Excerpt: Lou Dobbs' 'Independents Day'

Nov. 20, 2007 — -- CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, a self-described "advocacy journalist" and "independent populist," has a new book out called "Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit."

In the book, Dobbs, who has become known for his anti-immigration stance, talks about the failure of America's political system and how the arrogance of "the elites" threatens the future of the nation. One solution to the problem, he says, is a viable third party candidate.

You can read an excerpt from "Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit" below.

Excerpt: 'Independents Day'

The 2008 presidential campaign is upon us, and there should be nodoubt that we are at a critical historic juncture, and the very survival ofour nation may well depend on the electoral choices we make. Whenone scans the number of candidates seeking their party's nominationfor the highest office in the U.S. government, what has seemed an interminablylong campaign seems too brief and inadequate a period inwhich to choose a leader of great quality and character to successfullylead us in the twenty-first century.

America is a great nation whose leaders have become intoxicatedwith the idea that the accomplishments and achievements of precedinggenerations assure them not only of success, but of only limited consequencesfor their failures of judgment and infidelity to traditionalAmerican values. Nearly all of our political leaders seem to believe thatAmerica's wealth is so great that it cannot be exhausted; the elites ofpolitics and business seem to believe that their power flows from a superiorDNA structure that confers upon them an omniscience in economicand geopolitical affairs that three hundred million citizenscannot hope to comprehend. Their arrogance now threatens the futureof our nation, and their elitist sense of entitlement has reached suchheights that our leaders are now openly dismissive of the will of thepeople. They no longer honor our fundamental national values butinstead attach themselves to the interests of multinational corporationsand politi cal parties, and recognize no duty to the nation in which theyprosper. Many of our political leaders rationalize their carelessexercise of power and their disregard for the consequences of theirdecisions with their religiosity; that is, God's providence has guidedand favored America throughout its history and therefore favors thefaithful, if incompetent, leaders in all walks of American life. Let uspray.

Many of our corporate leaders are even more disdainful of ournational values and interests than our politicians. Business leaders, ifanything, seem more committed to their personal belief systems, whichhave been elevated to religiosity, the foundation of which is a blind faithin what they perceive to be the higher perfect power of economics andmarkets. "Mr. Market" knows all and knows best for these corporatemasters of the universe.

These lofty elites wield their awesome social, economic, and politicalpowers without apparent regard for the common good, the nationalinterest, or the traditional values that have historically informed andguided America's leaders. These elitists have abandoned Americanideals for self- interest, and are ignoring ordinary citizens as unworthyof their concern, obligation, and duty.

For too long the American people have deluded themselves that failuresof leadership will in the fullness of time resolve themselves in ourgreat republic, because our history has given us the assurance that partisanshipis an acceptable substitute for citizenship. We've accepted ourown apathy and tolerated what has become a frontal assault by the establishmentelites on our national sovereignty, the welfare of our people,and our future as a nation. But there are now promising signs that theAmerican people will soon be ready to reclaim this nation.

As I write these words, the U.S. Senate has just rejected a cloturevote on so- called comprehensive immigration reform legislation by avote of 53 to 46. The defeat of President Bush and the Demo cratic Senateleadership all but ends the eff orts in this session of Congress togrant amnesty to twelve million to twenty million illegal aliens andto keep our borders wide open.

For four years I have fought almost daily the advocates of open bordersand amnesty, and despite this Senate victory, I know that the fight willgo on. That fight will likely intensify, because the political, social, andeconomic interests driving open borders and amnesty are powerful, thestakes could hardly be larger, and American citizens are only slowlyawakening to the threat to our nation that emanates from both the leftand the right, the establishment and the radical. But the American spiritis no longer slumbering. On my broadcast we have reported the facts thatshould form the parameters and foundation of what has at long lastbecome a national dialogue, even if now only incipient, on our illegalimmigration and border-security crisis. I have put representatives of allsides of the debate and discussion on the broadcast in an effort to examinethe facts, to put the facts as we know them in perspective from thepoints of view of the advocates, to debate the merits and failings of thoseviews, and to expose the varied agendas and interests of the elites whohave tried to ram their positions through Congress and down the throatsof American citizens who were just a few years ago unaware of the natureand extent of the threat to the American way of life.

