Are We Politicians or Citizens?
As I write this, Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration’s “surge” of troops, and the Republicans’ refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.
That was suggested in a recent message from MoveOn, which polled its members on the Democrat proposal, saying that progressives in Congress, “like many of us, don’t think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war.”
Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It’s as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.
When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.
We who protest the war are not politicians. We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress.
Timetables for withdrawal are not only morally reprehensible in the case of a brutal occupation (would you give a thug who invaded your house, smashed everything in sight, and terrorized your children a timetable for withdrawal?) but logically nonsensical. If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite—provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence—they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home.
It is four years since the United States invaded Iraq with a ferocious bombardment, with “shock and awe.” That is enough time to decide if the presence of our troops is making the lives of the Iraqis better or worse. The evidence is overwhelming. Since the invasion, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, and, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, about two million Iraqis have left the country, and an almost equal number are internal refugees, forced out of their homes, seeking shelter elsewhere in the country.
Yes, Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. But his capture and death have not made the lives of Iraqis better, as the U.S. occupation has created chaos: no clean water, rising rates of hunger, 50 percent unemployment, shortages of food, electricity, and fuel, a rise in child malnutrition and infant deaths. Has the U.S. presence diminished violence? On the contrary, by January 2007 the number of insurgent attacks has increased dramatically to 180 a day.
The response of the Bush Administration to four years of failure is to send more troops. To add more troops matches the definition of fanaticism: If you find you’re going in the wrong direction, redouble your speed. It reminds me of the physician in Europe in the early nineteenth century who decided that bloodletting would cure pneumonia. When that didn’t work, he concluded that not enough blood had been let.
The Congressional Democrats’ proposal is to give more funds to the war, and to set a timetable that will let the bloodletting go on for another year or more. It is necessary, they say, to compromise, and some anti-war people have been willing to go along. However, it is one thing to compromise when you are immediately given part of what you are demanding, if that can then be a springboard for getting more in the future. That is the situation described in the recent movie The Wind That Shakes The Barley, in which the Irish rebels against British rule are given a compromise solution—to have part of Ireland free, as the Irish Free State. In the movie, Irish brother fights against brother over whether to accept this compromise. But at least the acceptance of that compromise, however short of justice, created the Irish Free State. The withdrawal timetable proposed by the Democrats gets nothing tangible, only a promise, and leaves the fulfillment of that promise in the hands of the Bush Administration.
There have been similar dilemmas for the labor movement. Indeed, it is a common occurrence that unions, fighting for a new contract, must decide if they will accept an offer that gives them only part of what they have demanded. It’s always a difficult decision, but in almost all cases, whether the compromise can be considered a victory or a defeat, the workers have been given some thing palpable, improving their condition to some degree. If they were offered only a promise of something in the future, while continuing an unbearable situation in the present, it would not be considered a compromise, but a sellout. A union leader who said, “Take this, it’s the best we can get” (which is what the MoveOn people are saying about the Democrats’ resolution) would be hooted off the platform.
I am reminded of the situation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, when the black delegation from Mississippi asked to be seated, to represent the 40 percent black population of that state. They were offered a “compromise”—two nonvoting seats. “This is the best we can get,” some black leaders said. The Mississippians, led by Fannie Lou Hamer and Bob Moses, turned it down, and thus held on to their fighting spirit, which later brought them what they had asked for. That mantra—“the best we can get”—is a recipe for corruption.
It is not easy, in the corrupting atmosphere of Washington, D.C., to hold on firmly to the truth, to resist the temptation of capitulation that presents itself as compromise. A few manage to do so. I think of Barbara Lee, the one person in the House of Representatives who, in the hysterical atmosphere of the days following 9/11, voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to invade Afghanistan. Today, she is one of the few who refuse to fund the Iraq War, insist on a prompt end to the war, reject the dishonesty of a false compromise.
Except for the rare few, like Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey, and John Lewis, our representatives are politicians, and will surrender their integrity, claiming to be “realistic.”
We are not politicians, but citizens. We have no office to hold on to, only our consciences, which insist on telling the truth. That, history suggests, is the most realistic thing a citizen can do.
Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.”
