An area designated for organized protests appears enclosed by mesh and chain link fencing near the site of the upcoming Democratic National Convention, in Boston, Wednesday, July 21, 2004. A new federal lawsuit has been filed against the city over the fenced-in protest area that has been called a 'demonstration zone,' and a 'free speech zone.' (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Published on Saturday, July 24, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
Activists Ponder DNC Strategy
Left-wing Democrats are debating whether organized protests will split their ranks.

by Anne-Marie O'Connor

Even in the unified ranks of the Boston antiwar group United for Justice With Peace, fault lines began to form recently when activists started discussing whether to protest at the Democratic National Convention next week.

"Some people feel very strongly that we should have anybody but [President] Bush. They don't want to somehow play into the Republicans' hands," said Cynthia Peters, a coalition organizer.

The group decided to hold "People's Parties" instead, timed with Democratic Party events for convention delegates. Peters even encouraged national activists not to come to Boston, but instead hold People's Parties in their hometowns. Peters has mixed feelings about the approach, which is aimed at bolstering the chances of presumptive Democratic candidate Sen. John F. Kerry.

"The 'anybody but Bush' movement makes people think that if Kerry wins we can all go home," Peters said. "But under Clinton we saw the dismantling of welfare benefits. We saw sanctions against Iraq and the bombing of Baghdad. I am under no illusions that Kerry is going to radically diverge."

Another left-wing group, United for Peace and Justice, decided differently; it will protest, and it's coordinating an antiwar event near the convention Thursday, the day Kerry speaks. "There's a lot of 'anybody but Bush' pressure," said Bill Dobbs, the media coordinator of the New York-based group. "Lots of people who feel very strongly about getting rid of Bush. They want to give the Democrats a pass. We do not want to give the Democrats a pass. We think it's important to keep the pressure on both parties."

How this debate plays out will determine the strength of the protests at the convention. Behind the protest issue, of course, looms an even larger concern to the Democrats: Will left-wing protest candidates undermine Democratic chances the way votes for Ralph Nader worked against Al Gore in 2000? During the last election, many activists said the parties were so similar that it was not significant which candidate won. They protested at both the Republican and Democratic conventions, and some voted for Nader.

This time, some who protested before aren't sure. There's the war in Iraq. The weakening of some environmental laws. Civil rights concerns over the Patriot Act. The Republican attempt to constitutionally ban gay marriage. Activists, now members of well-organized antiwar movements, are debating — in living room meetings and e-mail exchanges, in the alternative press and on the Internet — whether to protest in Boston.

As a headline in the liberal magazine the Nation put it: "Progressive activists at the Democratic convention are faced with the question of whether to protest or just talk about their issues."

For some activists, at least, "the slogan 'The Evil of Two Lessers' has been replaced by 'Anybody but Bush,' " the Nation article said. "That leaves progressives with a question: whether to demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention in Boston July 26-29 or give the Dems a pass and concentrate on the Republican National Convention in New York August 30-September 1."

Some people fear that antiwar protesters will blow it and undermine the "Dump Bush" effort, which they view as the overwhelming priority. Others are angry that a powerful liberal advocacy group, MoveOn.org, is playing an active supporting role for the Kerry campaign. To them, "giving the Democrats a pass" means not staging convention protests despite the fact that Kerry and many other Democratic lawmakers voted in favor of the resolution for the war in Iraq and helped to overwhelmingly pass the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 attacks. There is talk that "progressive" delegates will stage a surprise antiwar action on the convention.

"People all around the world want Bush to be defeated," said John Beacham of the ANSWER Coalition in Los Angeles, who will protest in Boston and New York. "ANSWER knows that going out in the street and fighting for our right to demonstrate is more likely to further the people's goals of ending the occupation and bringing the troops home now."

Alternative conventions

Many on the left have settled on a compromise, attending one of the "people's conventions" planned in Boston. At People's Parties on Sunday night, organizers will pass around a "Fund the Dream" petition calling for the $100-billion defense budget to be reallocated for social projects.

The "Campaign for America's Future" will host three days of "Take Back America" events concurrent with the convention, open to Democratic leaders, activists and "progressive" delegates. Headliners will include former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), "Nickel and Dimed" author Barbara Ehrenreich, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and former Vice President Al Gore.

"These are folks who want to help Kerry win, but they also want to make sure Kerry is accountable to progressive values," said Toby Chaudhuri, a spokesman for the group. "With the popularity of [Michael Moore's documentary] 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' there are indicators of the surge of progressive energy out there."

The sessions will deal with such issues as jobs, wages, healthcare, Medicare and education. One session — headlined by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy and Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa — will seek to discuss "a dynamic new alliance, representing working families, women, people of color, the middle class and the poor."

