Progress Report: Reclaiming Morality

November 4, 2004

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:12:40 -0800

Subject:Progress Report: Reclaiming Morality

" American Progress Action Fund "

<progress

The Progress Report

by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin

November 4, 2004

VALUES Reclaiming Morality

IRAQ Time To Work

UNDER THE RADAR Go Beyond The Headlines

" We must accept finite disappointment but we must never give up

infinite hope. " – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

THE FIGHT GOES ON

" Was it Over When the German's Bombed Pearl Harbor? "

In the wake of Tuesday's election, the Progress Report is more

motivated than ever to find new ways to advance the progressive

agenda. Please send us your ideas on how to go forward in the coming

years to pr – we'll publish a few of our

favorites in a coming edition. Thanks for your help.

VALUES

Reclaiming Morality

On Election Day 2004, 18 million Americans reportedly voted for

President Bush because of " moral values, " which " edged terrorism and

the economy as the top issue " of the election. But on a number of

issues that should be critical to voters who care about morality, the

president needs to do better in his second term. " Regardless of who

leads this country, " said National Council of Churches General

Secretary Robert Edgar, " the agenda of the church must always respond

faithfully to the Bible's timeless mandate to minister to the poor,

the marginalized and the outcast; and to be seekers and makers of

peace. " To that end, progressive religious groups such as Hadassah,

Interfaith Alliance and the Protestants for the Common Good (PCG) are

encouraging people of faith to work toward reforms on moral issues

such as economic justice, poverty, affordable housing and the

environment. These are some of the areas in which the president can

improve in his second term.

RELIGIOUS ISSUES: Evangelical Pastor Jim Wallis – editor of Sojourners

– writes that the 2004 election has begun " a real debate in this

country over what the most important 'religious issues' are in

politics. " The religious right " fought to keep the focus on gay

marriage and abortion…But many moderate and progressive Christians

disagreed. We insisted that poverty is also a religious issue,

pointing to thousands of verses in the Bible on the poor. The

environment – protection of God's creation – is also one of our

religious concerns. " The Rev. Jeff Schutz, until recently a pastor at

" a fast-growing evangelical congregation, " urged Americans to think

past personal moral issues like abortion and gay marriage. " How about

talking about adoption, special-needs children, reforming the

insurance industry, [and] the homeless? " Schutz said. (For more, check

out American Progress's Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative.)

POVERTY: The president let millions of kids slide into poverty while

cutting taxes for the richest Americans. In his first term, President

Bush enacted tax cuts skewed overwhelmingly towards the wealthy even

as poverty, especially for children, rose for three straight years.

The president has pushed to make those tax cuts permanent. A national

network of churches and faith-based organizations, Call to Renewal,

has been formed to combat poverty in America.

HEALTH CARE: The president pandered to special interests instead of

providing affordable health care for America's seniors. Under

President Bush, five million Americans have lost their health

insurance and millions more have seen their premiums rise. The Bush

administration backed a Medicare bill which put drug and insurance

companies ahead of seniors. According to the American Enterprise

Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), President Bush's

second-term health care plan would insure just 6.7 million new

Americans, still leaving 38.3 million Americans uninsured.

ENVIRONMENT: President Bush rolled back environmental safeguards,

putting the interests of polluters ahead of public health. In Bush's

first term, the environment " has stalled or gone into reverse in

several areas, " in large part because of the president's reliance on

industry insiders (like Halliburton) to write new pollution laws.

DEFICIT: President Bush saddled future generations with debt. The

president promised not to pass problems on " to future generations, "

but if President Bush cannot successfully pay down the $422 billion

deficit – created in large part by his tax schemes – he will pass the

biggest debt in American history from one generation to another. So

far, he has " revealed no details " as to how he plans to pay the debt down.

HOUSING: The president tried to dismantle Section 8, the " most

successful public-and-private housing partnership in the history of

the United States. " The president has repeatedly endorsed programs and

policies that are hostile to the program, endangering housing for more

than two million poor families nationwide.

IRAQ

Time To Work

The war in Iraq isn't going away. For the past few months, Candidate

Bush misrepresented the dire situation in Iraq, painting a falsely

rosy picture for American voters. It's time for President Bush own up

to his responsibility and face the facts. The country is wracked by a

growing insurgency which is armed with powerful, looted weapons; the

country is ground zero for terrorist recruitment; our soldiers don't

have the equipment they need to fight; international support has all

but vanished; and elections scheduled for January are in danger of

losing legitimacy. Just yesterday, gunmen kidnapped the second U.S.

citizen to be seized this week, while militants released a tape

" showing the beheading of an Iraqi officer as a warning to those who

deal with 'the infidel' American troops. " Elsewhere, " a U.S. soldier

was killed and another was wounded in a roadside bombing 12 miles

south of the capital. " The U.S. election is over; it's time for the

president to stop playing politics and get to work.