© 2007 The Progressive
One hesitates to question Howard Zinn on history, but…
Comparing the Iraq War to the Civil War is not apt. Winning the first vote against Bush on the war is indeed a step in the right (left) direction. The Dems today are in no way condoning the Iraq War and in fact are demanding that it end, a situation quite dissimilar to Mr. Zinn’s comparison.
Second, Zinn compares the current situation to the 1964 Democratic Convention where holdouts finally won what they demanded. Does Mr. Zinn really think that Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich will win if they just hold out long enough? Doubt it.
We have to show people that we are reasonable and that we can lead them out of this war and away from the Bush fanatics. We can’t do that with a self-righteous, all-or-nothing approach.
The same people you question now won the first victory against Bush after 2004 - the preservation of Social Security. That was the first time anyone had beaten Bush and his propaganda machine since his election.
Let’s try this approach and see what happens. Let’s not rail against those whose ideas are closest, but not exactly, our own. If we fail, we can then try the radical tactic.
Zinn is right. Funding the war is not ending the war.
The only way to stop the war is to stop the flow of money.
The only way to bring the troops home is to bring the troops home.
This is refreshing. As an historian, I think that the analogy to the Civil War is entirely appropriate. We keep forgetting that it is the radicals who have provided the engine for change in this country. The abolitionists were seen at first to be lunatics. People still look at John Brown that way. But Brown and the abolitionists forced the issue. Similarly did the people who opposed the war in Vietnam. We were seen in the press as extremists and there was great pressure to support Johnson in 1964 in the campaign against Goldwater. But Johnson was the one who was leading the war against the Vietnamese.
Today, the tail is still wagging the dog. I applaud Howard Zinn for stating a sane position with clarity.
BillN: Please tell us how many thousands more you are willing to let die while the Democrats fart around saying maybe we’ll say no sometime, but not now? You say we have to show people we are reasonable. Yeah, okay, you go tell your neighbors that their sons and daughters have to die or be dismembered so we can show how reasonable we are. And hop over to Iraq to tell the relatives of the dead and the raped that they should be proud of how reasonable the opposition to Bush’s gang of psychotics are being in America. What we need to hear from the Demmies is No. Now. And over and over and over. What we need from the MoveOn group, et al, is their money attacking pols who say yes and maybe, and their money attacking George Bush and Cheney and the rest of them, over and over, until we are rid of them and their policies. What we don’t need is mindless compromises based on the utterly stupid assumption that the other side has any bit of reason left, or that they will ever be reasonable or that they can be reasoned with. We won’t win American hearts and minds by being ‘reasonable’, not now, not with this crowd. We’ll win by pounding a stake through the heart of these people and their organizations and starting to rebuild the America that Americans once dreamed and that the world looked to as an example of reason and hope and intelligence. Yeah, it had warts and sometimes a bad temper, but it was the best the world had seen.
Amen to that! ricq
BillN, appeasing the Republicans validates the basic rule they set for the political game, that is to ignore the public will. Democrats are lured into the game because it has its rewards. The Democrats hope the people will be content to root for them from the sidelines. This game must be played by professionals, Democrats think, and while the people may root for the home team, loudly, they should not try to interfer with the game strategy.
Mr. Zinn is saying this is unacceptable. Because the “radical tactic” you refer to is not only “radical”. It is fundamentally necessary to change the rules of the game, so that the public will is respected in Washington. We need a revolution. The plundering has become intolerable.
The main issue to-day is not war in Iraq for the damage to Iraq is already done beyond any repair. The main issue is expanding war unto Iran with really catastrophic consequences for the Unites States, lest for millions more victims in the Middle East. Alas, so far Democratic contenders for the Imperial Toga not only did not distance themselves from the concept of perpetual war but hinted of their support of Iranian adventure by promoting demonization of Iranian leaders.
fellow lefties, are you so perfect that there is no room for disagreement? why don’t we just dip you in bronze and admire you on the shelf each evening? i think moveon did the practical thing, and rather than fight us you should take credit in participating in a movement that has had its first congressional victory. bush said the democrats were playing politics by passing an appropriation that will not withstand his veto. surely even the screaming airwaves can see through that argument. ok, so if bush vetoes this, the appropriation doesn’t pass. did you not want that?
responding to marylou, practical is not moral. war is not moral. hundreds of thousands dead is not moral. warring for oil is not moral (and only an idiot would believe that we are there for any other reason, (god bless our standard of living)). we are creating millions of jidadists willing to seek revenge on us. is that what we want? if you want to speak of practical, try peace. peace is practical; it doesn’t create enemies.
