common Cause, Public Campaign and Public Citizen released a document detailing the shortfall of all three major presidential candidates when it comes to money in politics and noting the lack of support McCain has shown thus far for either congressional or presidential public financing reform. We were the leaders to pass full, statewide "Clean Elections" in Connecticut and are currently working in 18 states to pass state-level public financing reforms.

I don't have the time to type out all of the work Common Cause has done in nearly 40 years of its proud history to hold people in power accountable, so I refer you here: http://www.commoncause.org/sit...

Five Principles for Health Care Reform

dchavern — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:30:49 GMT

A few days ago Elliott Petty wrote a diary on Safeway CEO Steve Burd's efforts on health care reform. It was actually pretty responsible in highlighting the real innovations that Safeway has instituted in recognizing and rewarding personal responsibility in healthcare. Elliot dropped the ball in the last sentence, though, we he said "Clearly the corporate sector are reading the tea leaves and feel compelled to find solutions to America's broken health care system. Will we leave it in their hands, or push a universal plan that works in other parts of the industrialized world?"

Huh? The fact is that for about 60 years the U.S. business community has been at the absolute forefront of finding innovative solution to providing - and paying for - good healthcare. (One example, Kaiser Permanente, which traces its origins to prepaid health plans for Kaiser shipyard and smelter workers in the 1940's.) After all, businesses want and need healthy employees, and they also pay most of the healthcare bills in this country. Business has been talking about a "broken health care system" for decades.
It is true that many business leaders have not been excited about "universal" heath care proposals, but mostly because there is (i) real value in our current system that shouldn't be lost, and (ii) real concern about divorcing the issue of coverage from the issue of cost. Our current system presents huge cost problems that would be aggravated, certainly not resolved, by an expanded government role.

In looking at other countries, you also need to make apples-to-apples comparisons. Most other countries with government-run health care control costs by having the government own the system (the own the hospitals and clinics, and directly employ the doctors and nurses). They also ration high expense procedures, in preference to broader primary care. How many of these choices are we, as a society, really willing to make?

Let's take a minute to recognize the strengths of our system, look at it's primary shortcomings and outline some principles we can employ to make health care more affordable, efficient, and inclusive.

Strengths

Since World War II, and then with the advent of Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. health care system has evolved into a blend of privately financed care--with employers playing a leading role--along with government support for the elderly and the poor. Under this mostly voluntary approach, we have managed to insure roughly 85% of our people, with emergency care legally required for everyone else. In fact the number of people with either private or government health insurance went up in 2006--to 249.8 million. More than 201 million are covered by private insurance, the vast majority of those--177 million--with employment-based coverage under a voluntary system with no employer mandates. Many of the insured, including all the elderly, enjoy comprehensive coverage. Medicare has recently added a prescription drug benefit that most seniors are very happy with.

The United States is home to the finest medical facilities, technologies, innovations, treatments, and human talent in the world. We have the home of medical innovation. Tens of billions of dollars in capital for medical and pharmaceutical R&D flows here every year. All these advances, along with the widespread availability of a vast range of medical services, have played a major role in enabling us to live longer and better lives.

Weaknesses

Costs. We pay more for health care than any other modern society. Yet on a national basis, we fall short on some key indices such as infant mortality and life expectancy. Costs are escalating with no end in sight--for businesses, families, and the government.

Medical Mistakes. Medical accidents are unacceptably high. An estimated 98,000 Americans die annually from preventable medical mistakes. According to the Institute of Medicine, medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people each year.

Medical Liability. Legal redress should be available for the victims of these mistakes, but that's no excuse for all the frivolous liability claims that are driving up prices and driving health care providers out of the profession.

Health IT. What other business still runs primarily on paper? Most health providers lack the IT systems necessary to coordinate a patient's care with other providers, share needed information, and monitor compliance with prevention and disease-management programs. This makes it impossible for doctors to provide the highest level of care and drives up costs by contributing to errors and redundant tests.

