11/09/2010
As a MoveOn.org member, I got its November 3, 2010 post election email message. I found the same rhetoric that lost us Democrats the election.
Just to refresh your memory, MoveOn.org is a liberal non-profit public policy advocacy group and PAC that has raised millions of dollars for US political candidates that it says are "moderates".
MoveOn.org began in response to the attempted impeachment of President Clinton in 1998. A March 2010 message on its web site hollered:
"It’s been an amazing 10 years, and we're stronger than ever — 4.2 million members as of today. [Now MoveOn claims 5 million members] We've prepared an interactive photo time line that captures so many of the memories we've shared together. Thanks for all you do."
Now, after November 2nd’s results, MoveOn.org calling for pot luck parties, dubbed Potlucks for Progress, saying, "After a tough election, we're getting together in living rooms across the country to share some home cooking — and figure out how to fight back against the 'no compromise' Republicans."
This latest message, which starts, "There’s no sugarcoating it. The election results overall are devastating", continues the blame game against Wall Street abuses and the power of corporate lobbyists.
That’s relevant, but far from the whole story. And Republicans are not solely to blame.
Recall, for example, the Democrats' push for minority home ownership which led to the housing bubble after the final repeal of the Glass Steagall Act.
The Banking Act of 1933, commonly called the Glass-Steagall Act, was a law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and introduced banking reforms, some designed specifically to control such speculation.
That Act, among other things provided under Regulation Q allowance for Federal Reserve regulation of interest rates on savings accounts, which was repealed in 1980 by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act. The Saving and Loan debacle followed in the mid 1980s.
Then President Clinton signed in 1999 a final repeal of Glass Steagall — the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act — which opened up wild speculation that hit in 2008’s meltdown.
None of this appeared in the MoveOn.org memo. Primary plaudits went to an unemployed volunteer in Pennsylvania named Steve Nathan:
"Since Steve got laid off months ago, he’s been splitting his time between hunting for a job and helping organize hundreds of other MoveOn members. Then, two weeks ago, Steve arrived home from four hours out knocking on the doors of Democratic voters to find a foreclosure notice taped to his own door. 'I’m in shock and stunned,' he wrote us in an email, apologizing for needing to cut back on his duties. But Steve didn’t cut back — he’s been out knocking on doors and coordinating volunteers almost every day since.
"Just like thousands of other MoveOn members who tirelessly canvassed, held house parties, and made calls all year.
"When I talked to Steve yesterday, he told me that, win or lose, house or no house, he’s not stopping his work for change. 'Doing that,' he said, 'would mean giving up all hope, and I'll never do that.'
"We can’t either.
"Because Steve’s work — and your work — has made a difference. Now millions of people will get health care. Some of the worst Wall Street abuses have been reined in. Billions have been invested in clean energy.
"We can’t give up hope because our country is still hurting. And if corporate Republicans and tea partiers have their way, things will get a lot worse."
My question: When are we Democrats going to get the main message — that Open Borders, another amnesty and the annual importation of over one million legal workers, are not good for American citizens?
The excess spending by both parties is properly decried. But the foxes in the American tax payers' hen houses are the Military Industrial Complex crowd, which gobbles up 23% of our annual Federal budget. Rather than being for "defense" these expenditures lead over decades to our empire building and to attacking countries that most often were not in any way a threat to our national security. America has become a bully — and, particularly after 9/11, the votes were stampeded to enlarge and accelerate our aggression.
Both parties' spokespersons have claimed after this landmark election that "we are listening". All of them are so humble!
I just don’t believe them. Both parties are still carrying on that failed war game in the Middle East. Neither party has said what expenditures they will reduce. Both parties are on serious probation.
I am not counting on MoveOn.org ever to get the message on real immigration reform.
It’s entirely possible that if the Democrats try an immigration amnesty or Dream Act enactment in the Lame Duck session and/or the Republicans don’t pull us out of these endless futile Middle East wars, that a Third Party candidate emerge in the 2012 Presidential race.
Donald A. Collins is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.
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