Dear Jack:
Hi, my name is Sean, this is just an FYI, when I saw your announcement that you were “exploring” a run for the Senate and that you had set up a website (www.mostimportantdecade.com) the first thing that I thought was…
“Sounds like a book by Tom Brokaw.”
But thats beside the point. Just gonna throw this out there, pallmeyer.org/palmeyer.org/pallmayer.org/palmayer.org are all available and will probably make a much more memorable website. Because no one is going to be caucusing for the most important decade evar! They’re going to be caucus for well… you buddy! Just sayin’ man. Branding.
Keep it real.
Hugs and Kisses,
Sean
For everyone other than Jack, a little more after the fold.
Most of you will remember Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer (hereafter referred to as JNP) as one of the dozen-odd candidates for the 5thCD DFL endorsement that was eventually won by Keith “I Send Republicans into Apoplectic Fits” Ellison last year.
In his “Letter To All Minnesotans” JNPizzle says:
“We are living in the most important decade in human history because the personal and political choices we make in the next ten years will determine the quality of life for all future generations.”
Which seems like a bit of hyperbole, but hey man, whatever floats your boat.
JNP is a ‘Peace’ candidate (which to me is like a ‘security’ candidate, it’s all in the eye of the beholder) on his website he lists his 3 part message as…
Here are his principles, he’s got a lot. JNP is a professor at St. Thomas University in the Justice and Peace Studies Department. He’s married and has three kids. He was opposed to both the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
We welcome JNP to the race. He’s got quite the year ahead of him.
Edit: Added a pic of JNP, on the left, natch.
Loading ...
JNP strikes me as a well meaning, but somewhat pompous person who is out of touch with reality. I know he means well and, as a resident of SD 59, I am aware of how important the peace caucus is to the left. Yet , I just can’t shake the feeling that a campaign based on the 3 issues outlined is a little weak on specifics. Call me old-fashioned but I like my candidates with a platform based on reality and issues like health care, jobs, workers rights, global warming, trade imbalance and treaties. I paid closed attention to his speeches at the 5th CD DFL convention and consider him to be a one-trick-pony. His act wear thin in a hurry.
You’re spot on, Rick. The sole issue of the kumbayahoos — peace — is a worthy one, but as noted, it needs companions. Woman and man cannot live by doves alone. A sad truth, but a truth all the same.
All very true points. Sean
Actually,, all complete nonsense. It starts with peace. We can’t think about spending dime one on anything until we demiliterize our economy. It’s the pursuit of war and the fostering of the war economy that is pulling our society down to the point of being the only nation on the planet that is at war. We stop spending money on war and start investing in the native talent of the country to invent and innovate and the country will start living up to it’s potential. We can become agents for change on the planet but only if we end our cold war mentality. The concept of “We all do better when we all do better.” works on a planetary scale.
Actually if you take the time to read “Governance for the Common Good” it’s clear Nelson-Pallmeyer offers specifics. Example: he promotes a SINGLE-payer health care system. The reality is that the rest of the industrialized world does this and people pay half as much for healthcare as we do. AND they are doing much better as far as quality care - our infant mortality rates are pretty high. I have heard him speak as well. Just out of curiosity Rick which other candidates currently running for US Senate do you think offer more specifics? And can you offer a point-by-point analysis? Health care is a good issue to look at. http://www.mostimportantdecade.com/governance.html
I am often amazed when folks claim that positions like Jack’s are unrealistic. So does it really seem realistic to be spending a couple of trillion dollars or so to kill 500 Iraqis a day? Does putting our heads in the sand about climate change really seem realistic? Does our current healthcare situation seem realistic?
Political campaigns are often filled with meaningless sound bites, but this one has some actual insight about the mess we are in and how we might get out of it.
I would really love it if this election could involve a consideration about who might be our best Senator, not just who has the most money. To me, the best realism involves thinking about whether or not we are actually going in the right direction and whether that’s where we want to be in 20 or 30 years.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer actually has the brains and sees the connections. He may or may not win. We may be hunting armadillos in Minnesota before our current leaders even figure out what the problem is, completely broke from paying for a war we are still fighting and that we will never be able to pay for.
Charley — And as one of a hundred Senators how exactly is Jack Nelson Pallmeyer going to singlehandedly end the war in Iraq, save our planet and fix the health care system?