Consumer Responsibility. We need a far greater level of personal responsibility on the part of our citizens. Steve Burd is right - all of the biggest health problems in the United States are closely related to personal behavior. Consumers need to understand the impact of their health care decisions and the cost of their treatments. And, they need to take better care of themselves.

The Uninsured. There are 47 million people in this country without health care coverage, but that's only part of the story. In fact, nearly half of the 47 million uninsured remain so on average for just four months. In addition, if you subtract noncitizens, those making more than $75,000 who choose not to purchase insurance, and those who are eligible for government-provided care but don't take it, the number of long-term uninsured Americans is probably in the range of 10 to 15 million. That's still an unacceptably high number, but it's nowhere near 47 million.

So how do we build on the positive aspects of our health care system while addressing its significant shortcomings, and without implementing an expensive, inefficient government-run program that would take us in the wrong direction?

Five Principles

First, policymakers must adhere faithfully to the Hippocratic Oath--and that is, first do no harm! Some politicians seem intent on incrementally and systematically moving Americans out of private health care and into government programs. Would that really be better for most Americans?

Second, we should work to restore the viability of employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers more than 177 million Americans. In addition, Congress should pass Small Business Health Plans so that these companies can pool risk and purchase coverage at an affordable price.

Third, we need to revitalize the individual health care market. Congress can help greatly by leveling the tax playing field--granting comparable tax treatment whether premiums are paid through an employer or by individuals in the private marketplace. For this marketplace to work, consumers also need ready access to information that enables them to evaluate providers on the basis of cost and quality.

Fourth, we must reform the systems that are adding expense and inefficiency without improving quality. Health IT can help control costs, prevent medical mistakes, and help consumers make better health care decisions.

We can reduce costs by improving the level of care, which is often uneven in our country. That's a far better approach than trying to squeeze provider reimbursements that may only temporarily patch up a budget. We should also remove medical malpractice claims from the tort system by creating special administrative health courts, similar to bankruptcy courts.

And Fifth, we need to launch a ground-up revolution in wellness and prevention. A reorientation to preventive medicine could avert 40 million cases of 7 chronic diseases--cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, mental disorders, and pulmonary conditions--by the year 2023. This would save about $1.1 trillion dollars. That's real money!

These five ideas may not sound as dramatic or all-encompassing as the big government plans we are hearing about on the political campaign trail. But guess what--they can work. Not overnight, but over time. They can lead us to a health care system of high quality, lower costs, and greater access for all Americans.

I post on health care and other topics on chamberpost.com, we welcome all to the debate.

Greenpeace Defends Their Praise of Republican Dave Reichert

Matt Stoller — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:24:30 GMT

This is a response from Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace to my post, 'The WTF Files: Greenpeace Praise Republican Dave Reichert (WA-08)'. Progressive groups that are criticized on OpenLeft have the right to respond on this site, and I am pleased that Kessler is taking us up on it.

Greenpeace is a fiercely independent and non-partisan campaigning organization. We stand to tackle the planet's most threatening environmental problems and achieve solutions. Partisan politics is not our game.

Global warming is the most critical problem facing our planet, requiring a massive shift in our nation's priorities. It's not just an issue for progressives - solutions will only be reached when liberals and conservatives move to achieve them. Greenpeace's global warming campaign, Project Hot Seat, is working to get Congress to reduce carbon emissions to a level prescribed by the scientific community in order to preserve life on this planet as we know it. Washington's 8th district, represented by Congressman Dave Reichert, has been a priority of Greenpeace since early 2006.

The progressive community has made Reichert a frequent punching bag, and sometimes rightly so. After all, it wasn't until Greenpeace began to mobilize his constituents last year that he finally expressed an opinion on global warming. At first, Reichert made claims that the science wasn't in, that it was unclear to him that global warming was indeed caused by humans. Through aggressive campaigning that put Reichert in the hot seat, his tune eventually shifted to more accurately reflect that of his constituents. Volunteers and Greenpeace members made hundreds of phone calls, delivered bundles of letters and petitions, met him at every public event to talk to him about the issue, and sat down with him in his office to lay down their demands.
Over the last few months, he supported stronger fuel economy standards for cars and trucks and signed onto the Climate Stewardship Act, a good bill that is a step in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough. Last week he voted for the House energy bill, and was one of only 14 Republicans to do so. Greenpeace will continue to applaud our targets when they meet a specific demand and we will continue to encourage him to co-sponsor the strongest global warming bill in the House--the Safe Climate Act.

