Nation-Building

There's something strange going on... Recall that at the height of the health reform fight, after Senator Brown was elected in MA and the Democrats looked like they were on the verge of total failure. It looked like Obama's signature domestic policy achievement would indeed be his Waterloo... and then, Anthem Blue Cross raised rates by 40% . On the verge of the financial reform fight, Goldman Sachs was sued by the FEC and grilled mercilessly by a bipartisan Senate committee for it's shenanigans of knowingly selling "sh$%ty" securities to customers and profiting from their failure. The next big fight is immigration reform, and Arizona passes a draconian law essentially legalizing racial profiling of its Hispanic population - soon to be a majority. (It also revealed the Tea Party to be hypocrites when it comes to big government and Constitutional fidelity). And of course, with the climate bill coming down the line, we have a gargantuan oil spill in the Gulf of me...

President Obama has been riding high the past few weeks, moving forward on his agenda from health care to nuclear arms reduction to the prospect of appointing another judge to the Supreme Court. However, there's a dark lining to this fluffy white cloud of hope and change - his record on civil liberties. Specifically, the problem is that the Obama Administration still reserves to itself the power to indefinitely imprison - and even outright kill - and American citizen, without public trial or evidence or due process of law. Two cases in particular stand out: the first is the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi , who has been held for three years in solitary confinement in a a New York City prison, and the second is the decision to add Anwar al-Awlaki to a CIA "target list" which permits US forces to essentially kill him on sight. Neither of these men are the type I'd want to invite over to dinner, but the fact remains that as US citizens they are guaranteed - in fact, not theor...

In the debate over health care, and the associated debate over illegal immigration, I've often heard the argument that "health care isn't one of the rights defined in the Constitution." This argument seems to me to deny the very concept of human rights itself. Let's make no mistake - the present era is 100% different from the world just 60 years ago. The passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions mark a major turning point in the entire history of humanity and civilization. That is the world we live in now and that world is better in every respect than the previous one. The Constitution of the United States was written in that old world - but what makes it such a brilliant document is that it anticipated the new world, even though at its draftin it was still saddled with language that was a compromise to the old (in particular, the slaves are 3/5ths of a human being clause, the silence on slavery, etc.) No, health care is not a...

I actually think this would be a good idea : Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee, and said in an interview Wednesday that he will launch another presidential bid if he's convinced he can raise enough money to appear on the vast majority of state ballots this fall. Nader, who ran as an independent candidate in each of the past three presidential elections, told ABCNews.com that he will run in 2008 if he is convinced over the next month that he would be able to raise $10 million over the course of the campaign — and attract enough lawyers willing to work free of charge to get his name on state ballots. Nader makes a good point that the truly "progressive" candidates - Kucinich, and to a lesser extent, Edwards - have dropped out. Nader making a run would basically be an outlet for the far left. By bleeding off some of that fringe, Nader would actually free the Democratic nominee to tack back from the far left and settle more comfortably in left-of-cen...

Eteraz provides a nice summary of the muslim problem afflicting the GOP: One of Giuliani’s people complains about “the difficult problem” that is “the rise of the Muslims” and wants “to chase them back to their caves.” [ Link ]. He further refuses to distinguish between good and bad Muslims. After all, “they are all Muslims.” Here is the video of him at the Guardian. Here is Talking Points Memo’s review of it all. The staffer has been fired, but there’s a bigger problem. The GOP’s severe lack of awareness — I was going to use the word “ignorance” but I’m being nice — vis a vis Islam and Muslims is really hurting it. Just the other day Romney said he could not accept a Muslim in the cabinet. This comes on the heels of the 2004 survey by Cornell which I discussed in my piece at Jewcy Magazine where 40% of Republicans wanted American-Muslims to register their whereabouts (why not jus...

Matt Yglesias is leaving The American Prospect, and will be working for The Atlantic Monthly. I think that of the triumvirate of liberal policy magazines (TAP, The Washington Monthly, and The Atlantic), this is the best fit for Matt who is a pragmatic liberal interventionist on the foreign policy front and an unabashed liberal on the domestic. In other words, very purple. I had the pleasure and honor of blogging alongside Matt for a while myself and he's a formidable wonk in his own right. I think that his blogging at TAM will do a lot to broaden the appeal of purple politics amongst the left-wing of american political discourse - a perspective that is almost wholly absent (or at least, drowned out) by the leading progressive policy portals like Daily Kos. The ultimate goal of any policy writer is to influence policy, and in that regard Matt's ascension is great news for everyone. It's also worth remembering that the last merit promotion of this sort was when Blake Hounshel...

I've been sounding a theme of Purple Politics here on this blog, even back when it was Dean Nation. Arguably it was the idea of Purple Politics that drew me to Howard Dean, even though I hadn't labeled it as such in my own mind at that time. But what does Purple Politics really mean? Below the fold is one answer. It's written by someone else who prefers to stay anonymous. But I think it's as good a Purple Manifesto for our times as anything else. It's an attempt to put things in terms of real people and real policies, not just high-minded Obamaesque rhetoric. It's an attempt to craft bonds of unity across the bipartisan divide, not an artificial bridge for appearances' sake like Unity08 but rather something more tangible. It's about articulating the common ground that underlies the True American Majority. To that end, the name "Manifesto" is a bit of a misnomer because, the very essence of Purple Politics is that reasonable people can and must ...