When to compromise and when to hold to your principles is always the toughest decision. In this case, I have to go along with BillN because we are not talking about the positions and strategies of the peace movement but of US politics. The reality is that the bad guys still hold power, Bush will veto whatever the legislature does to rein in his “unitary executive” and this is the only approach that will perhaps offer the oppostion a face saving way of withdrawing their support and possibly bringing aobut the 2/3 majority it takes to override a presidential veto. It’s “reasonable.”
In the meantime, the proper response from the anti war movement is to do exactly what we are doing. Scream, shout, demand an end to the carnage, call our pathetic legislators every frigg’n day, and take to the streets to demonstrate. That will make the compromise look even more “reasonable.”
really excellent article! pinpointing exactly what is missing from MoveOn’s stance. And the commnets so far have done a very nice job of taking apart BillN’s dispute with Mr Zinn.
As far as John Brown goes, only a certain portion of the populace regards him as a lunatic - there are plenty, then and now who regard him as a hero.
See thoreau’s “a plea for captain john brown” (all of thoreau’s essays, really “slavery in massachusetts” “life without principle”)
there is also some evidence that harriet tubman meant to be there with john brown at harper’s ferry but could not make it. (here’s a small bit from PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html )
john brown had plenty of support among abolitionists.
the analogy with the civil war, the civil rights movement, and labor is apt - perhaps the situation today is more dire - because of what has happened, what Iraq still faces (which is why, Observer, that the main issue today is still Iraq) and what may yet happen in Iran and the “powderkeg” nature of the geoplotics that surrounds all -
clearly the road ahead will be very hard - becasue what we are talking about is de-fusing the global battle for the last remnants of petroleum deposits and the enemies in this struggle will be willing to do anything to retain their grasp. this will require an overwhelming resistance - and a most likely a considerable amount of personal sacrifice and i dont mean turning down the thermostat or riding one’s bicycle - i mean life. some of us, here in this zone of inbternet safety may not understand this - probably none of us do - but the world is filled, thanks to the avaricious S**theads who rule the day, with people who know what this sacrifice means,and they know it because that spilled blood spilled on to them - it was their sons, daughters, husbands, neighbors who were killed, or maimed, or otherwise silenced, or eliminated.
this is not meant to chastise anyone but to warn - we will stop these people by any means necessary, or they will stop us all - look to the world and the see the future already in progress - in the Niger delta, in Persia, of course, in central asia, in the louisiana bayou, in the warmed seas seeping under the ice of antarctica —-
I tell you this - my grandchild is not going to grow up in a world that has these bastards ruining the show, not after four million years of human beauty if I can help it - which i probably cant - but I sure as hell am going to try - and you dont take some one out of power by handing the F**ker 100 billion dollars!
Social Security preservation was a victory over the Neocon propoganda machine? To me it was a colosal loss and a perfect example of how the blood letting is continued. SS didn’t become an issue until the home streach of the ‘04 campaign, when to my eyes the Neocons used it, slong with the Swift Boat momentum, to shift debate away from Iraq.
It worked perfectly. The notion of privatizing SS was/is ridiculous. The Democratic response should have been simple: “No! now let’s talk about Iraq.”
Instead Iraq took a back burner and for 8 months SS dominated debate and the crusade marched forward — blood letting and all. And now the issue is still Iraq, and as commented Iran, and the innocence of Iraqis being raped and murdered daily, and the avoidence of a Custer’s Last Stand and Wounded Knee to the 10th power.
And it’s an issue of power as Mr. Zinn stated as he received the Cranbrook Peace Award in Detroit and as Martin Luther King, Jr. cajoled us: “Our nettlesome task is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power.”
We have the strengths of truth, technology, and humanity (intellectual, emotional, physical). We can use our strengths to force our representatives, not our leaders but our representatives, to end the crusade, with troops in or out of Iraq, but end the Neocon crusade (this is the number one security issue for any American or World citizen), and start the diplomacy that is called for by the historical writings from Scott Ritter, and, from the head of military command in Iraq General Petraus.
