The Democrats: at Peace with the War
PROGRESSIVE "you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" The Democrats: at Peace with the War The news from the Democratic National Committee is that the Party has declared a...
...This is no time for a separate peace at home...
...There is, in fact, no leader at all who offers, at this point, the prospect of an effective challenge to Mr...
...So do those outside the Party who have given up on the Democrats but not on the political process, and who hope to bring a new political alignment into being...
...But the men who run the Democratic Party have chosen to sweep the Vietnam issue out of sight...
...Nixon in 1972...
...The President seems, for now at least, to have accurately gauged the sentiments and attitudes of the American people," according to a recent report from the Democrats' political research division...
...Nixon in profound contempt...
...Somewhere in America, we are convinced, there exists a constituency for an effective, forward-looking opposition...
...There is no charismatic national leader among the Democrats—particularly since Chappaquiddick—whose personal stature would permit the Party to indulge itself in the luxury of politics-as-usual...
...Now Harris makes it plain that he would rather not talk about Vietnam...
...It is the kind of cheap political shot for which Democrats have long—and rightly—held Mr...
...the continuing, unquestioning Administration support for the corrupt and dictatorial regime in Saigon...
...The Democrats are well aware today that they are in no position to do any better without a program that strikes at the very roots of crime...
...Many of the most prominent Democrats are indelibly stamped with the failures of the past—yet it is precisely with these figures the Party seems determined to identify itself...
...Senator Harris and his Democratic leadership group deserve a couple of "Fs" themselves, one for immorality in turning away from the Vietnam peace issue and another for incompetence in missing the significance of two major developments: f Development one is that President Thieu recently knocked a gaping hole in Mr...
...The Party plans a "Democratic Action Conference on Crime," and Chairman Harris has accused the Administration of "failing to come up with a comprehensive national effort...
...The national mood on Vietnam is at the same time glum and tired, but unwilling to accept outright defeat...
...That constituency rallied in 1968 to the campaigns of Eugene J. McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy...
...the adherence to an imperialist Weltanschauung that could at any time plunge us into a new Vietnam...
...The crime problem will not be solved until all the other pressing problems which are the causes of crime are solved, and neither of the major parties is engaged today in pressing for basic solutions...
...It talked about crime and inflation and the need to "put first things first," but made no mention of racism or militarism or the accelerating danger of political repression...
...Among the scheduled speakers are Hubert H. Humphrey, House Speaker John W. McCormack, and House Majority Leader Carl W. Albert...
...Those within the Party who are working for real change—the New Democratic Coalition—which will soon hold its first national conference, and the Referendum '70 group, which also plans to support peace candidates in this Congressional election year—deserve every measure of encouragement...
...Although Secretary of State William Rogers has insisted that,the Nixon Administration does not oppose creation of a coalition government, Thieu, characterized by the President as one of the great statesmen of our time, has rejected the Administration's position...
...There is still a chance, perhaps, that the Democrats may seize the opportunity to provide a meaningful political alternative, but there is no reason whatever to take it for granted that they will...
...Here, clearly, was an area of dispute and debate in which a Loyal Opposition could attack the weakness of the Administration's position and embark on a major crusade to expose the character of the Thieu-Ky dictatorship and its intolerable yet successful resistance to the creation of the kind of coalition that would speed the achievement of peace...
...It is ready today—and will be readier by 1972—to respond to a political movement that offers a genuine commitment to a better America, a decent America...
...Their first major thrust of 1970 is an appeal to "law and order" sentiment...
...On what issues, then, if not Vietnam, does the Opposition propose to oppose...
...A coalition government means death," said Thieu...
...It will not confront the Nixon Administration on the one most crucial issue of our time—the continuing commitment of the United States to the prosecution of the criminal and catastrophic war in Vietnam...
...PROGRESSIVE "you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" The Democrats: at Peace with the War The news from the Democratic National Committee is that the Party has declared a separate peace...
...Are these the "New Populists" around whom the youth of America— and the millions of their elders opposed to the war—are to rally...
...The Democratic Party's national chairman, Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma, declared only last fall that it was "time to take the gloves off" by attacking Nixon policies in Vietnam...
...combat troops will be needed in South Vietnam for years to come...
...Senator Harris and his associates apparently feel there is nothing much to say about the domineering and intransigent position taken by President Thieu not only on the subject of withdrawal of American ground forces, but on the possibility of achieving a coalition in South Vietnam that might speed the prospect of peace...
...He dismissed the notion of broadening the base of his own government and denounced his non-Communist opponents who advocated a negotiated peace as "pro-Communists, racketeers, and traitors...
...The President was well aware when he campaigned in 1968 that despite all his promises, he would be able to do little or nothing about the rising crime rate that stems from poverty, discrimination, and alienation in America...
...the unwillingness to move toward a peace settlement embracing the participation of all political elements in South Vietnam, specifically including the National Liberation Front and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (described by Joseph Elder on Page 12...
...The President, he diffidently suggests when pressed, deserves an "I" for incomplete on his Vietnam report card...
...Are these the men who will usher in the "Decade of the People...
...Nixon on his own turf...
...With this philosophy, the Democratic Party proposes to make the 1970s the 'Decade of the People.'" But the national chairman's New Year's statement, for all its bold rhetoric about "new populism," was pathetically bereft of program specifics...
...If the Democratic Party's machinery cannot provide it, a new mechanism will have to be created...
...Nixon's claim that the war will be Vietnamized...
...It congratulated the Congress for reaffirming "the Democratic Party's basic problem-solving, people-oriented nature" and promised decisive action on "the harsh realities of today's changing problems...
...The Loyal Opposition has thus abdicated its responsibility to oppose the party in power on precisely those points on which the Administration can and should be subjected to unremitting pressure: the lack of a specific timetable for its vague and indefinite "withdrawal" plan...
...the General insisted—without rebuttal from the White House—that U.S...
...1 Development two is the Gallup Poll disclosure that, for the first time, "the weight of sentiment among Democrats is for withdrawal [of all troops] —either immediately or by the end of the current year...
...Senator Harris says bravely that " 'The New Populism' is a term which best characterizes the aims and purposes of the Democratic Party as it looks toward the 1970s—and specifically the elections of 1970 and 1972...
...It rallied by the hundreds of thousands against the Vietnam war last October and November...
...If Harris and his entourage used their political horse sense, they would be hammering home the meaning of Thieu's statement from Maine to Hawaii, and at least rallying behind, if not leading, the growing Democratic voter support for complete troop withdrawal before 1970 ends...
...There is a need, as never before, for a vigorous Opposition in America...
...What the Democratic National Committee does not yet realize is that their Party is in an advanced state of decay —that it no longer commands the allegiance of some of its traditional constituency, and that it has no appeal to vast segments of the great potential constituency among the nation's young people...
...The Democratic fund-raising "gala" scheduled to be held in Miami on February 5 (and to be relayed to a score of regional dinners by closed-circuit television) is to feature Harry S. Truman as guest of honor and Lyndon B. Johnson as honorary chairman...
...On the subject of withdrawal by the end of 1970, Thieu insisted in a January news conference that it was an "impossible and impractical goal" and that, instead, withdrawal "will take many years...
...Instead, the Democrats have apparently decided to grapple with Mr...
...We don't know how large that constituency is, and we doubt that anyone does, but we suspect it is not small...
...Under the guidance of its most cautious and conservative elements, the National Committee appears to have bought—lock, stock, and gun barrel— the President's specious assurances that he can somehow end the war by "Viet-namizing" it—that he can establish a Pax Americana in Southeast Asia at second hand...
Vol. 34 • February 1970 • No. 2