The senate is by it’s nature designed to do a few things, firstly give lots of power to little states. Secondly it is charged with a much less reactionary and populist responsibility than the House is. And thirdly through arcane rules it is designed to be a chamber of somber men and women always referring to one another as ‘my esteemed colleague” and fluff like that.
So, as the junior Senator from Minnesota, with people like Robert Byrd , Chuck Schumer, Joe Lieberman, Joe Biden, Dick Durbin and Carl Levin, all much more powerful than JNP — how exactly is he going to get his plan into action?
As Paul Wellstone grew to understand the Senate is no place for a bomb thrower, and if thats a course a Senator should choose to follow they will marginalize their ability to lead and be a productive member of the Senate. Sean
Sean,
How does opposing Afghanistan make this man a “security candidate”?
I enjoy your work…
I didn’t say it made him a ‘security candidate’. I said he is a self described “peace” candidate, and that like ‘security candidate’ it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Sean
Sean,
You ask an excellent question: how can one senator out of a hundred possibly make a difference?
The answer is that the Senate is not only a legislative body which tends to favor small states. It is also a deliberative body, where debate is protected to a large extent.
The numbers, after all, do not give the whole picture. If they did, then the war would have ended as soon as people voted the Republicans out of the majority in both houses. The bigger difference, as the past few months so clearly illustrate, is a difference of will and a difference in the coourage to take risks for what you value.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer would make a difference because he has stronger, more coherent and better informed positions than most of the rest of the Senate combined. You should have seen the difference that Jack made in the CD 5 race last year. It was absolutely amazing how his entry opened up the entire House race, how his positions determined the entire debate of all the dozen or so candidates. Jack made this difference because his goals relate to public policy, not merely personal political ambition.
Sure, you can always pick another meaningless candidate who is unwilling to take strong positions because he might offend someone, but who ends up losing anyway because they are a “flip-flopper” or merely a focus-group-driven follower. Or you could pick a candidate who might actually make cogent arguments that ended this tragic war and dedicated a few resources to actually solving some of the huge problems facing us (like global warming, pollution, energy sustainability, and so on).
Jack is getting in. Just watch what happens as those empty slogans start sounding rather hollow in comparison.
Dear Al Franken,
Hi, my name is Dan. I saw that you are running for Senate and looked at your website(www.alfranken.com) and my first thought was “why does this guy have a giant close-up of his ugly head on the front page.”
Here is some friendly advice: put some flattering pictures of yourself on your website.
Just sayin, man.
Thats a pretty astounding level of arrogance. Sean
Wait, you write something mocking one potential candidate and his website, and I’m arrogant for responding by mocking a candidate who is a far bigger joke and has a much worse website?
I wasn’t responding to you. Sean
More candidates for that race are always welcome, however, I’m getting a tad tired of the peacenik nutjobs in our party that go around telling us that we can just dismantle our military and be docile and no one will bother us. That’s completely and utterly ridiculous. While I don’t think we need to spend most of our GDP, ala North Korea, we do need to be able to protect ourselves and, in certain circumstances, our interests.
Actually, Eric, here’s the other side of Sean’s “one in a hundred” argument. You see, all those other senators are taking huge campaign contributions from folks like Lockheed, AlliantTech, BAE and so on. The war industry folks already HAVE their senators, you see. Neither you nor I should be so naif as to believe that Jack entering the Senate could get our war spending cut to zero. There are just too many war industries in too many states.
As you yourself point out, however, we are spending so much money on fancy toys that explode. So there just isn’t much left over for anything else. That’s not even good national security.
So it might be nice to have just a senator or two to raise the question, just so the question gets raised and we can think about a little proportion.
At the present time the US spends more on “defense” then a considerable of number of nations put together. Just recently, our president proposed we put Star Wars missle defense stations in Eastern Europe to defend Europe against a missle attack from Iran. Putins response was to threaten to aim missles at Europe. Why are they proposing this insanity? Follow the money. It’s never been about defense.
What i would like to know is why the peace activists think they are the most important people in the DFL. They run candidates every election, cry out that peace is the most important thing in the race, and then whenever someone disagrees the “peace” activists treat them like outcasts and worse than republicans. Look at the responses on here, mocking and attacks, and it gets worse when it happens in person or on certain mailing lists.