I say coalese our strength into a force that calls for the impeachment of the Neocon administration. Whether impeachment occurs should not be the main goal: the main goeal should be the deligitimizing of the current administration, an end to the crusade and blood letting, and finally, finally an open and honest dialogue on Iraq and oil energy economics — not in 8 months — now!
I keep hearing this refrain, that those who disagree with the Democrats and MoveOn are demanding perfection, instead of a reasonable compromise. Okay, BillN and MaryLou–clue me in because I obviously missed something. How is this a compromise? How is it even a tiny step in the right direction, to hand Bush the money he needs to fund the war for the rest of his term, along with mild admonishments and an eventual timetable for withdrawal–”unless the President certifies that national security requires” that the deadlines be ignored! What are the odds of that happening? 100%, you think?
The other part of the refrain is that this is “realistic.” Someone please explain to me why, with a majority of Americans now opposed to the war and eager to see the troops coming home, it’s unrealistic for Congress to take any action to stop the war.
I’m afraid the true realism in the minds of MoveOn and their Democratic buddies is the calculation that 1)we need the war still going in ‘08 so we can use it as a campaign issue again, and 2)we need the war because it’s highly profitable for the corporations that fund our campaigns, just as they fund the Republicans’ campaigns.
When the will of the people is this irrelevant, the political system is not democracy. “Democracy” does NOT mean an election every four years. Look it up. It means “rule by the people.”
With all that’s been happening - wow whataweek - I just saw the video of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the podium ducking for cover when a mortar shakes the building as it explodes near by and there’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki just shaking off his body guards and going on as if nothing happened. If nothing else, the man has got sand.
But, if nothing else, this one video will answer the question if the “surge” is working (?) … it’s over folks …
reminds me of the Tent Offensive - after that only the dullest of blades could think we needed to be there -
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-iraq0322,0,2271911.story
I’ve seen enough of BillN on this blog to know that he consistently advises the path of capitulation & cowardice. To make use of Zinn’s labor union analogy, he’s like the guy who jumps up & down saying “Take it, it’s the best we can get,” when no part of our basic demands have actually been met.
There are always going to be guys around to say, “Take this deal — it’s a first step towards getting what we really want.” This kind of talk is always dressed up in language about “being practical,” being “reasonable,” and “compromise.”
Let me ask the BillN’s and mary lous here: What part of “Our country is committing war crimes” don’t you understand? The criminality of the Bush administration is made possible by the cowardly complicity of Democrats — and here we have the BillN’s jumping up to advise support for still more Dem Party cowardice & complicity. The BillN’s like to point to the bogeyman “fanatic Republicans,” even as the Democrats surrender to Bush 99% of what he wants.
Note that BillN says: “The Dems today are in no way condoning the Iraq War and in fact are demanding that it end.” This is a remarkably dishonest assessment. Giving Bush $100 billion to continue the war, in exchange for vague promises (with many loopholes) about possibly withdrawing some troops in 18 months — this is hardly “demanding that it end.” This is more correctly called “permitting the war to continue.”
Not only is it permitting the war to continue, but the Democrats are also encouraging us to deceive ourselves by pretending that “our leaders are fighting against Bush to end the war” This is like saying Black is White: saying it doesn’t make it so. Our “leaders” are not fighting Bush to end the war — they are giving him the funds to continue it, and merely calling it “action to end the war.” Anyone who finds that satisfactory is too easily satisfied.
Thank you Mr. Zinn.
I am appalled and extremely saddened at the disgracful behavior of the U. S. Congress.
I wonder how it feels to be responsible for continuing the indescribable suffering of the U. S. Military and the Iraqi people.
The beloved Howsrd Zinn is waking us up again — we keep going to sleep.
Re the Civil War — in fact — it was the COMPROMISE with slavery in our Constitution by our founders which paved the way for the Civil War.
This despicable compromise aids and abets the criminals in the White House. And even more immorally, Speaker Nancy Pelosi took out the warning to Bush about attacking Iran. The reason for that was supposedly that some right-wing Democrats were concerned that it might restrain a Democratic president sometime in the future.
