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Kyle Johnson of Bumperactive has a Booklobby message for Barack Obama.

My concern is that you will inherit a government such as Kennedy’s, where the ablest minds have been culled, and only the yes men remain.

Kyle appears to have been busy with Bumperactive now offering a state-by-state bumper sticker featuring Senator Obama.

Here are Kyle’s comments for Senator Obama.

Dear Senator Obama:

I am excited and hopeful at the prospect that you will be the next President of the United States. At the same time, I am deeply concerned about the state of global affairs and the machinery of the government you will inherit.
Many in the country have high hopes an Obama Presidency can realize the unfulfilled promise of the Kennedy administration. Yet despite the idealism of Camelot, we cannot forget that it was the failings of Kennedy and his advisers that made irreversible the tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Like Kennedy, as president you will inherit a war not-of-your-choosing, although unlike Kennedy, you have made your strong opposition to this war widely known. Nevertheless, my fear is that you may underestimate the strength of the political forces that have brought us into the Iraq War, and their ability to color the decision-making of even a President who opposes them.

Please find enclosed a copy of David Halberstam’s "The Best and The Brightest," the definitive, decision-by-decision history of American military involvement in Vietnam. You are no-doubt familiar with the book— it even strikes me as highly likely that you’ve already read it. In any case, please revisit it again; I can only imagine how the lessons of the book might serve a newly-installed commander-in-chief.

There is, of course, no single cause that "made" Vietnam. However, Halberstam’s book illuminates the degree to which the legacy of McCarthyism permeated Vietnam policy, in ways both explicit and implicit. Moreover, there are bright parallels between the influence of McCarthyism on Vietnam and that of the Neoconservative movement on the Iraq War—to the degree that I believe Neoconservatism can be rightly viewed as the "successor movement" to McCarthyism.

McCarthyism impacted Kennedy’s decision-making explicitly through his fear that, as a Democrat, he was politically vulnerable to appearing "soft" on Communism. Accordingly, he made every effort to seem tough, from the moment of his inaugural address when he pledged to "bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe" in defense of liberty (read: to fight communism).

In your opposition to the Iraq War, you have already opened yourself to comparable charges from the bellicose right. Moreover, you must surely realize that the real kvetching hasn’t even started yet. I have faith in you and your political staff to traverse these rapids.

However, it is the implicit influence of McCarthyism on Vietnam—and the analogous influence of Neoconservatism on Middle East Policy—that I find most deeply troubling. I urge you to begin measures to counteract this influence on Day 1 of your Presidency in order to restore the natural balance within American government.

In the 1950, McCarthyist fervor directed the methodical weeding-out of non-partisan, free-thinking careerists from the frontlines of all branches of the federal bureaucracy, and in particular the State Department. The tools were both blunt—mere mention of the word HUAC—and more subtle, via selective application of promotions and transfers. By the time Kennedy came to office, the damage had already been done:

There were literally no East Asia policy experts remaining in government to provide a nuanced assessment of the nationalist origins of the North Vietnamese cause, the 1,000-year blood-feud between China and Vietnam, and the glaring schism between Mao’s China and the Soviet Union. Simply put, The Domino Theory did not compute as a cause for war in the assessment of the people most knowledgeable about the region.

Tragically, those civil servants had all been systematically removed by one means or another for insufficiently hewing to the (incorrect) McCarthyist notion of global "Monolithic Communism." As a result, it took 14 years and 58,000 American lives for their considered judgment to become policy.

I specifically refer you to the index of The Best and The Brightest, and the pages relating to the careers of John Stuart Service and John Paton Davies, for the account of the McCarthyism-driven purge of the State Department and its impact on the policy alternatives afforded to Kennedy and his advisers.

The abuses of the present administration are well documented. At every turn, voices deviating even marginally from, the party line have been silenced and exiled. Across government, talented, career civil servants have been replaced by sycophants and dilettantes, with the implosion of the response capability of FEMA serving as the starkest example within these shores.
My concern is that you will inherit a government such as Kennedy’s, where the ablest minds have been culled out, and only the dim yes -men and -women remain.

I urge you to seek out and "re-recruit" career civil servants who left the government during the Bush years, particularly those who did so for lack of advancement or ideological "incorrectness." Doing so will send a clear message that the Bush standard of seeking political expediency over candid analysis is no longer acceptable.

I urge you to aggressively recruit new minds of all political ideologies into government from the private sector, to make it known that new, bold ideas are valued higher than business and politics as usual.

Most crucially, I urge you to appoint a trusted member of your senior staff to oversee a vetting of middle management for quality control. The layer of government that will make-or-break your Presidency is that of the "supervisor of senior career professionals." In Halberstam’s book, this is generally the level of Assistant Secretary, although I imagine things may have changed since that era.

