Democratic Party Ignored Its 2012 Platform
By David Swanson, American Herald Tribune
Bernie Sanders' accomplishment, whether he wins the most actual delegates, despite the rigged system, or not, and whether that garners him the nomination or not, has not been to persuade Hillary Clinton to pretend to support progressive policies. And it has not been to persuade the DNC to let progressive people have some say in drafting its 2016 platform. Sanders' accomplishment has been persuading millions of people to vote for whom they choose in defiance of the corporate media's dictates. The U.S. public's growing ability to tell the corporate media to go to hell is going to mean a lot more to our future than the outcome of any election.
If you look through the 2008 and 2012 Democratic Party Platforms, the idea that the next one could be improved upon appears obvious. The idea that it matters appears less so. In 2008, the Democratic Party was going to "defeat al Qaeda," and "win" a war on Afghanistan by escalating it, make America loved again while expanding its military presence all over the globe, eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth, handle climate change, enact the Employee Free Choice Act, etc., etc. It's not that times changed. It's not that the evil Republicans got in the way. The Democrats never attempted these things -- well, except for the one in Afghanistan that they're still attempting, and the hate-generating military expansion.
This is not necessarily a drawback in platform writing. If you fail to do something in four years, you get to stick it into the next platform four years later -- perhaps with even worse writing after some additional group-editing is applied. After the 2006 congressional victories, Rahm Emanuel told the Washington Post that the Democrats would actually not end the war on Iraq, because they preferred to run "against" it again in 2008. That attitude seems to be the model for how the 2012 Democratic Party Platform evolved out of the 2008 version.