This is a war of aggression — and “illegal” war according to the United Nations. Bush and his cronies, bankrutping our Treasuring and doing permanent harm to our nation, should not be permitted to serve out this term and simply leave office. THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ALL OF THIS OR WE WILL QUICKLY HAVE MORE OF IT.
so you want to know what’s better about this bill than a regular appropriation. while i wish it proscribed attacks on iran, it does place conditions upon the stay of the us military in iraq. while we all would like to bring home the soldiers NOW, we also want to protect the national security. just because bush/cheney has made national security a dirty word doesn’t mean it is no longer needed. it means that a different approach is needed.
there are many areas in life where reasonable people can disagree. this is a knotty problem–much worse than it was eight years ago. i am glad that the supplementary appropriation passed, and i agree that we need to keep on our senators and representatives to focus them on peace as a goal. if the bill had failed, everybody would be saying that congress is corrupt. many people ARE saying that, but you can see the strain marks in bush’s smirk from having to say that vetoing a needed appropriation IS supporting the troops when it is just the opposite. what i may have to remind you is that bush could order them home if he wanted. he doesn’t want. hence the politics.
though we are ordinary citizens, sometimes it pays to notice politics.
mary lou,
The road to Hell is paved with practical things.
Yes, it definitely pays to notice politics - if we don’t, it will most assuredly turn on us! I think what Zinn is saying is that it is not the citizens’ role to be politicians - it’s our role to be people and let the politicians know just how we feel. It’s then the politicians’ role to do what they need to do to represent us. Or…am I missing something about the democratic system?
To my fellow Lefties: Keep the pressure on - an inch is NOT enough! Don’t let up or the bastards will go back to sleep!
dear mary lou
i dont believe that reasonable people can disagree about the US occupation and destruction of Iraq. It is illegal immoral and certain to have repercussions that will haunt this nation, as well as the UK for a long time to come. To vote for continuing that occupation by giving it 124 BILLION Dollars is not a vote to support the troops, or for National Security. It is a sickening rubber stamp. The war has always been illegal. It violates every decent principle and law by which we attempt to prevent such atrocites. Not only must the funding for this war be eliminated but the BUSH regime must be held accountable. Anything else is a travesty that will only further discredit this already discredited government. It is horrifying to read comments by so-called citizens of what is supposed to be first and foremost the country that exemplifies democracy in action - Democracy, which gets its entire footing from a belief in the inalienable right of all people to self-governance, to self-determination, to the equality that makes it a crime against humanity to impose any form a government upon any people, - it is horrifying to see so many misunderstand this, abuse these ideas in the name of furthering some distorted and manipulated national agenda which serves none but the oil barons.
To knowingly pass a law you disagree with because of some hoped for political gain, some hoped for position that you will place your opponent in, and not because you believe that law will serve the people of this nation, or of the world, is to be manipulative and deceptive - in other words - to lie. the world looks the way it does because of political lies. This is no freaking board game.
According to the website http://costofwar.com/numbers.html the current US spending on the Iraq war - and this is what has been openly spent - this does not include any hanky panky black budget sort of stuff - is 374.5 billion dollars. Not included in this figure is the $124 Billion now in dispute due to the timeline attached. Given the current Iraq death toll, throwing in the US casualties as well, the house just decided to fund another 33,000 deaths. Does that make you fell more secure nationally? Really think about it. Please.
Zinn effectively illuminates the absence of a citizen culture in the USA, and in ostensibly democratic spaces and places around the world. If most people - not to exclude most people posting here - cannot, for example, name their representatives, local to global, and do not know how or where to quickly find out who they are and what they did today, how in fact does representative republic…work?
It doesn’t work; not for the vast majority, the vast majority of the time, while keeping track of the humanity of the most vulnerable: it’s not democratic.
We need robust toolspaces that offer us real-time Republic; authentic, actionable information wherever we are such that the informed decisions that make democracies work can in fact be made; such that government by, of and for the people shall not perish.
What the two wings of the one single party - the Financial Unicrats, or F.U.s - happen to do today is etirely a result of our abandonment of a culture of citizenship.
i want us to discuss this. discussing is not the same as throwing rocks or rioting.
do i like the bill i supported? i like the part about congress setting limits. i even like the pork that supports spinach farms. i think of it as a poison pill for the neocons. to get their money, they have to support limits on their king. the king doesn’t like it. maybe it becomes our modern version of the magna carta, where the king has to swear fealty to his country and habeas corpeus. actually, if he does not swear fealty to the constitution, he gets impeached.
in my imagination he gets impeached because he lied to congress to start the iraq war. but that may be down the road.
