I'm Sorry I Was Right

"Someday the American people will erect a monument to his [Eugene McCarthy's] memory. - Eddie Rickenbacker

"In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Eisenhower

You are going to find this hard to believe.  I know that I did.  A few months back I was approached by one of the two political parties to run against an incumbent for a major office.  Knowing that they had reached the bottom of the barrel, I wrote out 12 stances on issues that were non-negotiable.  Slipping the piece of paper back to these good natured folk, they read the list, thanked me for my time, and exited towards the door like something out of a roadrunner cartoon. My list included such things as the following.  9 – A balanced budget, period, end of sentence.    4 – Universal health insurance, coupled with private insurance for the goodies of the health care network.  In other words, I believe our current health care network prevents people from taking dynamic risks, like starting a small business, and no one would ever go bankrupt because someone in their family got sick. If you wanted a private room, or to get moved to the front of the line for an appointment or knee replacement, you would need to have private insurance.  6 – A repeal of the Bush tax cut for the upper 2 percent, and also, instead of passing a law adjusting the minimum wage towards what it was in 1964 but adjusted for inflation, have an adjustment made automatically  every year, so that congressmen don’t have to vote on it.  There are 3 reasons for this. One.  It would cut down on illegal labor.  Two. No one who works a 40 hour week in America should live below the poverty line. Three. Unlike rich people, when poor people get money, they tend to spend it quickly.  7 – Great Presidents and great parties challenge the American people. The American people should be off fossil fuels in 50 years.  This means passing several laws, tax cuts, and spending to encourage alternative energies like solar and wind power.  3 – Investment in agricultural colleges and institutions to explore and perfect the use of crops (for plastics, fuels, etc) in order to transform small farmers into the new oil barons.  8 – Exiting Iraq.  Early in the war, the moderate Arab powers put out feelers to take over the policing of Iraq.  A stable Iraq is in their best interest, and of everyone else in the region.  We rejected it.  Why?  It would mean we would have to give up all the goodies.  2 – A truly bipartisan committee to be established to look at social security, the farming out of jobs to the third world, and to cutting the budget and reorganizing the military to better take on the 2 enemies that will most likely trouble us currently and in the future, terrorists and China.  I doubt they got past number one on my list.  1 – Public financing of elections.  While lobbyists and the media many will decry how much it would cost, I would guarantee you it would pay off 100 fold for the tax payer. Jesus was right when he said a slave cannot serve two masters.  He will hate one and love the other. In order to be elected, politicians must spend a great part of their day raising funds.  Corporations and pacts come in and they expect their investments to pay off like slot machines.  Tick them off, lose all future funding.  We currently have the best government corporation money can buy.  No other reform is possible until politicians have the freedom to do what their voters want them to do.  Television stations would have to give free ads because they are licensed for the public good. It is why the Democrats didn’t say boo after Enron and muted their message when the elections rolled around.  You don’t bite the hand that feeds you if it is only at half the rate of the other party.  Imagine a world without the oil companies being in charge of energy policy, the credit card companies in charge of bankruptcy laws, and the pharmaceutical companies in charge of health care.  From Al Frankin to Howard Zinn, A to Z, everyone agrees that real reform will only occur when this corrupting influence is removed.

It is also the reason we will never have another Eugene McCarthy.  While Ann Coulter’s hero is anti-Communist Irish bully Joseph McCarthy.  Mine is the first member of Congress willing to stand up to him, Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy.  History professors don’t mention him to their classes anymore. I doubt there is anyone under 30 who would understand the slogan “Clean for Gene.”  McCarthy was a Senator and Congressman from Minnesota from 1949 to 1971.  In the 1950s, everyone else was quaking in their boots over the Red Scare and the demigod named Joseph McCarthy.  Gene, showing the courage no one else had, stood up publicly and pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes, allowing others to follow him.  In the 1960s, he talked openly about the corrupting influence of the military-industrial complex. He was instrumental in pursuing rights for the disabled and migrant workers. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson considered him for the Vice-Presidential slot.  It was at this moment that Eugene McCarthy did the most courageous act of any Senator. He walked into the capital building and took on the President of his own party.  After a fact finding trip to Vietnam, McCarthy was the first major politician to come out against the war. In 1968, he decided to run against Johnson over the war, as his daughter, Mary, convinced him that it was what a Christian was supposed to do.  While more famous politicians like Robert Kennedy stood on the sideline, Gene plunged in, giving voice to the anti-war movement.  Young hippies and college students cut their long hair and shaved off their beards to campaign for him in New Hampshire.  People who had lost faith in the system rallied around him and campaigned door-to-door.  On March 12, he almost did the impossible.  He almost toppled a sitting President in a primary.  While Johnson took 49 percent of the vote, McCarthy stood at 42 percent.  Nineteen days later, the President announced that he would not be seeking reelection.  Even though Hubert Humphrey was the nominee due to the influence of the party bosses, anger over McCarthy’s snub at the convention led to a massive reform of the selection process. It took candidate selection out of the “smoke-filled room” and allowed the voters in the primaries to choose.  In response, the Republicans implemented similar reforms.  These changes clearly influenced the nominations of Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Like McCarthy, I am sorry I was right in what I wrote before we went into Iraq.  I wrote in this newspaper that the “war” would be the easy part. It was the peace afterwards that would be difficult, and if we are to build a nation, we had better be willing to lose a boy a day for 20 years, and more than likely, we would cut and run before it was all over.  I wrote about how weapons of mass destruction were a lie and the misleading statements that the Bushies had made. (How did I know this?  I read the weapons inspectors’ report.)   But here is the question, countless congressmen had the same information I did, why didn’t they act like Gene did during the Red Scare or the Vietnam War?  Instead they walked lockstep (really goosestep) with the President and then whined that they were fooled. (This is the big Democratic lie.)  They weren’t fooled.  They are smarter than I am. So, why?  Like most other issues, to quote Woodward and Bernstein, follow the money.

Verdict: A Biased, but Good Documentary