Another forum will air "the debacle in Iraq [that] has left America more isolated, more reviled, and less safe" — with such panelists as staunch antiwar Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the last of the Democratic candidates to withdraw from the presidential race, and Joseph Wilson, the former U.S. chargé d'affaires in Iraq and author of "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity."

On Tuesday the "Revolutionary Women 2004" event will feature Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Anaheim). Activists from the antiwar group Code Pink will also staff a table there, though they are planning to attend protests as well.

"We're going to do both," said Lora O'Connor, a California-based coordinator for Code Pink. "Even mainstream statistics show that the majority of Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq. We're trying to keep the heat on the Democrats, reminding them to represent true Democratic values."

That opens the question of whether the forums' all-star lineups will appease people who are weighing whether to mobilize for the kinds of confrontations with riot police that took place at the 2000 conventions — or whether the protesters will catapult criticism of Kerry onto the nightly news.

At its 2000 convention, the Republican Party managed to defuse potential protests from the Christian right and more extreme right-wing groups who refrained from publicly pressuring Bush on such issues as abortion in exchange for assurances that he would push their agenda once he was elected.

But many left-of-center activists seem to have the opposite strategy, eager to subject even sympathetic liberal Democrats to the kind of grilling that brings to mind the French saying that "when the left forms a firing squad, it's always in a circle."

"Did Kucinich Sell Out Antiwar Democrats?" demanded a headline of the public radio show "Democracy Now," whose host, Amy Goodman, questioned Kucinich on his delegates' recent acceptance of a compromise, hammered out with Kerry delegates, to accept a pledge to withdraw American troops from Iraq "when appropriate."

"Amy, I had to make a decision, whether I want to, you know, stay a Democrat and continue to work within the party or go in a different direction," Kucinich said July 14 on Goodman's show. "What we have isn't perfect, but it's, you know, a lot better than another four years of George Bush."

But many of Kucinich's admirers believe Bush is just one aspect of a larger problem and that it's up to activists like them to keep the Democrats honest.

"Bush didn't start these policies," said Frank Dorrel, publisher of the comic book "Addicted to War," who will go to Boston to attend a Veterans for Peace gathering and the Boston Social Forum just before the convention. "If we put in Kerry, and he continues the policies, what have we got?"

© Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

Why is the wacky left so much more fractured than the wacky right? Or do I mis-read the sentiment?

I think the main thing that prevents a solid Libertarian front is that modern libertarians came to the party by being either Not-Republican (these are social liberal, fiscal conservative, free-marketeers) or Not Democrats (social liberal, fiscal liberal, interventionist marketeers). In other words, they agree on social liberalism but will not agree on either fiscal or market policy.

Unless they are willing to compromise ideology for power like Republicrat whores, they'll never be a significant factor on a national scale.

If there were fundamental electoral reform, new ideas and agendas 'could' creep into the political mix, shaking up the calcified nature of the status quo. While there is a fair amount of diversity on the right end of the spectrum (if we fall into linear thinking), it isn't as broad and deeply populated as that which populates the left territory.

In addition, the political center has shifted significantly to the right over the past 30 years, which tends to throw values/policies lefties like me into turmoil as the major party that purportedly "represents" the LEFT, chases that center while adopting positions and policies that were formerly rightwing.

Even Libertarians should feel a degree of satisfaction as both majors have adopted their economic strategies ("free" trade, privatization, etc.), even if somewhat imperfectly.

The last time policies that could remotely be considered LEFT were proposed, Nixon was in the White House--he was our last Liberal president. Since then, the rest is an ignominious political history of abject retrenchment from my perspective.

You're right about Nixon.

Nixon was the last true Democrat and Clinton may have been the last Republican.

Bot

I guess we look at different trends....
I see the ever-increasing growth of the federal government as a product of liberal thinking; it certainly is not conservative thought that increases the size and power of government. The increasing spread of benefits "given" to the people also indicates the growth of liberalism.
I just can't see what you do about the center moving to the right.

Have Bloomberg and the NYCPD worked out the details with the protestors for the RNC Convention next month? Last I heard, protest groups were complaining that they were being kept far away from Madison Square Garden and weren't being considered for their request for use of Central Park. Bloomberg had a radio quote that the protestors didn't have their paperwork, but at least one organization had submitted the request last year.

Probably the biggest problem is one of definition. If we use Rush Limbaugh's definition, then "liberal" = most Democrats = insatiable desire for greater gov spending, larger gov, greater centralized control of all aspects of life, etc. If you use the present-day folks who self-describe as liberals it wouldn' tbe a lot different from Limbaughs definition except of course, Limbaugh entwines the thing with lots of unfortunate descriptions and extreme examples of those goals, run-amuck.

