by Sandy Jewell
OpEdNews.Com
The ephemeral dream that so many of us had of electing common sense
Democrat Howard Dean as the next president of the United States has now,
maybe irrevocably, diffused into the haze. At some point he'll probably
remember President Clinton's adversities and thank his lucky stars for
what may have been a bit of good fortune--for him. His treatment by an
insolent and swaggering press was consistently, blindly, nasty. He was the
target of
malicious ads and political attacks by other candidates. Not fun stuff.
But
is having his life turned into a public nightmare a good enough reason for
him to disappear from the public scene and return to his comfortable life
in
Vermont? I think not!
Howard Dean's no-nonsense challenge to George Bush and his policies
electrified everyone, from an electorate nearly comatose from an overdose
of
Bush-lite Democrats to candidates from the "electable wing of the
Democratic party" who, along with the DLC, were suddenly jolted into the
realization that they might not be so electable after all. His front
runner status
going into the primaries galvanized the Beltway insiders who would be
president. Howard Dean deserves the credit for turning the formerly
tranquilized Iraq war supporter, free trade lover, and special interest
baby
John Kerry into an enervated champion of the working middle class and
opponent of preemptive war who could conceivably become the Democratic
nominee for president.
But if Kerry wins the election, what comes next? He'll still be a
wealthy
Washington insider and we'll still be struggling. Will he remember the
lessons of the campaign? Re-enter Howard Dean.
Howard Dean, bolstered by core supporters, was a fighter until the very
end,
beyond the time when it was clear to almost everyone that his candidacy
was
a lost cause. Not only does this man have stamina, he now has a national
stage and a committed following, neither of which were his a year ago. It
has probably occurred to John Kerry as well as a few other establishment
prototypes that they can ignore Dr. Dean, his message and his supporters
at
their own peril. Maybe it has even occurred to them that they might not
have been so shocked by Howard Dean's initial juggernaut had they been
more in touch with what was happening outside of the Beltway, with the
people who actually elect political leaders. Maybe they suddenly recalled
the Bush-lite Democrats, like Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who out-spent
their opponents in the last midterm election and lost anyway. (Anyone who
thinks Max Cleland lost because of scurrilous attacks on his patriotism by
his
unprincipled Republican opponent should look at the ex-Senator's voting
record, and give Georgia voters more credit.) There may also be a dawning
realization among politicians that they are as ill-served by our fawning
corporate media as we are.
Dr. Dean's challenge, which he has implied that he will accept, is to
keep
the face of America before the politicians as they deal each day with
lobbyists, special interests, and insider-only Washington dinner parties,
and as he himself endures what will probably be an unrelenting and
unrepentant media, the wrath of frightened corporate lobbyists and the
disdain of politicians who have not yet learned their lesson. In return,
he'll be rewarded with the knowledge that his struggle is the right one
and
that he has had the vision and ability to fill a vacuum when it seemed
that
no one else in politics recognized that one existed.
When the election is over, chances are good that he'll have the stage to
himself, once again. John Kerry, ala Al Gore, is already making nice with
the Republicans, telling his supporters to stay away from focusing
attention
on Dubya's military record. Democrats have been frustrated for the past
decade by the Republican domination of the public discourse and by the
failure of our leaders to answer in kind. Without Howard Dean we could be
headed for a return visit to that same dark tunnel.
The morass of unmet needs is so deep and wide at this stage of the
imperial
Bush presidency that it might be hard for Dr. Dean to sort them into
priorities.
Take the media, for example. Now that he's no longer a target with a
candidacy to lose, Howard Dean might challenge the press on its biases,
its
distortions and uncorrected misstatements, and the lies that it attributes
to others and publishes anyway. He might say that the current, excessive,
media consolidation is a threat to democracy and must be broken now, at
both the local and national level. He might decry the loss of public
interest
programming and the subsidies of public television by corporate sponsors
who then use their leverage to curtail discourse. One example: When public
TV is brought to us by Archer Daniels Midland, we are no more likely to
see a frank discussion there of genetically modified organisms in our food
supply
than on any other channel. The result is public illiteracy about a subject
that has sparked a continuing popular uproar in Europe.
Who better than Howard Dean to decry the international economic disruption
and race to the bottom in salary and working conditions brought on by free
trade; the sale of public assets demanded by the WTO which has resulted in
civil unrest in country after country; the outsourcing and privatization
of
both blue and white collar jobs, with no end in sight, that continues to
cause tremors in the U.S. economy.
The problems with the U.S. health care system are too often cataclysmic
for
those without health insurance, and, as low paying service jobs replace
manufacturing, information technology and more, that includes more of us
each day. Say so, Dr. Dean.
The military budget is an out of control monster that saps domestic
spending. What happened to the peace dividend that we were promised when
communism fell? With no clearly distinguishable national enemy, why has
there been no additional spending for education, housing, or health care?
Does the military-industrial complex manufacture other scares to maintain
their funding? We want to know.
Which brings us to terrorism. Someone in a position of authority - how
about you, Dr. Dean? - needs to stand up and say that the U.S. needs to
address the underlying causes of the desperation and powerlessness that
leads some of the disaffected to strike at us. Using individual acts of
terrorism to justify unprovoked international attacks is worse than
senseless. It increases our own peril. The financial benefit to the
military-industrial complex in no way justifies or compensates for this
idiocy. Although most politicians appear not to have noticed, it's a
policy
that has not worked very well for Israel either.
The targeting of dissenting voices by the misnamed Patriot Act, and by
local
and national police forces, must stop. The manhandling of U.S. citizens
who
dare to disagree with the regime in power is as much a threat to our
democracy as it should be an embarrassment to the politicians who sing the
siren song of democracy abroad. To an increasing number of us at home,
that
song is beginning to sound like a hollow joke.
Where were our Democratic spokesmen and women when our current president
crudely and abrasively thumbed his nose at the international community?
The United States is not populated by the blind and the dumb, despite
the
way it must appear to our bewildered allies, and someone with a national
base of support should say so.
The stage is all yours, Dr. Dean, and the curtain is rising.
Sandy Jewell lives in Atlanta and can be reached at jolyjuly@earthlink.net
