Bush Is the Titanic, We Are the Icebergs

Sen. Webb's speech hopefully will be echoed by every Democratic officeholder and candidate. It represented a new progressive centrist position which only seemed surprising because the mainstream media - and therefore official discourse - has eliminated issues of class and inequality from the national discourse since the Clinton years. The Democrats have emphasized growth as if greater profits means a shared prosperity, while the opposite has been the case. Webb astutely made the case for greater equality by citing Theodore Roosevelt's rhetoric against the robber barons one hundred years ago.

On Iraq, Webb made the case for a planned withdrawal in the context of his family's long military service. He didn't explicitly link the issues, but made clear that on these two great issues the Democrats want to pursue a different course.

Webb has been quoted in the past as saying hurtful things about anti-war activists like my ex-wife. I would hope he finally can leave those feelings and, all that anger behind, and share the understanding that our elites, many of them the same people, have misled our people into two mistaken wars at huge costs in casualties and missed opportunities for economic development.

With tonight's speech, he could even become formidable in the presidential race, at least by stumping on the issues and shaping the party platform. It would be a major step toward once again integrating the anti-war and economic populist traditions.

Obviously Webb and the Democrats need to set forth a positive plan for ending the war. But his direction is plain enough. Now it is time to stand and deliver, or the Democrats will steadily disillusion their own rank-and-file as well as many of the party's own inside elites.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media seems lost, perhaps because they are mainly accountable to their upper echelons. Lacking the equivalent of a voter revolt, they keep drifting towards an imaginary center, babbling about the need for bipartisan solutions when the death toll from Baghdad screams for attention and the devastation of New Orleans' ghetto is accepted as inevitable economically.

Civil society, from the voters to the bloggers to the street protestors, delivered a jolt to the established order last Nov. 7. Those on the left who rejected electoral politics underestimated the tendency of most politicians to echo their constituencies. But without a further challenge from the base, the tendency of the Democrats will be to adopt solutions that are too little, too late. The challenge in the short term is whether the Baghdad/al-Anbar escalation can be stopped and plans for war with Iran derailed. As these epic battles unfold, the future may be determined by whether the social movements for peace, economic justice, environmental health and progressive religion can be united in ways in a new rainbow that requires deeper attention from the established parties.

At the moment, however, Bush is the Titanic and the movements are the icebergs.