SteveAudio's very nice account of Friday night's WesPAC event
Submitted by CarolNYC on October 30, 2005 - 8:23am.
From the Diaries -- Brent SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2005
Take the last train to Clarksville
We were invited to a Wesley Clark WesPac fundraiser last night by the lovely and talented Mark Kleiman, (thanks also to Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake) and of course, being intrigued by the General's presence and demeanor during the last campaign cycle, we gladly attended.
Mark arranged for a private sit-down for some of us LA bloggers with the General, who with his charming wife Gert, chatted face to face with several of us for almost half an hour. Besides Mark, myself and Pam (Ms. Audio), there were John Amato, Dante Atkins, Howie Klein, who's not really a blogger, but a passionate progressive and like me, a survivor of recording studios and the music biz, and a very nice person from Who's Counting.
The General is even more personable than he appeared on TV. He looked each one of us in the eye, had a message that he clearly felt he wanted to get across, and also listened to our questions. And rather than patronize us by making supporting noises about bloggers as the wave of the future and salvation of the human race, he instead told us what he felt he wanted us to hear, his vision for uniting the Democratic Party behind a clear winning message.
He also said one thing that really struck me. He said: "I have no friends at the Pentagon." Hard to believe, as he is a successful career military man. But he pointed out that many of his former colleagues still owe fiscal allegiance either to the military, or to the corporations upon whose boards they sit, in order to pay for the country club membership. In exchange for which, they can often call up the SecDef or staff and say "Hey, you know I'm with General Dynamics now, and they have their new Acme RoadRunner model submarine that you guys should really take a look at."
He also talked about torture and The Geneva Conventions as values we have to adhere to, lest we fail to be what we proclaim to the world, the greatest civilization on earth. He said we can't expect other peoples and societies to respect us unless we also show reciprocal respect. I pointed out that many Americans today have no problem advocating torture as a method of securing their security, regardless of evidence that as an interrogation method it seldom bears fruit. He replied that many Americans are afraid today, of "other" and change, and that we can reach those folks, because at the end of the day, they are still Americans, with values, just a bit misguided.
When he spoke to the larger group of attendees, he also made the point that although Democrats have many niche issues, we can't hang our hats on the success of those. We instead need to focus on making the Party stronger, convincing America that we are the party of values, and if we build a coalition that focuses on the Common Good (his phrase), rather than individual good, we can win elections.
Now that sounds good to me.
He also talked about an Exit Strategy for Iraq, and this troubled me, because he didn't say exactly what I wanted to hear. He said that we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, something most Democrats always believed (sorry Peter Beinert, you're just wrong.) That was an idea we all could agree with.
But then he said that we also couldn't leave, and that a timetable was a strategy for failure. He said the withdrawal had to be Event Driven (again, his phrase), and that only upon certain conditions, like a truly self-sufficient Iraqi military, with some hope of maintaining a balance of power between Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds, could we ever start to leave with some certainty that civil war wouldn't erupt.
This bothered me. I wanted instant gratification, an easy way out. I wanted to believe that no more American soldiers or Iraqi civilians would die. I also wanted to believe that we wouldn't watch the Oil Ministry be saved while the Electricity grid was destroyed. And I wanted to believe that the Bush administration wouldn't lie so brazenly about Iraq.
I knew they were lying, I knew the Oil Ministry was the most important target, and I knew General Clark was right.
Time to join the world, time to grow up.
Thanks, Gen. Clark.
POSTED BY STEVEAUDIO AT 10:30 PM
for him to say "I have no friends in the pentagon."
after reading ms in la's account last night I felt sad as well. I can't imagine how it must be for him to see what's happening to the country that he's spent his life fighting and working for. That old saying "good guys finish last" comes to mind... And his frustration with people not being actively involved in politics.
ms says it better than I can:
Wes is disheartened it seems by the LACK of public response and outrage to much of the political landscape today. From his travels and endless interactions with the public, he feels a general malaise than manifests itself in a disconnect from the policy makers. A type of impotency that seems to be growing ,wherein the people feel they can have NO impact and so they settle into it and recoil from involvement. You could see this too was a big source of frustration for Wes. General Clark loves involvement and activity-- he embodies it.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia
There is definitely a weariness in his voice that is uncharacteristic when he turns to Iraq especially. I sense it's because he is now having to assume a DEFENSIVE posture on his own ideology about the solution. Being more Dems are calling for the cut and run or the timetable, he seems to be tired of having to explain why that isn't the best solution. You can definitely hear it on Friday nights Q and A when the first question up was Iraq and when / how to exit. I think he may have been getting too much resistance and too many combative type questions on his strategy, his plan. It sounded as if he were feeling "Oh, here I have to go again explaining and defending this idea"
Again-- good ear. No accident you're a musician.
http://steveaudio.blogspot.com/
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia
For your very fabulous post here, for your link to my website Who's Counting, and for kindly saying I was "really nice"!! Appreciate it on all accounts.
Did you see the blogger photo from the event? Check out the general discussion if not -- from last night. I posted it there in a link. The photographer did a nice job I thought.
Come back more often to blog with us here.
Hey, your a star, ms! And Who's Counting spoken of as it should be, a proper web site.
Things are moving along nicely. And notice, he accepted the General's accessment....
I like how Steve comments on how Gen Clark really listens and is not patronizing. It's something you hear again and again, often with wonder, from people who get the chance to have a face to face with him.
He really is special, isn't he?
"The mark of leadership is not to standup when everybody is standing, but rather to actually stand up when no one else is standing" - Pulitzer Prize winning author Samantha Power, introducing Gen Clark