Greenpeace doesn't endorse candidates. Reichert's leading opponent in next year's election, Darcy Burner, has a strong position on global warming solutions. She has stood up and committed to supporting strong action on climate change, if elected. Greenpeace will continue to push both candidates for this office to adopt truly visionary global warming plans. Unless Dave Reichert leaves his seat or is unseated, it's his vote that counts in the House. Please join us in our effort to turn up the heat on Rep. Reichert. When it comes to global warming, we need Republicans too. We only have one chance to get this right. Progressives should understand that.

Time is on Tom Allen's side.

Mike Nutter — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:06:15 GMT

Trends in Maine continue to strengthen for Democrats and weaken for Republicans in an environment that isn't rosy for GOP around the nation. Recent national research conducted by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shows 70% of respondents saying our nation is on the wrong track. In Maine, we're seeing much the same in recent internal polling with dissatisfaction reaching 69%.

This bodes well for Maine Democrats and for Tom Allen in his challenge to Susan Collins in 2008.

Just last week Maine Democrats won three of five special elections in the State House, boosting the number of seats held by Democrats to 90 of 151, two of which are held by independents. Democrats haven't held 90 seats in more than a decade.

State Republicans admitted the environment doesn't favor them as they also gave credit to a strong ground game operated by their counterparts. According to the AP, "Maine Republican Party Executive Director Julie O'Brien said the outcome should serve as 'a wake-up call' for Republicans. 'Democrats do very, very well at mobilizing volunteers, getting out the vote ... To be honest, Republicans need to take a lesson from that.'"

Recent polls reflect Tom Allen's steep climb over the next year, but they also illustrate Susan Collins' vulnerability. Not only are national and state wrong track numbers bad news, abut her job approval and favorability ratings - now in the mid to high 50s, -- have fallen by double digits over the past couple of years and are lower now than Lincoln Chafee's were the day he was defeated by Sheldon Whitehouse.

Tom Allen has the time and the fundraising strength to win. Third quarter fundraising results of almost $670,000 pushed Tom Allen's cash on hand to $2,112,801.40, compared to Susan Collins' $3.1 million. Fundraising is on track to meet budget and totals put Tom Allen ahead of most other challengers across the nation. One only need to look at Senators Whitehouse, Tester and Webb from the 2006 cycle to see three victors who many months from election day faced double digit deficits against entrenched incumbents. And much like the Whitehouse-Chafee race, this match will never be about likeability - both Allen and Collins have plenty of that. It's about the issues: Iraq, health care, a middle class squeezed by Bush-Cheney economic policies.

Unlike past elections in Maine, the wrong track is largely driven by Iraq. A recent Survey USA poll showed that 25% of respondents chose Iraq as the top issue facing Maine. Of those voters, Tom Allen leads Susan Collins by 9%. Remember, Tom Allen is one of 133 Members of Congress who voted against the war and the candidate with a consistent voice to get us out of Iraq. Susan Collins voted for the war and has consistently agreed with the Bush-Cheney policies down the line. Collins is on very thin ice, and there are powerful forces at play that are aligned against her.

Mike Nutter
Director of Internet Communications
Tom Allen for Senate

The Teamsters Do NOT Support War With Iran

TeamsterPower — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:15:04 GMT

The Teamsters do not support attacking Iran. We are not the puppets of Fox News. And we are not a tool of some covert Neo-con conspiracy to take over the world.

What we do stand for is labor rights. We consistently speak out about labor rights violations in Iran, Latin America, Asia and anywhere people are punished, imprisoned and killed for their basic human right to freely associate and form unions.