The political contest that has resulted from our immigration andborder crisis produces great passions and every bit as much heat as light.Unfortunately, the facts and the independent, nonpartisan reality thatmy colleagues and I try to report to our audience each night are inconvenient obstacles for the ideological orthodoxies and conflicting partisan,establishment, ethnocentric, and even radical agendas that motivatemost of our national dialogue and debate on so many critical issues,and nowhere more powerfully than on the illegal immigration andborder- security crisis. Too much of our national mainstream media iscontent to devote more airtime, ink, and kilobytes to Paris Hilton andAnna Nicole Smith than to the events, ideas, and issues that will determineour quality of life and our future as a nation. Ours is a nationalentertainment media that is incentivized to appeal to the lowest commondenominator in our society, a national news media that reportsthe ideological postures and rhetoric of both Republicans and Democratsand regards such journalistic efforts as fair and balanced. As I'vesaid frequently, the truth is seldom fair or balanced, and it is certainlyseldom represented by the partisanship and ideology of our two principalpolitical parties.

Even before the final Senate vote on "comprehensive immigrationreform legislation" was tallied, e-mails and telephone calls of congratulationsstarted pouring into my office. But I was surprised by my reactionto that vote and to all the congratulatory messages. I felt great satisfaction,to be sure, that many of our elected officials had actually listenedto their constituents, but I felt more a sense of relief at the prospect of apause, for a while at least, in the political and media battles that mightwell give us all the opportunity to reflect and consider carefully ourfuture course. And I was grateful that for the first time in a long timethat senators, both Democrats and Republicans, stood up and acted likethey really cared about our nation and found the courage and goodjudgment to demand better of themselves and the leadership of theupper house of our Congress. Senators Jeff Sessions, John Cornyn, JimDeMint, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, and and ByronDorgan stood out in the fray on the Senate floor as people of character,quality, and commitment to our fundamental national values, the commongood, and our national interest.

Fifteen Democratic senators and thirty- seven Republican senatorsvoted to kill the legislation, and each of them played an important partin asserting the public good against what has become the almost alwaysoverwhelming political influence and power of corporate America andspecial interests, particularly the business associations and ethnocentricactivist organizations that have played a disproportionately dominantrole both in the national media and on Capitol Hill.

As Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said tohis colleagues before the vote, "Remember this day if you vote no."Senator Graham was issuing a warning to his colleagues, seeking theirsupport in favor of amnesty in the upcoming vote. But not only oursenators but all of us should remember that day because it may well andtruly have been the dawning of reasonable hope that we the people canstill influence and shape our future as a nation; it was the beginning ofa reason to believe, with some confidence, that we can still save theonce great democratic republic inherited.

We have much to overcome in the months and years ahead, but it'sbeen a long time since I felt as confident as I do now that we can succeedin restoring a broad commitment to our great national values: equalrights of individual liberty and opportunity, both economic and educational.I can actually imagine the American people demanding that excellence be restored to our public education system, that a betterquality of life for our working men and women and their families bethe goal of domestic public policy, and that the restoration of ournational sovereignty and security can become an attainable governmentalgoal. My growing confidence is predicated on the belief thatmost of us are learning that America can no longer tolerate inadequateand incompetent leadership in either the White House or the Congress.Nor can we any longer tolerate our own indifference, apathy, and cynicism,which have given rise to a succession of weak and short-sightedleaders who have spoken and have acted as if our citizens were strangersto them in what they now regard as their land, not ours.

I actually believe that populism is gaining the power to defeat elitismand that our government can one day soon again legitimatelyclaim to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

We Americans are surely strangers to any person who could say,"America must not fear diversity. We ought to welcome diversity."Who would utter such condescending words about our land and ourpeople, the most diverse nation on earth? None other than PresidentGeorge W. Bush. Can we be such strangers to this president that hedoes not comprehend that this great nation's citizens are from everycountry, practice every religion, and are of every race and ethnicityon the planet, and that Americans will never submit to any fear of anykind? We as a people welcome millions of legal immigrants to ourcountry each and every year, more than all other countries combined.Americans speak over 120 different languages in the New York Citypublic school system alone. Afraid of diversity, Mr. President? Whatin the world are you thinking?

