Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Moving on

Eli Pariser's netroots movement MoveOn.org sent out e-mails this morning asking bloggers to help with the GOTV effort by encouraging our many thousands of readers to go to the polls. Ok, troops: you be sure to do that. Both of you.

Call For Change

MoveOn has done some important things for our democracy by opposing the war in Iraq early and energetically, and by mobilizing disaffected democrats (as well as Democrats) all over the country. MoveOn has not taken courageous positions on the Middle East, but the organization is a positive force in the nation.

On the other hand, when MoveOn's e-mail of this morning urges me to vote for Tom Reynolds' Democratic opponent in NY's 26th district, I wonder if they understand what it is that we want to move on from.

Here are excerpts from the platform for Mr. Davis, a wealthy industrialist:
  • I will fight to cancel all free trade agreements and promote balanced trade.
  • I am for a strong national defense and I support the troops in Iraq. [...]
  • I will not raise income taxes.
  • I will spend your tax dollars as if they were my own.
  • No amnesty for illegal aliens and seal the borders.
  • I support elimination of the Death Tax.

Do you notice anything about, say, poverty? civil liberties? collective bargaining? the environment? If these lacunae make you wonder whether Mr. Davis is actually aligned with any Democratic values, read on. You ain't seen nothin yet.

Under "Immigration News," you'll find this gem (emphasis mine, but the words are all his):
Our southern borders are being invaded by up to 20,000 illegal aliens daily. This adds to the army of 20 million illegals already here. How many of these illegals are terrorists? No one in Washington knows or do they seem to care.
followed prominently by a link titled "Professor Predicts Hispanic Homeland" where an AP article (genre: xenophobic racist fear-mongering) is reproduced:

A University of New Mexico Chicano Studies professor predicts a new, sovereign Hispanic nation within the century, taking in the Southwest and several northern states of Mexico. Charles Truxillo suggests the "Republica del Norte," the Republic of the North, is "an inevitability." He envisions it encompassing all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado, plus the northern tier of Mexican states: Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border "there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections," Truxillo said. "Southwest Chicanos and Norteño Mexicanos are becoming one people again."
Elsewhere, Davis links to Pat Buchanan and to something called "ForTheCause.us," a group which supports the armed militias which have taken to patrolling our southern border ("Americans doing the job government won't do!"). Hey, don't take my word for it..

Under "Supporting Views," where Mr. Davis had perhaps hoped to list endorsements (there is only one: from the Niagara Falls Reporter), he ends up listing people whose views he finds compatible: Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Warren Buffet... Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan... And then he quotes Karl Marx, who said that free trade "breaks up old nationalities... [and] hastens the social revolution"! I knew it! Free trade was a communist plot all along!!

Now, I'm always happy to not vote for Mr. Reynolds. The most telling detail about his background, to me, is that he was moved to join the Air National Guard in 1970. His website coyly notes that he was "educated" at the Springville-Griffith Institute and Kent State University, and prudently refrains from claiming that he actually earned a college degree. Had Mr. Reynolds already dropped out and signed up when the Ohio National Guard shot and killed Kent State students protesting Nixon's invasion of Cambodia?

John Filo's photo of Kent State shootings

If Mr. Reynolds had already signed up for the Guard, did he, oh, for example, write a letter protesting the shootings? Did he go back down to Ohio for the funerals and memorial services of these students? Did he pull his pastor aside and say his conscience was conflicted? Or must we conclude that he joined the Guard after the shootings, and wonder what kind of conscience he has?

I will again not vote for Mr. Reynolds. But MoveOn and the Democratic Party need to understand that they cannot expect those who object to Mr. Reynolds to be able to vote for Mr. Davis. How in the world did this admirer of Pat Buchanan and enemy of brown people become the endorsed Democratic candidate? And more to the point, how can our leadership appeal to me to support him on moral grounds?

MoveOn should take Howard Dean's message to heart. If we want to take back power, we must have a plausible and honorable candidate in every race in every part of the country. The time has passed when people of conscience could be pressured into voting for morally repugnant candidates just on the strength of their (alleged) party affiliation.

And that's because, precisely, we've moved on.