We are National Guard and Reserve members, parents of active duty service people and veterans who served this country in times of peace and conflict.

To suggest that our effort to put economic pressure on Iran, a country that has repeatedly imprisoned labor organizers, is part of a "PR ploy for military action against Iran" is ludicrous, especially coming from our friends in the progressive community.
We have worked long and hard to build bridges with the Netroots community and will continue to do so. We have reached out to Matt Stoller and other bloggers offering support and opening doors to union officials, including General President Jim Hoffa.

The Netroots community is helping us organize workers and expose the deplorable conditions that workers right here in the U.S. must endure in order to form unions. We, in turn, work to educate our members and others about Progressive issues and candidates. We are on the same side of many issues.

To say that "Now Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters are in on an expansion of an unethical war to new countries," is insulting and without basis.

Yes, this is the first time Hoffa has called for a divestiture of our pension funds from companies that do business in a country, mainly because it is a very complex and difficult thing to do. However, the Teamsters have taken actions against multinational companies that do business in other repressive regimes, including Burma and Guatemala.

Why did Hoffa choose to take this action?

Government authorities in Tehran abducted Mansour Osanloo, president of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs (Vahed) Bus Company, on July 10. He was severely beaten. For more than a month he's been imprisoned in the notorious Evin prison. Mahmoud Salehi, founder of the Saghez Bakery Workers Association, was condemned to a year in prison for his courage in mobilizing workers. He is incarcerated in Kurdistan, far from his family and in danger of dying.

And getting Tehran to respect the right to form unions is something the Teamsters have been working on for more than a year.

In December 2005, Hoffa demanded the release of 14 labor union workers (PDF) unjustly detained and beaten.

In February 2006, Teamsters participated in an International Day of Action at the Iranian Interest Section to demand the release of these workers.

And since July Hoffa has been repeatedly calling on Tehran to release Salehi and Osanloo, jailed for their union activity.

Saying we support war is a huge jump from pulling our retirement money out of a country that members of both political parties agree is engaged in activities that threaten the security of troops overseas, neighboring countries and national security.

In fact, "Just last month, the U.S. House of Representatives (led by Democrats) overwhelmingly passed a bill that protects private and public funds that divest shares in companies that invest more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector."

Like most Americans, the Teamsters support our troops in the field and wish they could return to the safety of their homes and jobs. It is our members who are losing their sons and daughters in this war. And anything we can do to prevent that loss, we will do.

Hoffa said he liked the Netroots because you are "tough on everybody," and we certainly do not shrink from your criticisms. However, creating motives out of thin air is unfair and unjustified.

Iraq, Budgets and Progressivism

BillFoster4Congress — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:05:49 GMT

The Right to Respond in this case relates to a post I made on Saturday evening about the IL-14 primary, IL-14: Differentiating Between Blue Dogs and Bush Dogs. In that post, I openly wondered if Bill Foster was positioning himself to become a Bush Dog by announcing his planned affiliation with the Blue Dogs. This is the campaign's response. Judge for yourself if you feel it is adequate--Chris

First, thanks to Chris for the opportunity to tell folks here at OL a little more about myself and about this campaign and to answer some of the concerns raised.

On the campaign trail, I tell voters most often about my background as a scientist and businessman, but I realize that probably doesn't signal as much about my politics and values as some folks in the netroots would appreciate, so before I talk issues, let me talk about my family.

My mom and dad met on Capitol Hill while my mom was working for Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois and my dad was working for Senator Myers of Pennsylvania. Mom came from a family of inventors and dad was a chemist before taking up what would be one of his many achievements: his work on the civil rights movement.

More in the extended entry.
After dad came back from WWII, he eventually became a lawyer and played a major role in the desegregation of public schools, especially after the passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. He was raised in Tennessee, so he was well suited to bridge the gaps that existed back then when the government imposed new regulations. You can read more about him (warning, PDF) here.

