European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 21, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday september 21, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary David s. Brode democrats must first Trust own policy makers Akron Ohio a last Friday Virginia gov. L. Douglas Wilder entered the democratic presidential race promising to Cut $50 billion More a a waste from the Federal budget and to hold the line on taxes As president Bush failed to do last year. On sunday sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa announced his bid for the same nomination saying he would reverse a Supply Side economics and pledged to smash Bush s a feet of  on monday Arkansas gov. Bill Clinton who is expected to announce his candidacy by the end of the month said democrats should forego any efforts at a Bush bashing and Promise targeted capital gains business investment and Middle class tax Relief to Spur the Economy. Which of these divergent nearly contradictory promises represents the message the democrats will take to the voters in next years election the answer of course is that the democrats a and the country a wont know until the nomination is settled. For virtually All of the decade since Ronald Reagan stripped them of the White House the democratic party has had no vehicle for debating National policy or speaking As a party to the nation. As a direct result it is no closer to knowing its own mind a or correcting its past misjudgments a than it was Back then. The implications of that self inflicted wound came into Sharp perspective Here last weekend. Scholars of american politics came to the University of Akron s Ray c. Bliss Institute of applied politics to discuss with surviving friends and associates of the late Republican National chairman his legacy for today. Bliss was the Chain smoking former Akron insurance Man who Rose from county and state party leadership to take Over the National party Helm after Barry Goldwater a 1964 defeat. The programs Bliss put in place led to the Richard Nixon Victory in 1968 that inaugurated the modern Era of Republican dominance of the presidency. Bliss created the new Model National party committee financed mainly by Small direct mail contributions and geared to delivering High tech Campaign services to its state and local affiliates. The Model was brought to full development by Republican National chairman Bill Brock when he took Over after watergate it has been emulated by recent democratic National chairmen As Well. But much of the discussion in Akron last weekend focused on the Way that Bliss and Brock a though primarily organization men a had shortened their party s exile from Power by moving boldly into the issues area As a Way of changing the party s image. Bliss vehicle was the Republican coordinating committee Acca panel that included former president Eisenhower presidential nominees congressional leaders governors and party officials. Seven Allied task forces provided roles for Many emerging figures among them a freshman congressman from Houston named George Bush. As political scientists John f. Ribhy Philip a. Jinkner and John j. Pitney jr., pointed out the acc did More than repair personal relationships and construct policy consensus in a party that had split at the seams in 1964. It produced 47 papers and a 1966 Book. Choice for America that in important respects Quot foreshadowed the new ideas republicanism of the 1980s and 1990s,�?� As Pitney put it. In the late �?T70s, Brock picked up on the same idea creating five advisory councils in As Many policy areas and publicizing their products in everything from a scholarly Magazine to to commercials. His most notable Success was establishing the concept of across the Board tax cuts As gop doctrine two years before Reagan Rode the idea to Victory in 1980, since democrats had seen a similar party policy vehicle the democratic advisory Council prepare the stage for their i960 presidential Victory it is remarkable that they have snick away from using such a device for the last 10 years. The explanation is largely that three successive chairmen Charles Mun att Paul Kirk and now Ronald Brown have yielded to the fears a mainly expressed by congressional leaders a that any party forum would be seized by activists As a vehicle for promoting their own agendas. Because of this fear of their own constituency groups the democrats have not spoken to the nation in any party policy forum for More than nine years since their last mid term conference in Philadelphia in 1982. That meeting by the Way was an indication of what the democrats have missed. The economic policy panel there endorsed the Bill Bradley Dick Gephardt tax a storm plan a the loophole closing and rate cutting plan which was taken Over by Reagan and became the most notable Domestic achievement of his second term. A party that does not Trust itself to Frame policy has no claim to the Trust of the american people. Ray Bliss and Bill Brock knew that. The democrats Are still struggling to learn c Jtj her Upton Post writers . Rosenthal where Are the voices for China s when the Slaughter begins again in China the West will be horrified and indignant. After All we Are not made of Stone. Of course this time we will not actually see much of the murders by communist troops. Beijing s rulers have Learned one lesson from their warm up at Tiana men Square a Blind the cameras. When three members of the House of representatives recently placed a few White silk Flowers on the ground at the Square a gesture that honoured the dead and graced America the guards rushed to do Battle against the cameras. Still we will get word about the new Slaughter and we will certainly be seriously annoyed. But it will have happened because the third Side was silent or passive. In every political prison whether it is a single jailor a whole nation there Are three sides. The dictatorship and its police judges and wardens Are one Side and the prisoners Are the second. The third is the outside world a when it fights for the prisoners keeps their names alive uses the pressures of political economic and Public opinion Power against their captors. Over the decades As soviet anti communist democrats fought and were jailed As they were released and continued the fight As changes took place in the soviet Union much of the rest of the world watched Day by Day and spoke out. In All free countries there were people of influence and voice who struggled to push soviet communists toward the individual freedoms that led to a nations Freedom. Whatever future soviet citizens now decide for themselves and at whatever Price the fact is that the anti communist revolution was victorious without great bloodshed. Every soviet Democrat and every soviet communist knows that one important reason was that the third Side was worldwide. But where is the third Side now for China a for All the chinese students and workers who still rot in the chinese gulag Tor All their friends and families living in silence and Shadow for All chinese who despise the communists and yes for All chinese who say let us he As we Are because they have never known anything but oppression All their lives absent but Why the reasons Are in our political and intellectual a a leadership and i believe in racism americans have the whole world banging on their brains but pay attention when their elected leaders particularly the president speak up for a cause in decency a name. President Bush s message about this last communist Anchor is of lets go ahead and do business with them and everything will be All right a Trust me a i know  a saddening number of academics and journalists argue against the Mildest of sanctions raising tariffs to push Beijing a not to give up communism heavens no but just to let some democrats out of prison and allow them to breathe. Too Many americans do not seem Able to see asians As real a certainly not As real As other people who suffer europeans if the americans Are White africans if they Are Black. Beijing hears that tolling Bell in the soviet Union. The old men or their successors will either have to fall Hack step by step to Freedom knowing the result will be a relatively peace i us end to communism or fight the people with ? if the third Side remains silent Beijing will Light. Why not the chinese communists have silenced the United states for whatever most Peculiar combination of personal and political reasons govern Bush on China silenced America even after Tiana men a through the gulag and slave labor through genocide in Tibet and now through secret chinese missile sales to Syria known to Washington. Most Peculiar. Americans Public and private can Lessen the likelihood of Slaughter in China As they did in the soviet Union by putting economic and political prices on repression. It is too late for guarantees against massacre but it is the Only Chance. With Bush showing his chinese expertise by doing nothing Hope rests on Congress. Friends of Freedom please write Loving notes to the representatives who spoke heir minds to the communists arid then placed the while Flowers democrats Nancy in Elensi us California and Ben Jones of Georgia and Republican John Miller of Washington. They were America s thud Side at j la Nannen septate.  t i i4j new i by i flub