Randy Shaw: Whereas the “message” of McGovern’s loss became “Democrats shouldn’t pick someone too liberal,” Mondale’s landslide defeat did not weaken the arguments of those always going with the “safe” choice. McGovern and Sanders
Obama, More Hawk than Dove?
Murray Polner: As Obama prepares to depart to write his memoirs, oversee his presidential library, and await the judgment of history, we have to wonder whether the seeds of future wars his administration has planted will come to fruition.
The Bernie Campaign: The Democratic Party’s Biggest Insurrection in Decades
Norman Solomon: Many of the same media outlets and overall corporate forces that denounced Eugene McCarthy in 1968, George McGovern in 1972 and Jesse Jackson in 1988 are gunning for Bernie Sanders in 2016.
“Democrats Must Vote, Whether We Nominate Sanders or Clinton”
Berry Craig: We’ve got two good union candidates on the Democratic side and none on the other side. Trump and every other Republican in the running is a bare-knucks union buster.
Ignore George McGovern’s Message at Your Peril
Stanley Kutler: The New York Times downplays his impact, but we’re desperate for McGovern-like critics of reckless foreign policy
The Last Campaign of Richard Nixon
Devin Griggs: The parties might be reversed and the cultural issues of the 1970s flipped, but American politics since the Nixon-McGovern race has remained fairly fixed and share all of the rhetoric and even less of the substance that once defined American politics.
Plutocracy Rules
Tom Degan: When Hunter Thompson killed himself in the late winter of 2005, I could never bring myself to write about it. Although his greatest work was years behind him I couldn’t bring myself to accept the fact that he was gone forever.
“So This Is America?”
America’s History of Crazy Political Assassins Didn’t Begin with Loughner
James W. Clarke: For Hinckley, Bremer, and—until the evidence is in, I’m willing to bet—Jared Loughner, their victims become trophies in a suicidal quest for lead-story notoriety.
Bringing Democrats and Republicans Together over Food
William Lambers: In a hyper-partisan age, is there anything that can bring Democrats and Republicans together? Yes: fighting global hunger. Drawing on the history of the postwar Marshall Plan, Lambers argues that food policy must be the foundation of all foreign policy.
Unanimous Conformity in the Senate
Norman Solomon: Every living senator voted Wednesday to approve Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Call it the unanimity of lemmings – except the senators and their families aren’t the ones who’ll keep plunging into the sea.
Blaming the Left
Randy Shaw: The Democratic Party is facing a voter revolt because it once again allowed its corporate wing to set its agenda. And while the media blames the left Obama and the Democrats either implement a progressive agenda and shape the midterm elections around populist themes, or face further electoral “upsets” in November.
The Walled Garden: Fading Away at the California Democratic Party
Like Dorothy and her intrepid trio of lovable dreamers arriving at Oz, the Progressive Movement barreled into the Democratic Party in 2005 with high ideals and even higher hopes. Now, four scintillating years later we realize it was all a mirage of our own creation. The Party of the Left has been reduced to an […]
