The Case for Edwards
Jan. 1st, 2008 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaMy first political post of the year! Huzzah!
I've been mostly supporting John Edwards since the beginning of primary season, for reasons to which I've alluded before, which boil down to "his priorities are similar to mine." He's the only candidate directly confronting the fundamentally broken nature of political news coverage in the US; he's the only candidate directly engaging the problem of economic inequality at any length; he's the only candidate I've seen directly address the ongoing catastrophe in New Orleans; and his repudiation of his early support for the war on Iraq leads me to believe he's interested in a less interventional foreign policy than any of the other candidates (except Ron Paul and Dennis Kusinich). He made many of these points while running for VP, of course, so I was inclined to like him when the primaries began. He's not afraid to be a liberal, and he's not willing to parrot Republicans' rhetoric to bash Democrats, both of which are habits that drive me nuts about the other leading Dems. He's charismatic and smart and a good campaigner--it's really not easy for a bleeding-heart liberal to win a Senate seat in North Carolina, as I know from watching the state close-up for nearly twenty years.
But yesterday I had pointed out another reason why I support him: The entrenched power elites are really scared of him. Glenn Greenwald pointed out this letter to Sunday's New York Times Week in Review which I had already seen, from Theodore Frank of the American Enterprise Institute:
The true message of the "conservative" movement is "there should be no accountability for the powerful". John Edwards has spent his entire life making the opposite case, literally. I have such a big man-crush on him right now.
I've been mostly supporting John Edwards since the beginning of primary season, for reasons to which I've alluded before, which boil down to "his priorities are similar to mine." He's the only candidate directly confronting the fundamentally broken nature of political news coverage in the US; he's the only candidate directly engaging the problem of economic inequality at any length; he's the only candidate I've seen directly address the ongoing catastrophe in New Orleans; and his repudiation of his early support for the war on Iraq leads me to believe he's interested in a less interventional foreign policy than any of the other candidates (except Ron Paul and Dennis Kusinich). He made many of these points while running for VP, of course, so I was inclined to like him when the primaries began. He's not afraid to be a liberal, and he's not willing to parrot Republicans' rhetoric to bash Democrats, both of which are habits that drive me nuts about the other leading Dems. He's charismatic and smart and a good campaigner--it's really not easy for a bleeding-heart liberal to win a Senate seat in North Carolina, as I know from watching the state close-up for nearly twenty years.
But yesterday I had pointed out another reason why I support him: The entrenched power elites are really scared of him. Glenn Greenwald pointed out this letter to Sunday's New York Times Week in Review which I had already seen, from Theodore Frank of the American Enterprise Institute:
There is a critical distinction between Mitt Romney's and John Edwards's wealth. Mr. Romney, as a businessman, made investments that created wealth. Mr. Edwards, as a trial lawyer, made his money through lawsuits that merely took from one pocket and gave to another, and probably destroyed wealth in the process. (Mr. Edwards's multimillion-dollar medical malpractice verdicts almost certainly hurt the quality of health care in North Carolina.)
Little wonder that Mr. Romney understands that to improve the economy, one needs to expand the pie, while Mr. Edwards's policy proposals focus entirely on the redistribution of the existing pie without thought for the future adverse consequences to the size of the pie.
[Greenwald:] Anything that results in accountability for our largest corporations is inherently bad, even when they're found under our legal system to have broken the law or acted recklessly. Thus, John Edwards' self-made wealth is deeply dishonorable and shameful because it came at the expense of our largest corporations and on behalf of the poor and dirty masses, while Mitt Romney's wealth, spawned by his CEO-father's connections, is to be honored and praised because it benefited our establishment and was on behalf of our glorious elite.
The true message of the "conservative" movement is "there should be no accountability for the powerful". John Edwards has spent his entire life making the opposite case, literally. I have such a big man-crush on him right now.
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Date: 2008-01-02 02:43 am (UTC)(1) That vote for the Iraq war. Yes, he's been very straight about saying he was wrong. It would have been even better not to have been wrong. And although he's at the liberal end of it, I don't see him as being outside of the bipartisan consensus belief that the US should go ahead and take over any country we feel like ruling, whenever we want.
(2) No perceptible opposition to the War on Some Drugs, our multi-generational program to imprison as many poor people as possible. Mind you, nobody in the race except Ron Paul is any good on this, and on a bunch of other equally important issues, Ron Paul is so crazy that his eyes don't point in the same direction.
(3) The fact that he bailed on the Senate after one term. I'm sorry, but that really disimpressed me. As does his relatively thin resume of legislative accomplishments.
I like his straight talk and his understanding of the fact that this is a class war and the upper classes are winning. I wish I were more impressed by the effectiveness of his campaign. Of course, if he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and wins Iowa, I'll gladly eat that last.