It is unfortunate that our “representative government” devotes so much creative energy on the next election… getting or holding on to power.
That the next presidential election has become the focus for our representatives …how many months away?… I just don’t understand it. It boggles the mind. And it is grotesque.
MoveOn’s political games doesn’t impress me.
Once again I am grateful for Howard Zinn. Reminding us to be citizens.
We will fire the grid of truth, reconciliation, cooperation, harmony, fairness and compassion.
We shall overcome.
Right now.
The point of power is in the Present.
“Timetables for withdrawal are not only morally reprehensible in the case of a brutal occupation but logically nonsensical. If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite—provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence—they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home.”
Thank you, Mr. Zinn. This paragraph says it all!
Dear mary lou,
I don’t get the sense that anyone is advocating throwing rocks or rioting, so please, let’s frame the debate in the correct context.
I remember a few years ago hearing a short excerpt from an interview with Thomas Moore, author of “Dark Night of the Soul” and other books. I remember something he said in the context of politics that I’ll never forget: (paraphrasing) - he said that politicians of conscience must put their political careers on the line. In order to exercise their conscience, they must be willing to do something that may very well get them voted out of office. The operative word here is “conscience”. In my view, this goes for everyone. That so few people, and even fewer politicians (they lilke to call themselves “leaders”) are willing to take a stand that may cost us personally or politically, is the reason why the world is in such a state.
So, here we are, 5 years into an illegal war that has devolved into an international civil war, over 3,000 Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, many more Iraqi civilians killed and wounded, two nations in ruins (ours just isn’t as obvious…yet), and all we can do is support a watered down bill that slaps the “king’s” (if we have a king, that must make us serfs) hands?
I think your vision of what is possible is severely limited, and so your actions will be too.
I don’t think we can afford to compromise on this issue. We can’t. If we’re not going to think of the American lives, we should think of the innocent Iraqis whose lives in terms of those lost pale in comparison. We were SUPPOSED to be liberating them, but instead we are decimating them. I don’t think that human rights are something that can be negotiated. And by being there, we are turning the entire world against us.
People say that Democrats and Republicans should work together. It would be nice if they could if this were an ideal world and both sides truly had the best interests of Americans and the rest of the world’s people in mind.
But they don’t. We are not dealing with a group of decent men and women who truly want to make the world a better place. What we are dealing with are a group of oligarchic robber barons. People on The Right often get angry when the notion of haggling with criminals is even suggested. Who else are we dealing with here but criminals?
We need to pull out of Iraq, plain and simple, along with every other nation we occupy. We’re not in any of these nations to keep the peace. To think that is truly naive. Our military should be merely protecting our borders. Instead it is used to enforce our “interests”.
Bring all of our boys and girls HOME. Then impeach and JAIL (yes I went there, impeachment is not nearly enough in my eyes) Bush and his entire cabinet.
Negotiate with terrorists*coughBushCheneycough*? HA!
First we must weaken the forces that have lied about how Iraq was an imminent threat.
First Bush and Cheney must be removed from office and the American people must see how this war was built upon lies.
Too many Americans still believe that this war was an honest mistake and that the war was merely incompetently handled.
It must be made clear to the average American the kind of coruption that caused the war and how we were lied to by people in the White House.
Once thoroughly discredited, more honest voices will emerge and the dialogue about what next to do can be honestly debated.
As long as we have criminals with the kind of power this current White House has, the debate will be skewed by them.
Lets demand an investigation into who is behind the forged documents about yellow cake uranium from Niger going to Saddam Hussein. My guess is that the documents were made up by people in Dick Cheney’s office.
Does anyone else know about Al Gore’s father? He was an extremely moral man who opposed segregation and voted against the Viet Nam war. He lost his election in Tennessee.
IMPEACH BUSH and CHENEY
Let’s make it clear to everyone how the US has been used by the Bush White House to help corporations and wealthy and powerful people.
If the war is ended the people who support this craziness will say it ended because of the left and the war could have been won if we had not backed down.
