GameBarack Obama changes the political landscape because he is altering basic political understandings. Beneath what people may see as warm and fuzzy talk about unity is hard political reality. It goes back to the suggestive phrase of David Wilhelm when he signed on as an Obama superdelegate. A 65 Percent Presidency. This 65 percent has nothing to do with landslide and mandate, though these are the conventional terms the mainstream media (MSM) use to describe big victories. It has everything to do with what Independents and many Democrats and Republicans have longed for -- well, for all of their lives.Let's call it, for the sake of simplicity, Eisenhower Plus. Or IKE PLUS for short. The plus is Eisenhower-type government with aggressive progressive initiatives.
Recall that Eisenhower warned about the dangers of a military-industrial complex. Let's reread that warning.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
To the general outlook of Ike, add the content of the Progressive Party Platform of 1910. Read the entire Platform. Salient and suggestive portions are excerpted below:
Platform of the Progressive Party August 7, 1912
Declaration of Principles of the Progressive Party
... We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. ...
This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.
... Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
... The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican Party, and the fatal incapacity of the Democratic Party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.
... We demand that the test of true prosperity shall be the benefits conferred thereby on all the citizens not confined to individuals or classes and that the test of corporate efficiency shall be the ability better to serve the public; that those who profit by control of business affairs shall justify that profit and that control by sharing with the public the fruits thereof.
We therefore demand a strong National regulation of inter-State corporations. The corporation is an essential part of modern business. The concentration of modern business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for National and international business efficiency. but the existing concentration of vast wealth under a corporate system, unguarded and uncontrolled by the Nation, has placed in the hands of a few men enormous, secret, irresponsible power over the daily life of the citizen--a power insufferable in a free government and certain of abuse.
This power has been abused, in monopoly of National resources, in stock watering, in unfair competition and unfair privileges, and finally in sinister influences on the public agencies of State and Nation. We do not fear commercial power, but we insist that it shall be exercised openly, under publicity, supervision and regulation of the most efficient sort, which will preserver its good while eradicating and preventing its evils.
... We believe in a protective tariff which shall equalize conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries, both for the farmer and the manufacturer, and which shall maintain for labor an adequate standard of living.
Primarily the benefit of any tariff should be disclosed in the pay envelope of the laborer. We declare that no industry deserves protection which is unfair to labor or which is operating in violation of Federal law. We believe that the presumptions always in favor of the consuming public.
...The natural resources of the Nation must be promptly developed and generously used to supply the people's needs, but we cannot safely allow them to be wasted, exploited, monopolized or controlled against the general good....
Born in NYC, attended Oberlin & Trinity Schools, then Exeter and Williams (Phi Beta Kappa 1958). Worked with the Reverend James Robinson, finished Union Theological Seminary in NYC (1961). Joined Student Interracial Ministry in Nashville. Founded Renewal Magazine in Chicago, served The Christian Century and Christianity Crisis magazines. Covered civil rights in Oxford, Birmingham and Selma. Interviewed Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X. My book The Grass Roots Church had impact on the ecumenical movement. Have authored some 15 books, been a house-husband and father of three wonderful (grown) children. I have written published music choral and popular. Most recently I served in UN agencies including UNICEF in NYC and edited CHOICES which was the flagship magazine of UNDP.
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