I grew up in a family deeply involved with Democratic Party politics. My parents tell me that I had memorized all the names of the 15 or so members of the Dane County Democratic Party when I was toddler -- it was quite a Republican area back then. I can also remember driving around with mom in a rusty Studebaker with Proxmire for Senate signs.

And that leads to me this discussion of the Blue Dog label. You see, I am very concerned about budgetary matters because I have been influenced by people like Bill Proxmire and Paul Simon. For a generation, Proxmire was a leading progressive voice in the Senate who also railed against government waste and excessive spending. You might know Proxmire as the originator of the Golden Fleece Award. I imagine the Pentagon would have won one for shipping two 19 cent washers for $1,000,000. Senator Paul Simon famously said, "To be a liberal doesn't mean you're a wastrel," a phrase he adopted from Senator Paul Douglas.

For progressive reasons, we need to deal with debt. Interest payments eat up an enormous amount of our federal budget every year, and when government can no longer step up to help, it will be the middle class and elderly who suffer. An out of control deficit threatens Social Security and Medicare.

That's one reason I stood up against some of the more inane tax policies of the Bush administration and joined Responsible Wealth in opposing Estate Tax repeal - a group that includes Bill Gates' father and Paul Newman. It also shouldn't come as a surprise that Congressman Patrick Murphy, a staunch opponent of the war and a fiscal hawk, joining the Blue Dog caucus has had an effect on me.

I don't believe it's useful to have long discussions on labeling or pigeon-holing and I don't think voters do either. I certainly do not like to pit Democrats against Democrats, so let me just tell you a couple general stances on a few issues so the netroots can get a feel of what kind of representative I'll be in Congress.

I oppose this administration's policies on Iraq, and have tried to change them - most notably by working long, hard and successfully to get the first and only Iraq War veteran elected to Congress, Patrick Murphy. I want to work with him to begin bringing our troops home right away and let the Iraqis take control of their country. I'm a scientist and believe in factual data. The case this administration has made that the surge is working is not consistent with the available data.

I oppose this administration and their partners in congress who ran up the debt and are endangering our children's future. And I'll work with the blue dogs - or any other group in congress who will help change this fiscal recklessness into fiscal responsibility. Again, one of the great threats to Social Security and Medicare is our system collapsing in debt.

I oppose this administration's circumventing the constitution at every turn when they think it will be politically beneficial to them. I believe Attorney General Gonzalez is a disgrace. I think my father would be heartbroken and outraged to see a Justice Department that has attempted to systematically dismantle our civil liberties.

Throughout this election season, I intend to put forward my ideas for how we can change what is going on in Washington. I believe my background and life experiences, coupled with my scientific and business know how, will help bring about the change that voters so desperately want right now. As our campaign grows, I will reach out more and more to the netroots for advice, support and assistance.

Taking this seat in 2008 will send the biggest message back to the pundits, the politicos and all the people that for years have given carte blanche to the policies of George W. Bush.

If you also want to send them that message, then join us.

Environmental Defense: My Response to these Polluters' Lobbyists

Greg — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 02:03:08 GMT

Dear Tony Kreindler,

All you did in your reponse to Matt Stoller's informative, specific criticisms of cap-and-trade carbon limits was repeat vague cliches about the "market" finding solutions. You addressed NONE of the specific problems identified with big pollutor-supported cap-and-trade system.

What is your response to the following points made in the Shapiro paper that Matt linked to?

1. Cap-and-trade programs also create a serious potential for private financial manipulation absent under a carbon tax approach. The national and international trading of billions of dollars of permits will attract large financial institutions eager to manage their trading on major security markets, create new derivatives, options, calls and other, financial instruments based on the permits, and collect commissions on both sides of every transaction. The large-scale trading of permit-based securities will create
opportunities for corrupt firms to try to manipulate the private market in these permits, as they have in other commodity markets such as natural gas spot contracts and futures.

