Demoratic Party Critique

I spend a good deal of time haranguing the Republicans, now I will turn a bit to the Democrat Party and some of its problems. I will mainly focus on one in this piece. It seems to me that the Democrat party has been moving more and more to the right also during the past 35 years. It is has bowed to short term interest groups, and has left behind many traditional Democratic concerns such as social programs and problems specifically developed to help the middle classes.

But that still is not what I want to write about yet. What I want to talk about here is what Dwight Eisenhower warned us about, the military-industrial complex. This group with its powerful lobbyists and government insiders have a lot of power and use it. And it is popular with a populace which think this will make us safe. It doesn’t, it just makes the world and us more in danger.

Question: how many USA military bases are there in the world? It is hard to get a straight answer here I have read the following numbers: 460, 507, 560, 662 and 1000 plus. The Department of Defense claims there are 662 bases in 38 countries. Obviously maintaining all these bases cost a lot of money. They also promote the idea that we, the remaining superpower, have the function of the police of the world. And the world does not appreciate that.

Many if not most people will say that we have not fought a successful war since WWII. The Korean War was a mistake where we got beat, the same can be said to be true for Vietnam and Iraq and likely the Afghanistan war. All cost tremendous amounts of money and lives and has not endeared us to the world that often see us a trigger happy and most likely to use the military to find solutions to problems rather than debate. Critics rightly say we just don’t know how fight modern wars; we use outdated models.

President Obama seems to follow along with his promoting our involvement in Afghanistan. And military strategists now seem to be talking about how we must prepare to defend ourselves against China (which funds our wars) and other countries. Our thinking is just plain out of date and ineffective. China, India and Russia and others are banding together in making alliances for mutual benefit. We’ve asked to be a part of this and have been refused. They just don’t trust us to behave.

The other developed countries have taken a much different tack, one explained above. But we continue running around as an unappreciated world police depleting our resources and making ourselves more and more a target of others.

We are also remarkably unaware of the world in which we live. I read about one reporter recently (sorry I forget which one) during his interviews with governmental leaders ended each session with them asking them what was the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. None of them knew and when explained the differences many said, oh, that would really make a differences is such and such a policy.

Once upon a time, the USA was the ideal and model for other countries. It was symbol of freedom and equity of opportunities that produced a happy and affluent society. But for a long time we have been know as the “Ugly Americans.” Now, countries are looking at other models and rejecting the American model.

I would hope that the Democratic Party would also return to its historical values of care for the people and building infrastructures that benefit all. But if we continue to tie ourselves down with fighting wars we just will not have the resources to do the things and actually will benefit America. We need to exert moral leadership that looks to scientific advancement and protection of the planet and jobs that benefit the whole population not just a few. We need to be as aware of the world in which we live as the world is aware of us and learn to play nice with them.

All of us would benefit reading President Obama’s Audacity of Hope, perhaps the president should read it again himself. We need visionaries that the Democratic Party and progressives has often produced. We need to learn from Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy and others who had such visions and led our country positively even in difficult times.