Pallmeyer ran a poor campaign for the 5th and will do no better this time. He’s spent too much time in the classroom lecturing and it shows in his interaction with people.
Actually the DFL rarely runs Peace candidates - it favors candidates who won’t seriously challenge the status quo. There aren’t enough candidates who have the confidence to make the case that there is no single case in history where an established country has become a democracy through invasion. We will be in Iraq for decades…neither one of the two dominant parties has the will to change this. Will the DFL back Jack? It’s doubtful…but since neither the DFL nor the GOP will stand up for diplomacy over agression it’s important for candidates like Nelson-Pallmeyer participate - at least try to change the dialog for as long as possible. Elections are really the only time to get some common-sense into the political dialog. So when it’s clear there is no such candidate the JNP’s of the world will come forward. It would probably make more sense if he did so as an Independence Party candidate - he could be in the debate longer because he could actually get on the November 2008 ballot…heck in a three-way race against Norm and Al he would probably do quite well.
Dear Death from Above,
I have been thinking about your complaint since I read it.
There is an old canard that the Vietnam war lasted a couple of extra years because, while most people really hated that war, many folks hated the hippie war protesters even more. I don’t know if it’s true, but it speaks to the alienation you express.
What can I tell you? I’m sure you remember that millions of people were out in the streets trying to stop this war (maybe you were there too). I’m sure you noticed that quite a few peace people around Minnesota were out there door-knocking and phoning for progressive candidates, and I imagine that you noticed the results as well. And, yes, you are also correct that there was a very deep disappointment when Rep. Keith Ellison cast that March vote to continue funding the war. And there is a continuing disappointment that Rep. Tim Walz voted for the final Iraq war funding bill. (Thank you Betty McCullum and Keith Ellison for that last vote.)
It may seem like arrogance, but the reality is frustration. We have been out there trying to stop this war and we have been watching our fellow Democrats take weak positions against the war and then lose elections.
We have been accused of being single-issue, but it is difficult for me to imagine what sort of progressive agenda could be accomplished while we spend 2.5 billion dollars a week on this tragic war. Could we pay for better schools or better healthcare? Could we pay for more mass transit or better disaster response? How in the world can we solve huge problems like global warming while we bankrupt our country with a needless and unpopular war? If we are unable to join together as a party to stop this rogue president, to stop this illegal war, how can we hope to have the courage to insist on clean elections, or honest government contracts, or protection of our own civil liberties as citizens.
Truly, Death from Above, I don’t blame you for any of this mess we are in. It’s a really bleak situation, however. How about we work together to solve it? Check out http://www.mostimportantdecade.com/
That Jack is running completely changes this race. Now Al Franken will have to be more than a sharp critic of Norm Coleman and the way the war has been laid on us(which he ultimately supports by wanting troops there and nonstop funding!).
And what of the assumption that all that money the US is spending on our military is for our security? It is to secure resources, markets and peoples (labor) for US global investors. We spend more than the rest of the world combined on military. We have bases all over the world. Jack is clear headed enough to use the word empire to describe the US and it’s foreign policy and use of our resources and treasure. having him in the conversation strips the fiction of militarism for our security.
Jack is also the one candidate whose policies are clear and complete responses to the issues and theircrying need. No half steps when a triple jump is needed from Jack.
I just participated in Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s first virtual call. He answered specific and general questions. He answered mine.
A courageous voice will shift the system. He has the voice. (And the experience, knowledge, integrity, and humor.)We need to be willing to use our voices as well.
It is the most important decade.
I just wanted to address the charge that DaveDem made that Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer ran a poor campaign for Congress last year. I think his campaign did better than I or many expected, virtually tying the delegate showing of Mike Erlandson on the first ballot. Jack’s convention planning was auperb and if not for the fact that he was outspent and outcredentialed by several candidates, I think he could’ve been a serious contender. I would also caution those who want to disparage JNP as a professor by reminding all that we had a professor as a Senator for twelve years and I think Senator Wellstone did a fine job.
I haven’t decided who I am supporting next year yet, but Nelson-Pallmeyer is as much of a credible candidate as the attorney and radio commentator who are running.