In any event, you must take special care to restore and ensure the competence of the cadre of officials at the nexus of top-down policy implementation and bottom-up data analysis; i.e., the people who are not only responsible for implementing your policy directives, but also ensuring those directives are formulated from the best available information available. Above all else, you need to be sure these people have the mettle to fight for the judgment of their staffs in the face of political pressure.

I believe you will find it easy enough to attract the talented and capable, top-level officials with whom you will interact on a daily basis—the luster of the Oval Office is more than sufficient for that. On the other hand, ensuring the quality of the advice your advisers receive may be the truest challenge of the Presidency.
It is the fear of every American that a problem will land on the President’s desk—be it military, economic, environmental or cultural—for which there is no simply no "good" option. Do not let that be because no one within the apparatus of government has the wisdom to provide you with one.
Senator Obama, thank you for your consideration and I hope you enjoy the book. My thoughts and prayers are with you in the campaign.

Sincerely and hopefully,

Kyle Johnson
Founder, www.bumperactive.com
kyle@bumperactive.com

 Read the Booklobby

Related Booklobbies:

Boots on the Ground by Dusk for Senator Barack Obama

This has been re-posted from BookLobby: Energy.

Joe America has done a great job as a video lobbyist. His YouTube video has exceeded 500,000 views as of this note, and I’ve personally received it by email from three different sources.

As a Booklobbyist, we often must walk the line between passion and informed statesmanship. Does "Joe America" accomplish this? Here are some choice quotes:

"What should we think of you [Senators]? … Are you grossly inept or are you just stunningly stupid?"

Nice use of alliteration.

"Here’s a big plan for you to consider. … The key here is to think about using our own oil reserves as a means to get us off of imported oil. It has four steps."

Very statesman-like.

Joe America on YouTube.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPch2k63uj4

What do you think?

It is unprecedented that a candidate with such a strong position as Hillary Clinton — strong financially, politically, and organizationally — should be defeated for the Democratic nomination by a relatively inexperienced unknown like Barack Obama.

I want to offer you a word of warning: Mr. Obama’s success is a symptom of  a cultural change that is likely to sweep over you, Mr. McCain if you rely on the old-guard Republican power base to win this election.

I am sending you the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. A “groundswell” is “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies” … or campaigns.

Page 54 has a telling graph (Figure 3-8). This graph compares the online social behavior of citizens who vote or lean Democrat and citizens who vote or lean Republican against the national average. The authors summarize the results succinctly on page 55:

“As for Republicans, their participation tend to run about 20 percent below average.”

On the other hand, Barack Obama’s campaign has connected with the 27 percent of his base that join social networks.

“…the message for Democrats is that their base is about 10 percent more likely to participate in any element of the groundswell.”

– Page 55

One reason that fewer Republicans participate in groundswell activities is that they are older as a group than Democrats. This has served Republican candidates well in the past as the older, more affluent base has out-contributed the Democratic base in almost every state and national election. Republicans have always been able to rely on “ready money.”

Our culture is shifting, however, and Obama has proven that he is a match for the emerging groundswell culture. You must avoid two assumptions that will sink your campaign for President.

Assumption 1: The Republican base doesn’t participate in groundswell activities, so we should not invest in social technologies.

In their book, Li and Bernoff don’t show us the rate of change in groundswell activity. The truth is that your base is very quickly being pushed into participation by the emerging culture through a variety of technologies. I imagine that every member of your campaign team and staff carry Blackberries. This is the front-line of groundswell technologies for the Boomer generation.

“You cannot ignore this trend. you cannot sit this one out. … The groundswell trend is unstoppable, and your (voters) are there.”

– Page 75

Assumption 2: You blog, you have a Web site, therefore you are participating.

If you think you can add some online tools to a traditional campaign strategy, you are fooling yourself.  You cannot present a one-way message through your blog and Web site and rely on Polls to tell you what is going on.

“Market Research (read Polling) is very good at finding answers to questions. It’s not so effective at generating insights.”

– Page 79

Li and Bernoff dedicate a entire chapter to listening to the groundswell. They call it “perhaps the most essential neglected skill in business.”

This is an area that even Barack Obama may be weak. Your community of voters, potential voters and even detractors offer you the ability to understand the ebb and flow of opinion within the electorate. This applies to the Republican and undecided groundswell base and also applies to your rapidly changing traditional Republican base.

Don’t think that a few town hall meetings constitutes “listening.” It is a function that the entire campaign must participate in.

Most importantly for you is this recommendation from Li and Bernoff:

Choose a senior person to interpret the information and integrate it with other sources (like polls).

–Page 96

If you participate in such a strategy, you can avoid what the authors call the “no-more-being-stupid factor.” These are the policies and quirks that top executives in the campaign hold in place because of their biases.

