Bluenecks Resolutions

Happy New Year to everyone from the folks here at Bluenecks! We spent a lot of energy the last half of 2005 trying to speak out against the political direction of this country and to raise awareness on a wide variety of issues important to Southern progressives. The year 2006 will be extremely important for our country's future, and our resolve to make some kind of constructive contribution is stronger than ever. In that spirit, we offer the following Bluenecks Resolutions for 2006.

Support Democratic candidates and campaigns in the 2006 Congressional elections. This blog has never taken an exclusively pro-Democratic Party position, and at various times we have personally supported third party candidates and initiatives with great enthusiasm. We appreciate the thoughtful debate that is on-going in progressive circles (which surfaced even earlier this week in comments posted by readers of this blog) about the usefuleness and practicality of working within the Democratic Party. Yes, it's true that the Democrats often possess no real focus and offer no viable, inspiring alternatives to the Republicans. It's true that Democratic politicians have a terrible proclivity for trying to hide somewhere in the political center, undermining real progressive efforts for greater environmental protection, labor and trade reforms and a sane foreign policy. The current lack of unity of Congressional Democrats is a perfect example of this.

But for this blogger personally, the 2000 presidential election proved without question that there is indeed a difference between Democrats and the current leadership of the Republican Party. The war in Iraq, the relentless attack on civil liberties, the rapid undermining of environmental protections, the deliberate effort to redistribute wealth to the already-wealthy, the prospect of radically conservative judges on the Supreme Court--all of this could potentially have been different. Whether we are leftists, centrists, populists, even libertarians, it seems clear to us that the Democrats may be our only viable vehicle for stopping this rightward tide that is so out of step with the majority of American voters. As Ruth Conniff writes in this month's Progressive, only fifteen seats are needed in the House and six in the Senate to change party leadership in Congress. It's still a long-shot, but the possibilities are worth the battle.

Keep the pressure on for withdrawal from Iraq: The majority of Americans are convinced on this one, but we have to keep up the work of pressuring Congress to demand a commitment to exiting Iraq. Now that the Iraqi elections are complete, there is no reason for not making a commitment to withdrawal. The Quaker-led peace and justice group Friends Committee for National Legislation is encouraging voters to contact their Congressional representatives during the January recess to urge their support of the STEP resolution (Sensible Transition to Enduring Peace), a simple, straightforward resolution for commitment to withdrawal.

Organize around an energy policy for the future: Political commentator Molly Ivins, echoing Texas peace activist Gen Van Cleve, has written recently that it's time for Progressives to move from beyond our defensive, hold-the-line position to rallying around some core issues that define our differences from the right-wing and to imagine and articulate how the future could be different. Her proposal is to focus on the environment, an issue that resonates strongly with voters across the political spectrum: "an effort similar to John F. Kennedy's plan to go to the moon in ten years: Marshal a huge concentration of scientific and technical knowledge aimed at finding ways to make renewable, nonpulluting sources of energy available and cheap to share that knowledge with the rest of the world." A good starting point would be supporting the efforts of the Apollo Alliance to spread the gospel that renewable energy does not have to mean economic stagnation.

May 2006 be a year of great blessings for all of you, and thanks for your commitment to a better world!