Liberals vs. "Republican Lite"
Blake Zeff writes on Salon.com:
"The truth is that de Blasio is masterfully running almost precisely the
same campaign, with the same message, that nearly every winner of a
high-profile New York City-wide Democratic primary runs... The most liberal
of the credible candidates tends to win Democratic primaries in New York.
"The most recent high-profile competitive Democratic primary in New York was
Eric Schneiderman’s victorious campaign to be Attorney General... Like de
Blasio, he trailed for much of the summer when few voters were paying
attention, and ran as an unabashed liberal ('Democrat Tries to Stand Out as
Liberal in Primary,' the New York Times reported), emphasizing economic
justice and racial equality.
"Seen in the context of New York political history, the success of his
liberal message is neither a huge surprise, nor is it necessarily a
watershed moment for progressivism in America."
--Blake Zeff
I think that's an accurate description of the Democratic Party in general,
and Democrats should be progressives nationwide, rather than think they have
to become Republican lite to win elections.
Due to the attacks of Bush Sr. in 1988, for example, Michael Dukakis
distanced himself from the liberal label.
Instead, Dukakis became wishy-washy. When he stated his positions on the
campaign trail, he would say things like, "Is that a liberal position, or a
conservative position?" And in one of his campaign ads, he talked about his
family, especially his daughters, and concluded, "That's not a liberal
concern or a conservative concern, that's a father's concern."
Only toward the end of the campaign, as Election Day was approaching, did
Dukakis proclaim himself a liberal in the tradition of Harry Truman...
...forcing Bush Sr. to praise the liberalism (progressivism) of Harry
Truman, while blasting the liberalism of Michael Dukakis!
On the other hand, early in 1992, I commented to my friend Chris about the
Democratic primaries and the candidates, "Have you heard Paul Tsongas
speak?" noting that Tsongas, who called himself a "pro-business liberal,"
wasn't photogenic, nor had a television personality, which is absolutely
necessary in this day and age. "We (Democrats) are in trouble if he gets the
nomination."
Chris was pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley at the
time. The San Francisco Bay Area, and Berkeley in particular, like
Massachusetts, Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Santa Monica, CA, are pockets of
liberalism.
I once asked Chris what the difference was between the liberalism of
Massachusetts compared to the liberalism of Berkeley.
All Chris could say was, "Well, Massachusetts is like a 'rich liberal,'
whereas Berkeley is like a 'poor liberal'..."
(A few years later, in 1995, when I traveled with a group of activists
protesting the Republicans' Contract On America, when we stopped at a
restaurant in Nevada, one of the activists similarly joked about being on a
"poor socialist budget"!)
Chris and I went over to dine at Lavalle's Pizza in Berkeley, CA, which was
surrounded by homeless persons, and Chris said, mildly sarcastic, "Well,
Vasu... your liberal dream come true!"
"I know," I replied. "I feel like I'm in a Third World country."
Bill Clinton, a young Rhodes Scholar (he was only 46 at the time),
photogenic, and articulate, surprised everyone by coming out of nowhere,
winning the Democratic primaries and defeating Bush Sr. (an incumbent) in
the general election.
But to win, Clinton had to position himself as a centrist, as a Republican
lite candidate, distancing himself not only from Jesse Jackson and Sistah
Souljah, but from white liberals like Jerry Brown as well.
When Clinton was elected in November of that year, and the Democrats swept
Congress, I spoke to Chris about the exciting possibilities of a Clinton
administration.
"Clinton's a moderate and a Southerner," said Chris. "It's not like we
elected Ted Kennedy or Jesse Jackson."
Chris, a political liberal, but involved with Christian youth groups in high
school, was uncomfortable with abortion. Chris said he and his pro-choice
sister Julie had gotten into debates over the issue.
Representative Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) referred to Bill Clinton as "the
abortion president." But political observers say the pro-life movement
actually gained strength during the Clinton years.
My friend Al Fecko (a Catholic vegetarian living in Michigan) and I founded
Allies Of Peace as an online pro-life and pro-animal-rights email discussion
group in 1996.
On the Allies Of Peace email list, at the end of the '90s, pro-life feminist
Mary Krane Derr (1963 - 2012) credited me with having caused her to become a
vegetarian, as did my friend Greg, whom I've known since high school.
Pro-life atheist Jen Roth founded LeftOut, a haven for progressive
pro-lifers as well. Al warned me, though, that if I were to join the LeftOut
email list, I'd receive about thirty to forty emails per day, and hardly any
of them would have anything to do with animal rights!
This indicates that many mainstream liberals are uncomfortable with
abortion.
At the end of 2007, I was interviewed by Celebrate Life, a publication of
the American Life League, the nation's largest grassroots Catholic
anti-abortion group. My responses to the interview questions were apparently
too lengthy to be published in the magazine, so I distributed copies of them
on my own.
In my responses to the interview questions, I was distinguishing abortion
from victimless crimes, like drugs, prostitution, same-sex relations, etc.
I called for greater social support for pregnant women and children, saying
it's odd that the Democratic Party -- the party of childcare and human
rights! -- would ignore the possible rights of the unborn.
I drew a connection between animal rights and prenatal rights, objecting to
a double-standard among pro-lifers, saying "Your religion says it's wrong to
kill animals, mine doesn't," -- when someone from a differing denomination
could just as easily say, "Your religion says it's wrong to kill the unborn,
mine doesn't."
I said I disagreed with the conservative strategy of packing the courts with
conservative justices in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade, especially if
it could result in a loss of privacy and civil liberties (e.g., Griswold v.
Connecticut and the subsequent Supreme Court decisions on individual and
marital privacy which preceded Roe).
I said the pro-life movement desperately needs religious diversity: this
country wasn't founded by Christians, and pro-lifers should welcome people
of all faiths, and those of no faith.
Jen Roth, a pro-life atheist, emailed me shortly thereafter, saying she
loved the way my responses to the interview questions were "...so
unabashedly liberal!"
I'd already sent Jen Roth animal rights literature.
Jen Roth went on to form Nonviolent Choice with pro-life feminist Mary Krane
Derr (1963 - 2012), favoring not just adoption over abortion (like Bush Sr.
in one of his 1988 debates with Michael Dukakis), but contraception and sex
education as well.
As I said in my 2006 book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion, the abortion
crisis is analogous to the Vietnam War. By the end of the 1960s, both the
right and the left came to agree the war was wrong. They merely advocated
different strategies for ending it.
Abortion and war are the collective karma for killing animals. The
reincarnationist strategy for ending the abortion crisis is that we cease to
kill animals.
Democrats For Life of America, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building,
Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 (202) - 220 - 3066
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