The Election and the Political Left

A couple of days ago, I began reading The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by retired Army colonel, Andrew Bacevich, a self-described conservative and currently professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

When I watched him being interviewed a few weeks ago by Bill Moyers, I was struck by the clear, intelligent originality of his thesis which rests on three interlocking crises: the crisis of profligacy, the political crisis and the military crisis.

This is one of those rare books, a slim one, in which every page is packed with information and thoughtful analysis as Bacevich explains how the American penchant for more at every level of society has led to these crises.

It is hardly fair to write about a book one hasn’t finished, but as my reading progresses, I keep returning to one passage that appears early in the first chapter, “The Crisis of Profligacy.” It is only a small part of Bacevich’s argument, hardly the heart of the book, but it has a profound immediacy for the coming election (my interpretation, not the author’s).

The passage is lengthy (for a blog), but I’m going to quote it anyway. Emphases are added and entirely mine:

“Who merits the privileges of citizenship? The answer prevailing in 1776 – white male freeholders – was never satisfactory. By the stroke of a Jeffersonian pen, the Declaration of Independence had rendered such a narrow definition untenable. Pressures to amend that restricted concept of citizenship emerged almost immediately.

“Until World War II, progress achieved on this front, though real, was fitful. During the years of the postwar economic boom, and especially during the 1960s, the floodgates opened. Barriers fell. The circle of freedom widened appreciably. The percentage of Americans marginalized as ‘second-class citizens’ dwindled.

“Many Americans remember the 1960s as the Freedom Decade – and with good cause. Although the modern civil rights movement predates that decade, it was then that the campaign for racial equality achieved its great breakthroughs, beginning in 1963 with the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Women and gays followed suit. The founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966 signaled the reinvigoration of the fight for women’s rights. In 1969, the Stonewall Uprising in New York City launched the gay rights movement.

“Political credit for this achievement lies squarely with the Left. Abundance, sustained in no small measure by a post-war presumption of American ‘global leadership,’ made possible the expansion of freedom at home. Rebutting Soviet charges of racism and hypocrisy lent the promotion of freedom domestically a strategic dimension. Yet possibility only became reality thanks to progressive political activism.

“Pick the group: blacks, Jews, women, Asians, Hispanics, working stiffs, gays, the handicapped – in every case, the impetus for providing equal access to rights guaranteed by the Constitution originated among pinks, lefties, liberals, and bleeding-heart fellow travelers. When it came to ensuring that every American should get a fair shake, the contribution of modern conservatism has been essentially nil. Had Martin Luther King counted on William F. Buckley and the National Review to take up the fight against racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, Jim Crow would still be alive and well.”

Although there are still gains to be made by the groups Bacevich cites, today the larger inequality lies between the small number of haves who have become obscenely rich and the have-nots of the poor and middle classes of all persuasions - along with the continuing assault on freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.

The McCain/Palin campaign, down in the polls and having no plan to ease the very real economic anxieties gripping the country, has announced they will go negative in these final weeks leading up to November 4, attacking Senator Obama for his supposed associations while beating him over the head with the conservative epithet, "liberal, liberal, liberal."

I, for one, am proud to align myself with "pinks, lefties, liberals and bleeding-heart fellow travelers." It is a proud political tradition that is probably the only chance the U.S. has to dig itself out of the deep hole we are in.

ADDENDUM: For many months, we have heard that elders support Senator McCain by large margins. Apparently, no longer. Jan Adams of Happening Here sent along this graph from DKos/Research 2000 tracking poll released on 5 October.

[At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Camille Koepnick Shaffer presents the tale of Bonnieux's Revenge.]