Let me acquaint you with the America I know. We are a nation ofimmigrants. But foremost we are a nation of laws. We are a nation ofunprecedented diversity, and we are a people of laws. Even foreignerswho visit and who are guests of this nation enjoy the same legal protectionguaranteed our citizens under the Constitution. That Constitutionbegins with the words "we the people," and so far we havepersevered, in good times and bad, in war and peace, in poverty andprosperity, because we honor our Constitution and the laws that flowfrom it. To paraphrase our president, our leaders must not fear thepeople, and our leaders must welcome democracy. America is first anation and Americans are first citizens, despite those corporate andspecial interests and political partisans who insist that America is onlyan economy and a market and Americans are just consumers and laborers.America is a great nation, Americans are a great people, and weare desperate for great leaders who know us, understand us, and respectus. We will no longer tolerate elitists who would have Americans bestrangers in our own land.

The ever-enlarging size, scope, and scale of government, business,and media are often celebrated by establishment elites who are indifferentto the rights and lives of ordinary citizens whose interests arepoorly served by many of the powerful institutions that once stood forall that is best of what has been America and American. While ourelites have perverted our great national purpose of providing for thelife, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of all our citizens, they exaltideology, partisanship, greed, and privilege. Our elites no longer talkstraightforwardly and plainly. They speak instead in the jargon of WallStreet and the lexicon of globalization. Elites in business and governmentpromote efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness ratherthan their responsibilities to our citizens, to the quality of life of ourworking men and women and their families, to the education of ouryoung, and to our American way of life.

Straightforwardly, we have allowed our elites to mortgage ourfuture, literally and figuratively, and to constrain our individual libertyand freedom, and it is time that we examine with clear eyes who we'vebecome, who we are as a nation, and how American citizens will shapeour own future. Both Republicans and Democrats, the president, andthe congressional leadership would have us focus on fears and limitationsrather than on our aspirations and hopes, and accept elitist directiontoward the fate they favor. The elite establishment fears nothingmore than the awakening of the American spirit and the empowermentof American citizens to determine our national destiny. Until now, theelites have had their way. It's time for the American way.

Irrespective of your politics or partisanship, your ideology or socio-economic status, our elites would much prefer we avoid importantquestions. Questions such as: Why, if we are the world's only superpower,why are we also the world's leading debtor nation? Why, if wehave the world's most advanced military, can we not defeat an insurgencyand sectarian conflict in a third-world nation of only twenty-fivemillion people? Why, engaged in a global fight to the death with radicalIslamist terrorists, does our government refuse to secure our bordersand ports? Why, six years after September 11, do we have fewer alliesand not more in that global battle against radical Islamist terror? Andwhy, if ours is the world's strongest economy, have we run thirty- oneconsecutive years of trade deficits, lost the ability to clothe and feedourselves, and now find ourselves dangerously dependent on othernations for our oil, computers, consumer electronics, and, increasingly,even our basic daily sustenance in almost every respect?

Those are a few of the questions we must answer, honestly anddirectly, if we are to shape our future and assure security and prosperityfor generations of Americans to come. And we can no longer relyupon our elites to ask the right questions, and we certainly can nolonger trust them to provide truthful, relevant answers.

The issues and forces, global and domestic, that challenge us andour future are all the more daunting if we lose sight of our history asa people and nation, if we forget who we are as individuals, as citizens,and if we permit ourselves to be defined by those whose ideologies andinterests compel them to deny our uniqueness as a people and a nation.Should we really subordinate the interests of our fellow Americansand our nation to those of the United Nations, NAFTA, and the WorldTrade Organization, to multinational corporations and even the governmentsof other nations? I don't think so. But the orthodoxy that hasbuilt up among most of our elites in politics, business, academia, andmedia certainly does. Many of those elites have declared me a "nationalist"because I care about our country and our fellow citizens, and onevery single issue, whether domestic or international, strongly believethat our government should put the common good and the nationalinterest of America ahead of all else.

