Sweet Music.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Senator Jim Jeffords' change of political parties - Brief Article

When Jim Jeffords announced he was abandoning the Republican Party to become an Independent, it was jubilation day. His blast at the Republicans was sweet music, and after four months of enduring one reactionary policy after another, Democrats and progressives finally had reason to cheer.

The shift in Senatorial power offers the first possibility of preventing some of the damage that Bush has in store. But once the giddiness wears off (and it's beginning to already), progressives should hold the Democrats to a high standard.

Yes, a patients' bill of rights is important.

Yes, standing up for a woman's right to choose is important

Yes, increasing the minimum wage is important.

Yes, blocking drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is important, as is putting the brakes on Bush's retro energy policy.

Yes, defeating rightwing judicial appointments is important.

And yes, bringing Star Wars to a halt is important.

But Democrats should not stop there. Jeffords's switch could enable the Democrats to be more ideological, not less so, and they should take advantage of that.

On foreign policy, three of the most burning issues today are Iraq sanctions, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and the war in Colombia.

Democrats should demand the lifting of all but the strictest military sanctions on Iraq.

They should insist that Israel withdraw from the Occupied Territories. I feel more strongly than ever about this after speaking with Holocaust survivor and poet Irena Klepfisz (see page 27).

And they must pressure Bush not to support the Colombian military but to help broker a peace agreement there, as we argue in our Comment on page 8.

Domestically, Democrats need to put back on the table a single-payer plan to ensure that the forty-three million Americans without health insurance can at last get medical care.

They need to lift up the one out of five kids in this country who are...