2006 edition of You Have the Power by Howard Dean. From Buzzflash.

[madfloridian]

http://www.buzzflash.com/reviews/06/03/rev06035.html

This is the 2006 edition of Howard Dean's call to arms to restructure the Democratic Party from the grassroots up. If you didn't read the original version, it's time to get the spanking new one.

We don't have to inform BuzzFlash readers that the battle over the future of the Democratic Party is still going strong. Only now, with Howard Dean as DNC Chairman, the conflict is between the official Democratic Party organization and the more centrist leadership on Capitol Hill.

My own thoughts:

I don't have any idea of what has been added in this new edition. However I have some transcriptions done by a friend that are so absolutely fitting considering the events lately. It is a little book, not fancy, but he says just what he thinks on issues. It originally came out in September 04. It is a guide to what he thinks is wrong with the party, then it tells how he thinks we need to go about fixing it.

Just a couple of parts:

"The Democrats, throughout the 1980s and early 1990s didn't stick up for the people who were left behind by the Reagan revolution and the corporate restructuring that came at the end of the first Bush recession. Eschewing 'class warfare', they didn't stick their necks out for the millions of American whose wages and living standards were frozen or falling."

SNIP..."We became afraid of the Right, afraid of the anger, and instead of being steadfast, we pandered....The Democratic Party has paid a big price for that. Worse, our people have paid a big price for the collapse of our will to lead. We failed to articulate a vision for American that keyed into Americans' hope of overcoming economic and social instability. ..."
...."By remaining silent about the things that mattered so much to Americans, we allowed ourselves to be painted into a corner and to be defined by the Republican opposition..."

Then he says this kind of behavior "laid the groundwork for the rise of the radical right". Further, he talks about trying to get help from congressional Democrats in 1991 for the states to pass health care bills on their own. He and several governors went to talk to the House leadership. They asked for changes in federal laws that were keeping states from working out their own plans for universal health care. The leadership refused to help on the grounds, he says, that many had waited their whole careers to pass it, and they did not yet have the votes....and they did not want to states to do it. (Page 62)

And a paragraph from page 63 that just makes me furious. Again from 1991 and early 90s.

SNIP.."Many of the congressional Democrats wouldn't take a risk on anything that might be unpopular, be subject to attack, or allow other people to outshine them in getting some actual work done. So they wouldn't give a green light to the governors in 1991; and a few years later, they wouldn't hear the signals coming from Bob Dole that he was willing to compromise on Clinton's health-care plan. They were paralyzed between their fear of losing an election and their fear of change. In the end they lost and became the victims, in 1994, of the most sweeping congressional changes in sixty-two years. They set the table for Newt Gingrich. It was an awful irony: After decades of domination by the so-called party of the people, the party of FDR and Harry Truman, America continued, at the turn of the millennium, to be the only country in the industrialized world that didn't have health insurance for all its people. "

[Cascadian]

1. The last part angered me too.

And we will continue to have no universal health insurence as long as we have this ass-clown in the White House and these neo-con thugs in Congress.


John

[madfloridian]

2. And the governors could have been working on this...

while Congress said no, let us do it. The governors asked in 91 for some laws to be changed to allow them to start the healthcare process in their state.

[madfloridian]

3. Snip: Consequences for Democrats who cross party lines to vote.

A few more statements from the book. He really crammed a lot into a fairly little book. This explains his view on primaries and why they are vital to our Democracy. As I reread this book, I am not surprised that many are not too happy with him. He probably opens some old wounds.

"Democrats shouldn't be crossing party lines to help Republican ideology dominate, or breaking ranks to vote for measures like the Medicare prescription bill...."

"There should be consequences for Democrats who do. For one thing, there is no reason not to pose primary challenges to Democratic incumbents who vote with the Republicans on critical Democratic priorities." (He further explains that when they vote with Tom DeLay, it means that DeLay gets to go to Republicans from moderate districts and say he does not need their votes.)

"We're fighting now for the future of our country and the future of democracy. To vote with the Republicans is to let extremism get the upper hand. In the past, our party's own ideal about inclusiveness kept us from having the necessary tools to fight. We need to toughen up. We can't afford to be divided by members peeling off on issues that touch upon our deeply held beliefs.

Some of you here think I am a bear about the party not influencing primaries so much, but this is part of the reason.

[madfloridian]

4. He said his job now is to elect Democrats, ours is to choose the ones

to elect through the primaries.