The "internationalists" seek the demise of national sovereignty around the world, the end of borders, and an integration of commerce and economies that observes no distinctionamong people in France, Indonesia, Venezuela, and America,and they cheer the "flat earth" corporatist society that recognizespeople only as consumers or producers. Our elites increasingly lookupon themselves as the owners and managers of this land we callAmerica, our government as something simply to be bought and brokered,our borders as outdated obstacles to international commerce,and American citizenship as an annoying conceptual relic of the eighteenth,nineteenth, and twentieth centuries that interferes with efficient production and distribution and heretofore predictable consumer patterns. So who and what are we if we cannot declare America as our land and ourselves to be Americans? Our elites don't want you to even consider that question, and they sure as hell don't want any of us to make a declaration. So, I will.

First, I'm an American, and damned proud of it. I'm also deeplygrateful to this nation because I was born poor and this country gaveme and millions upon millions of others the chance to live the AmericanDream. I'm also a devout believer in our fundamental nationalvalues of equality of liberty and opportunity and in the irrepressibleAmerican spirit. And I believe that each of us must be as vigilant andprotective of the rights of equality and opportunity of our fellowAmericans as we are of our own, and honor our obligations to ournation and future generations of Americans.

Nearly all of us have an ideal of what America ought to be. My idealwas shaped by elementary school teachers who taught us that GeorgeWashington didn't lie and took responsibility for his actions. An idealframed in the classroom by portraits of presidents on the wall, lookingdown on us from their lofty perches in history. Biographies of Jefferson,Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. And Benjamin Franklin. Stories aboutTom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Frank and Joe Hardy. An idealshaped by Fourth of July parades in my small hometown of Rupert,Idaho. An ideal passed on by a high school teacher, Elizabeth Toolson,who made me believe, as did she, that a poor boy born in Texas andraised in Idaho could go to Harvard. At Harvard, Professors OscarHandlin and Frank Freidel taught me how powerful ideas and workingpeople built the country, and saved it more than a few times.

My ideal of America was also shaped by the Vietnam War, and bythe protests against it. The struggle for civil rights and the death ofMartin Luther King, Jr. The Apollo project and Neil Armstrong's firststeps on the moon. The OPEC oil crises and the Persian Gulf War. Thestock market crash of 1987 and the greatest bull market in Wall Streethistory. Presidential impeachment and the collapse of the SovietUnion. More than thirty years in journalism have revealed the bestand the worst of us, the base and the uplifting, the ordinary and thespectacular, the cruel and the truly good, including all that this countrycan accomplish and all that it is capable of becoming.

After the tragedy of September 11, the corporate corruption scandals,and now the war in Iraq, I cannot imagine most Americans are contentto allow our elites to continue to further debase the ideals of our nationand determine our course into the future. Both of our major politicalparties have become little more than well- funded marketing organizations,advertising brands that the corporate and special- interest elitesmanage for their own benefits, with almost no regard for the commongood and the national interest. We have much to overcome, and muchto do. That's why I'm an in de pen dent and a populist. I no longer believethe Republican and Democratic parties are capable of serving the people:Their priorities and focus are the special interests and corporatistswho fund them, and now direct them and the rest of us. The consentof the governed is the foundation of our government and its enduranceover the past two hundred years. If the American people are to prevailagainst the challenges of the next two hundred years, we must end ourapathetic and uninformed acquiescence to elitist unrepresentative governanceand demand that our political leaders respectfully seek ourconsent rather than take for granted our submission.

I believe that only the energized, active engagement and participationof our citizens at every level of politics and government will changeour national direction. We will succeed if the vast majority of us canreject partisanship and end what are nothing more than brand loyaltiesto the Democratic and Republican parties, and replace those partisanbrands with a passionate commitment to our ideals of in dependenceand equality, to the common good and the national interest. Populismrequires no political apparatus, no party machine. Populism as a philosophyand movement requires only that we put our people and ournational interest first, that we honor our Constitution and nation, andthat we respect one another's rights of individual liberty and equalityof opportunity. Populism requires that we Americans be neither timidnor retiring in asserting our rights and the equal rights of our fellowAmericans, and that we prize our American heritage of self-relianceand compassion and our independence as a people and a nation. I trulybelieve all of us should live every day as Independence Day.

We must make this our day, the day of the independent American.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from INDEPENDENTS DAY by Lou Dobbs. Copyright © Lou Dobbs, 2007