To beat Obama, you’re going to have to shift quickly. Embrace the Groundswell. Read Groundswell. The more your campaign looks like Hillary Clinton’s the more likely you are to lose the election.

Good campaigning.

I wrote a post on the MindOH! blog discussing how students can use BookLobby to be politically active, even if they can’t vote.

What do corporations and students under the age of 18 have in common? They can’t vote in America. Yet, corporations exert a great deal of influence over elected officials who are writing and passing laws. …

What else to corporations and students under 18 have in common? They can both lobby elected officials. Corporations have high-priced lobbyists. Students have BookLobby.

Students use Books to Become Lobbyists

George Bush is off to Saudi Arabia to persuade the Saudis to increase oil production. Ninety six senators voted to stop filling the strategic reserves. This is all being done in the hopes that increases in the supply of oil will result in a price decrease at the pump.

George Will wrote in his Washington Post column that “Seventy-one of the 97 senators who voted to stop filling the reserve also oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” Will calls out Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) in particular.

Chuck Schumer believes
that 1 million more
barrels of oil per day
will decrease the price
of gasoline by $.50.

What book should these fine senators receive? Mr. Will recommends Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence,’ by Robert Bryce.

George Will recommends
Gusher of Lies to
seventy-one of our
current senators.

So, if you want to influence the decisions congress is making with regard to your gasoline dollar, consider looking up one of these senators and sending them a copy via BookLobby.

Read this BookLobby
Booklobby Senator Hutchison (R-TX)
Send Wind Power in Power Systems to an elected official

Read Wind Power in Power Systems

Booklobbyist Casey Gum chimes in on the energy debate. Join the BookLobby: Energy policy page on Faceboook for more.

Dear Senator Hutchison,

I know we produce a lot of wind power in Texas, but I think that we should produce a LOT more.

As an employee of a defense contractor, I know that the US government spends an absolutely inconceivably huge amount of money on military hardware. As an avid viewer of the History and Military channels, I think this is really neat. Clearly, the engineers that conceive of, design and build our military aircraft deserve kudos for their intellectual prowess.

Now, imagine what would happen if they applied their extensive knowledge of aerodynamics to something less lethal, yet arguably more practical - wind power. Think about it! Instead of paying billions and billions to Boeing or McDonald Douglas to build aircraft, pay them to build windmills. Do you know how many windmills you could build with 100 billion dollars a year over ten or fifteen years?! Holy smokes, you could power every house in America! I am sure that I am oversimplifying things, but really, at the end of the day, I would venture that a majority of what we spend on defense ends up rusting away in a desert somewhere halfway across the planet, and that’s if it’s ever even delivered at all. I still want that money to go towards things that end up in a desert, but I want the things to produce power and I want the desert to be in West Texas.

Best regards,
Casey Gum

A friend of mine, Jim Ronay recommended Free Lunch, by David Cay Johnston as Booklobby material. The Web Site says:

"Free Lunch, by David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, documents "how the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill)."

More: Bill Moyers interviews David Cay Johnson

“Dear Senator John McCain,”

So began my first Booklobby.

BookLobby is an online service that brings together voters and authors to insinuate themselves into the lobbying process. This is a part of government that has been largely off limits to individual Americans. “You got your vote. Now, leave us alone.”

Not anymore.

My Booklobby starts with the following sound bite:

It’s not whether or not we fight the war, it’s HOW we fight the war.

I wanted to convey my concern that, if elected President, Mr. McCain would allow the abuses of our constitutional freedoms instituted by the current administration to continue. To help make my point, I enlisted the talents of author R. B. Bernstein (no, we’ve never communicated) who has made it easy for me to send his book to Mr. McCain by stocking them at Amazon.com.

BookLobby gave me the address I needed. The book was sent with a note that told Mr. McCain’s staff where to go to read the text of my commentary, and that commentary is available for you to review.

You can also pile on if you agree.

We’ve got a new tool in participative, grass-roots government. I think President Jefferson would have been pleased.

I can’t wait to read what you have to say.

Brian Massey is a co-creator of the BookLobby application on Facebook.

I find it interesting that this quote made the list of most quotable quotes in my home town paper. The reference below is from MiamiHerald.com.

Penn is known, but doesn’t rate the kind of activist coverage that, say Bono does. I think his bad boy reputation makes some activists nervous.

So if the celebrity doesn’t explain the amount of coverage this story is getting, it must be the message. I think that sound bites like this are going to continue to resonate with us as we begin to take control of the political process again.

The “most powerful third party is you and me,” Penn said.

Sean Penn speaks at Coachella, urges youth action - 04/27/2008 - MiamiHerald.com