Dean Baker
What qualifications do you bring to the office you are seeking?
I feel I am well qualified to serve in Congress as a result of my active participation in progressive politics going back to the McGovern campaign in 1972. I am well acquainted with the issues and have shown that I am capable of acting on them effectively. In the last few years most of my political work has been directed toward stopping U.S. intervention in Central America. I have worked quite actively with the Latin American Solidarity Committee and on the Proposal A ballot initiative. Recently, I have also been active in the anti-apartheid movement. I was one of the organizers of the ceremony in which Nelson Mandela was granted an honorary degree by the "University of Michigan Community."
By profession, I am an economist. I teach at the University of Michigan where I am also finishing up a dissertation. I'm not sure that being an economist qualifies one for anything, but it does enable one to argue against policies that are destructive to large numbers of people, but are justified as being "economically necessary."
How do you differ from your opposition in this primary election?
I am an activist. I've been working on issues for the last several years. My opponent is a politician. He's been running for Congress for the last several years. I am running as part of a larger progressive movement. My opponent is trying to fulfill his grandiose political ambitions. To me, the point of entering into electoral politics is to bring about social change, not simply to get someone elected. This means that it is important to take clear stands on issues rather than compromising oneself into ineffectiveness.
In our campaign, we will be absolutely unambiguous about such issues as opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America, major cutbacks in military spending, restoring budget cuts in environmental, education, and nutrition programs, and support for affirmative action for women and minorities. My opponent is neither concerned about these issues, nor particularly competent to speak about them. He bases his opinions on the results of his public opinion polls.
By running a solidly progressive campaign we will be raising issues and we will have an impact on the political agenda regardless of the outcome of the election. I feel this is also the best strategy to win, since it will be presenting a campaign that people will want to become involved with and to which they will be willing to commit their time.
As an elected representative, what would be the three most important items on your legislative agenda?
The three issues (broadly put) that I will focus on, would be stopping U.S. intervention in Central America, cutting the military budget, and restoring the funds cut from important domestic programs.
The U.S. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the contras in Nicaragua. These people are a gang of terrorist thugs who have made a point of preying on the civilian population. We're also giving about $500 million a year to the repressive government of El Salvador that has the blood of over 60,000 civilians on its hands and is currently engaging in a massive bombing campaign against civilian targets. The U.S. must stop this intervention and recognize the right of these nations to determine their own destiny.
The military budget has virtually doubled since 1980, so that we are currently wasting billions on dangerous weapons systems. The Soviet Union has shown considerable willingness to take part in arms control agreements, in some cases, agreeing to essentially the same offers that Reagan had made previously. We must force Reagan to negotiate seriously, in order to make the world safer and to stop wasting so much money.
Reagan's budget cuts have devastated a number of important domestic programs while scarcely making a dent in the deficit. His cuts in education funding and student loans have made college unaffordable for many. Cuts in nutrition programs have led to malnutrition and higher infant mortality rates. Cuts in environmental programs have slowed clean-up efforts. These funds must be restored.
If you win the primary, what will be your strategy to defeat the opposition in the November election?
Our strategy to beat Pursell will be essentially to continue to do what we have been doing in the campaign and the sort of work that the the Latin American Solidarity Committee had been doing previously. We are going to continue to attack Pursell and demand that he come out and debate the issues in a public forum. We know that he cannot defend his votes (a fact which he must know also since he refuses to do so), so it is unlikely that he will meet our demand for a public debate. If he continues to hide, we will make his unresponsiveness itself an issue.
We have already begun this process in the primary campaign, by circulating a petition demanding that he agree to debate me or anyone else who wins the Democratic nomination. We publicized this with a run out to Plymouth last week. If we win the primary, Cari Pursell can expect a lot more of these actions until the pressure to debate becomes hard to resist.
Our campaign will be designed to take advantage of Pursell's weakness, which is simply his inability to deal with the issues. We can't possibly hope to match him in terms of raising money, but we will have the people, the energy, and the creativity to go after him in every part of the district.
We've already made his name a dirty word in Ann Arbor, and this campaign can go a long way towards doing the same elsewhere in the district. Given the sort of campaign we'll be running, it may be difficult for him to use his money to his advantage, since it will call attention to the campaign and the fact that he is avoiding us.
What political figure, issue or cause has influenced your politics the most and why?
The issue that has most influenced my politics is the Vietnam War. I grew up
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Dean Baker
watching the war on television, when weekly body counts were being presented as proof of our progress. My view of the war continually evolved as new evidence came to light, and as I became less naive. Originally I thought that the war was just, since we were protecting South Vietnam from an invasion by North Vietnam. Later, I saw it as a tragic mistake by policy makers in Washington, who for whatever reason, failed to realize that we had gotten ourselves into the midst of a civil war. Finally, as I became more aware of the history and as more documents (such as the Pentagon Papers) were made public, I carne to realize that the United States was invading Vietnam, and that the government was engaged in lying on a massive scale in order to deceive the public about our role there. It was clear that the forces we were fighting enjoyed the overwhelming support of the people of Vietnam, and that the government we were supposedly protecting was simply a cover for our own intervention, and one which fooled nobody anywhere in the world, except in the United States.
The history of the Vietnam War forces me to be extremely skeptical about U.S. intervention anywhere in the world. It also made me realize that our government was capable of lying on a massive scale. Even more disturbing is the fact that the press let it get away with these lies for so long. Vietnam presents an example of the depths of depravity to which our government can sink (in addition to the 60,000 U.S. troops killed, over 1,000,000 Vietnamese, mostly civilians were killed). It also illustrates that despite the difficulty of reversing such policies, such change is possible.
August 5TH