2. "Once a cap-and-trade agreement determines that a country's emissions should be reduced by a certain percentage relative to its current emissions or to its emissions in some previous base year, the country may
be able to meet its target ***without taking any steps if its economy slows***

3. The third important difference is that cap-and-trade programs are more difficult to administer and more vulnerable to evasion, corruption and manipulation than carbon taxes. ... By creating tradable financial assets worth tens of billions of dollars for governments to distribute among their industries and plants and then monitor, a global cap-and-trade program also introduces powerful incentives to cheat by corrupt and radical governments.

There are many others in the paper Matt linked too.
http://www.theameric...

Another detailed economic case against cap-and-trade is made here:

http://www.econ.yale...

Of course as a lobbyist for major pollutors that pretends to be an environmental activist, I doubt these are actual issues for you. I note that your "chief economist" and advocate of "cap and trade" is an "advisor" to such notable friends of the planet as British Petroleum and the People's Republic of China.

See
http://www.environme...

How much money did he get paid for this work "advising" BP and the Chinese Government?

Could your advocacy for investment bank-friendly cap and trade system have something to do with your funding from investment banks, hedge funds, and the corporate law firms that work for them?

Tony Kreindler of Environmental Defense Responds on Cap and Trade

Matt Stoller — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:28:23 GMT

I'm excited that Tony Kreindler of Environmental Defense is taking advantage of the right to respond feature in response to my post yesterday titled the 'Biggest Corporate Giveaway in History to Come This Fall on Global Warming'. There's a furious fight right now that will erupt in the fall over global warming bills, with competing legislation in the form of the industry friendly Bingaman proposal, the DLC-ish Lieberman-Warner proposal, and the progressive Sanders-Boxer bills in the Senate (the companion to Henry Waxman's Safe Climate Act in the House). This is an urgent debate, and Environmental Defense tends to take the most corporate friendly line on environmental policy issues. For a complete list of the environmental non-profits, see HillHeat's excellent round-up.

Matt,
I want to start by saying thanks for giving climate change legislation the attention it deserves as we approach a critical time in Congress. Given the urgency of the global warming problem, the momentum for action, and the onrushing political calendar, our top priority is getting an effective climate bill passed and getting it done this year.
From our perspective, effective climate legislation means a comprehensive, mandatory cap on carbon that reduces U.S. emissions 80 percent below current levels by the middle of this century. Environmental Defense strongly supports cap and trade, but it all starts with the cap -- an enforceable limit on carbon that guarantees enough cuts to help avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

Getting to 80 percent below today's levels fast enough means finding emissions reductions wherever we can. The atmosphere doesn't care where carbon comes from, and when it comes to reducing atmospheric levels of carbon it doesn't matter where the cuts come from.
That's where emissions trading part of "cap and trade" comes in. Developing the clean energy sources and technologies we need to mitigate emissions on a meaningful scale will require substantial investment -- much more that we could ever count on from government subsidies -- and we think it's better to have the market find the solutions rather than have the government pick winners and losers.
What Lieberman and Warner have offered is a blueprint for a climate bill with an airtight emissions cap and a market for carbon that will spur investment in cost-effective emissions reductions. They also have a plan for managing economic impacts, and importantly, it doesn't compromise the integrity of the emissions cap. Does that favor corporations over the environment? We don't think so, and we won't support a bill that fails the environmental test.
What they also have offered is a process for moving forward, with the support of Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer. They've invited comment from all parties, and now is the time for people on and off Capitol Hill to let them know how their bill can be improved. We think it can, and we also think they're off to a good start.
But back to the cap. The image atop your post comes from an Environmental Defense website launched as part of a national ad campaign against the "safety valve," a provision in another legislative proposal in the Senate that would put a ceiling on the price of carbon emissions allowances. Why the campaign? Because the safety valve would bust the cap -- if the cost of allowances rose above the price ceiling, companies could simply buy cut-rate allowances from the government and continue to pollute, potentially without limit.
I think that campaign sums up what we're trying to achieve here: a mandatory national cap on emissions that gets us the reductions the science says we need -- quickly, and with no loopholes, no safety valves, and no escape hatches.
Tony Kreindler
Environmental Defense