REFOCUS ON WINNING BROADER INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT: International

support for the war in Iraq, never strong, has crumbled, and unless

the coalition is rebuilt, U.S. troops will be left to shoulder the

burden alone. Just yesterday, one of the few remaining countries,

Hungary, announced its troops would be leaving in March. It joins a

long list of countries that have removed support: Spain withdrew its

1,300 troops last March. " The Dominican Republic withdrew 302

soldiers, Nicaragua 115 and Honduras 370. The Philippines withdrew its

51 in July, a month early, after insurgents took hostage a Filipino

truck driver working for a Saudi company. Norway withdrew 155 military

engineers, keeping only 15 staff members to help NATO train and equip

the Iraqi security forces…Poland, the fourth-largest contributor, with

2,400 troops, says it intends to withdraw by the end of next year, and

the Netherlands, with 1,400 troops, said this week that the latest

rotation of troops would be its last contribution to Iraq. New Zealand

is withdrawing its 60 engineers and Thailand said it wanted to bring

home its 450 troops. Singapore has reduced its contingent to 33, from

191; Moldova has trimmed its force to 12, from 42. On Wednesday

Bulgaria's Defense Ministry said it would reduce its 483 troops to 430

next month, Reuters reported. "

FIND THE MISSING EXPLOSIVES: Tons of lethal explosives were looted

from unguarded sites in Iraq and now are in the hands of the

insurgents and terrorists. This morning, the Los Angeles Times has an

eyewitness account of the looting. A group of Army reservists and

National Guardsmen watched as " Iraqi looters loaded powerful

explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material away from the Al

Qaqaa ammunition site " in the days after the fall of Baghdad. The

soldiers were outnumbered and requested help from higher-ups to secure

the site but they received no reply. " One soldier said U.S. forces

watched the looters' trucks loaded with bags marked hexamine — a key

ingredient for HMX — being driven away from the facility. Unsure what

hexamine was, the troops later did an Internet search and learned of

its explosive power. "

GET NECESSARY EQUIPMENT TO OUR TROOPS: President Bush must get

necessary equipment and armor to our troops in Iraq. Nearly half of

U.S. casualties in Iraq are the direct result of roadside bombs, yet

twenty months after the start of the war, U.S. soldiers on the front

lines still lack " thousands of fully armored vehicles that could save

American lives. " Soldiers also lack basics like ammunition, radios,

and night vision goggles.

BRING BACK AID GROUPS: The ongoing threat of kidnappings and bombings

has driven away nearly all international aid groups, leaving U.S.

troops and U.S. taxpayers to shoulder the burden alone. USA Today

recently reported, " The departure of the charitable non-governmental

organizations, or 'NGOs,' from Iraq is more than a barometer of the

violence there. It's a big setback for the dream of a peaceful and

stable Iraq. It means the U.S. military and taxpayer-paid contractors

are almost the only ones left to handle a complex and dangerous burden. "

Under the Radar

MINIMUM WAGE – FLORIDIANS GIVE WORKERS A BOOST: On Tuesday, voters in

Florida " overwhelmingly approved a $1 raise in the wage, from $5.15 to

$6.15. " Meghan Scott, communications director for Floridians For All,

the group that sponsored the measure, " said the strong support for the

measure across party lines meant voters saw it as a moral issue as

well as a boost to working families. " The initiative was bolstered by

a study sponsored by American Progress which demonstrated that many

workers would reap significant benefits, while the costs for

businesses would be negligible.

STEM CELL – CALIFORNIANS VOTE FOR PROGRESS: California voters approved

a ballot initiative Tuesday that " committed billions of dollars to

stem-cell research. " Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke ranks with

President Bush " to support spending $3 billion in seed money for

stem-cell research, saying it would bring the state more jobs. "

SUPREME COURT – SPECTER ISSUES WARNING: Yesterday, Sen. Arlen Specter

(R-PA), the likely chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made his

position clear on expected Supreme Court vacancies. Specter warned

President Bush " against trying to fill any upcoming Supreme Court

vacancies with judges who would oppose abortion rights or invite

Democrats to block them for being too conservative. "

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY – MOUNTING DEBT MUST BE ADDRESSED: Immediately

after securing a second term, " the Bush administration announced

Wednesday that it will run out of maneuvering room to manage the

government's massive borrowing needs in two weeks, putting more

pressure on Congress to raise the debt ceiling when it convenes for a

special post-election session. " Congress " put off dealing with the

debt ceiling before adjourning in October, preferring not to force

members to vote on the politically sensitive issue of adding to the

national debt before the November elections. "

November 4, 2004

" Reportedly " voted for moral values, is precisely right. The people that

voted for Bush, on moral grounds, are at best, self deceived, and in general

are deceiving everyone around them. Bush is arguably the most " immoral "

president in history. To not know this is a disaster in itself. To vote to

force Bush on the rest of us, is absolutely intolerable. Does anyone

actually accept the proposition that the " deep " South, has a " superior "

morality over the North, East or West. Those of us that know better, which

is most of us, will have to console ourselves with the certainty that the

election was rigged in the battleground States, and most of all in Ohio and

Florida. That we've accepted the outcome with nary a whisper of opposition

reveals how completely cowed and intimidated we all feel at the prospect of

having to openly acknowledge our own doubts about the legtimacy of the

election. We yielded in 2000, and pretended to ourselves, that we could

endure the theft of that election " and " a Bush presidency. Now in 2004,

we've once more surrendered our political will to these criminals, and

people are already saying that we'll even the score in 2006. What nonsense.

If we allow them to get away with what they've done in '04, it'll be easier

for them in '06, and still worse in '08. You firmly " draw the line, " not in

response to your knowledge of the presence of evil, but in response to your

courage in opposing it.

JP

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" califpacific " <califpacific

Thursday, November 04, 2004 12:08 PM