But not all centralization runs amuck, not all large gov programs are bad, not all spending is wrong, etc. So a modern-day self-described liberal would provide plenty of examples in which gov services were good, spending was good, control was good, etc. Nixon was the last president who believed that way and worked effectively toward those goals. Like Clinton, Nixon genuflected to the demigods of his party, but generally ignored them.

Clinton said all the things Democracts like to hear, but was the most effective Reaganite since Reagan, much more a conservative fiscal Republican than either Bushies. Clinton also did a good job of stopping growth of fed employees (may itty-bitty agency hasn't had a new position since 1994). Instead, the fed has gone to contracting or devolution of services entirely to the private sector.

Bot

As a student of public administration (MPA to be exact) I'm quite surprised your position has not been put out to bid in the private sector. I am vociferously opposed to privatization in all its forms, but from what I understand, your type of professional grade job classification is exactly the sort the privatizers have in their sights. My wife is a fish biologist involved with stream and habitat restoration, and much of the engineering work is trending toward the private sector, to the detriment of both public accountability and the natural resources that these services ostensibly are set up to protect and enhance. It's a disgrace really.

Cartographers went private but geographers have not.

Generally in my agency, technician/engineer jobs get privatized to contract while scientist/specialists are not. Almost all maintenance (except for certain instances in some facilities) is going contract, all janitorial is contract.

Every year we have to write a justification of why our positions are better handled by gov than by contractor.

In general, the hourly rate including benefits, is cheaper for gov employees (I know this because I handle budgets and contracts. The advantage to the taxpayer is that it provides greater workforce flexibility. If a project or program shrinks or dies we let the contract expire and the employees disappear. If a new project or program starts or expands, we let a new contract.

Its funny (not ha-ha), but the contract employee gets less salary and bennies than a gov employee. But that contract employee costs the gov more. The difference is the overhead that supports the company, including profit to shareholders.

Bot

Exactly! That's the crux of the problem I have with most privatization schemes.

Another problem stems from the loss of institutional memory and expertise pertaining to a particular area of specialty. My wife has observed that the new private contractors need to expend a considerable amount of energy and money to get up to speed on the specifics of their projects, while public employees can hone their skillsets to the point of perfection and ultimately save money, and improve the end product. This is a very frustrating stress on quite a number of public agencies these days. Competition does indeed drive down the bid prices for these projects, but invariably these bid contracts require a renegotiation upward (often several times) before the project is completed. This more often than not, results in costs that exceed those of the public sector workforce they've been brought in to replace. It's maddening...

I lot of what you give Clinton credit for was actually due to the Republican controlled Congress. Spending and the accompanying growth in the government, has to originate in the House. Newtie and company halted the growth of government, not Clinton. Clinton's ambition was to be the president who would accomplish the Holy Grail of Democrats for the last 80 years, universal health care. Unfortunately instead of going for a simple single-payer system he and his wife came up with one of the most convoluted plans ever seen, an incredible big-govenment boondoggle that helped lead to the Democrat's defeat (and end of the Democrats dominance of Congress since 1933) in 1994. Clinton swang right after that because the electorate had done so.

On the other hand, Clinton did exactly what the Democrats elected him to do - he vetoed any attempt to curtail the great social programs of Roosevelt and Johnson, and vetoed any attempt to limit a women's right to choose.

The vast majority of democrats are not classic big government liberals. They simply want a society where government acts as a referee in class disputes, protects the environment, and conducts foriegn policy in a moral manner - while also recognizing that the rich are not the only ones who deserve a decent life in the short time we all spend on this planet.

I get a big chuckle out of this - the GOP convention of 1992 was held in Houston, and we protestors were forced to go to a field a mile from the Astrodome, and during the whole time we did our thing, Houston riot police performed horseback manuvers in the street in front of us so we couldn't even see the Astrodome, and of course, what they were doing was meant to intimidate us from exercising our right to free speech. Other Republican conventions weren't much different.

The Democratic Convention is a private party. It is not a government agency performing functions on public property - it is a private event for invited guests only. If the Republicans don't like it, screw those hypocritical bastards. The day they let me protest on the sidewalk outside their convention hall is the day I'll think again about that sentiment.

It costs me (well, you taxpayers out there) about $60K and about a year to eithteen months to take a kid with a science degree and turn them into a useful photointerpeter/GIS analyst. If I have a gap between projects of just a couple of months, neither the contractor nor the gov can afford to keep the person around. That person gets another job that is more secure and has a more promising career ladder than gov contracting offers. So I get another recent grad....

Essentially, you taxpayers subsidize industry to get people with a college degree, and trained by me with the knowledge and skills for high-quality RS/GIS analysis. Your tax dollars at work.

Bot

KV, in over 200 posts it's becoming very easy to...well you know.