These people must be made aware of how America has been used by its president for corporations and a corporate drive for cheap oil.
Impeachment is the key. Expose Bush and Cheney for what they are.
Thanks Howard…Always good to be reminded about the limitations of compromise. I remember reading many, many years ago (from Ayn
Rand of all people) that whenever the good is compromised, evil always wins. ALWAYS! You cannot make deals with the devil. Because I want this war to end and to bring our troops home SO badly, I sometimes get suckered into believing that anything that brings us closer to that end is better than nothing. But I am wrong when I do that. We can’t compromise “a little bit of the good” to stop the evil. It won’t work, and never has. That kind of compromise only makes me a “little” corrupt and a participant in the evil. If I make such compromises, my guilt and compromised integrity will eventually silence my voice for the good.
So, what to do now? I can only hope that Bush will veto the bill if it ever gets to his desk and we start the process all over again. Maybe by then Congress will find it’s spine and refuse to fund this war. Hope springs eternal even when that hope is probably unjustified.
In the meantime, keep making noise. Raise the volumn! Make it louder! The cacophony (always loved that word) of our voices raised together will be deafening and impossible to ignore!
Raise hell, write your representatives, and don’t forget to laugh EVERY day.
Yeah Howard. I tried to hold my nose and go along with their “strategy.” You’re right, not our duty or function.
To those who do not want to compromise on matters of more killing for political gain, I only add this in support of the general refusal to compromise on US crimes: Pelosi added to the supplemental a prohibition against attacking Iran without congressional support–and then too it back–which is a de facto message of permission to attack Iran. We can bet that if Bush/Cheney/Gates/Rice decide to bomb Iran (because Iran is acting as if they were an independent nation) they and their Republican allies in Congress will point it out. “The Congress was united in not opposing our right to attack Iran” they will say. This is all the more reason for the progressive citizenry *and* our true progressives in Congress to oppose US crimes without reservation as Zinn wrote and so many commentors are advocating in this forum.
If the Democrats were an opposition party, they could refuse to vote for any supplemental except to recall the troops; support true international peacekeepers under the UN/OIC nations/Arab League nations acceptable to the resistance groups; reparations; and the dismantling of the US bases. Progressive citizens need to push hard for that, as Zinn suggests. THAT would stop the money–and the occupation. The Republicans do not have the votes to pass any supplemental by themselves. If the corporate-militarist regime Dems insist on supporting war, progressives and all “moderate” Americans (together a majority) who want the occupation to end can remove those militarist Dems who keep funding the occupation by voting them out of office.
BillN March 24th, 2007 2:41 pm
Tyrants cannot be appeased. They will not compromise and they see those that do as weak and worthy of only contempt. And I don’t blame them…you cannot compromise with corruption without becoming corrupt; and that is not a compromise…that is a capitulation.
BNK
I think the dem’s are on one hand seeing what they can get away with, how much middle of the road GOP support they can attact to a bill that is the first MENTION of ending the war. Under the old GOP congress was ok with letting w spend and fight in Iraq until armageddon (which I think most of them is hoping would come befor the 06 elections…)
But now its a new crowd and they also need to see what gets the truely progresive members on board to end the war. So they know now what they wrote is not aggressive engough to win the support of progressives, but not unpalpable to a few republicans.
And on top of it - if Bush signs it he’s agreed in part to pulling out (but he’s never let promisses or laws stop him anyway) if he veto’s it they can use it to say -look there he goes again abandoning our troops…
It is Political strategy - nothing moral at all. Keep up the letters and protests this is far from over, but a meger step in the right direction.
“maybe it becomes our modern version of the magna carta, where the king has to swear fealty to his country and habeas corpeus. actually, if he does not swear fealty to the constitution, he gets impeached.”
He has sworn fealty to our Constitution - twice. And he has violated those oaths every single day he has been in office.
JUST SO NO TO RACKETEERS POSING AS STATESMEN!
Rebel Farmer March 25th, 2007 1:22 pm
“I remember reading many, many years ago (from Ayn Rand of all people) that whenever the good is compromised, evil always wins.”
Well, I’d say Ayn Rand should certainly know about what it takes for evil to win…her entire philosophy is an apology for sociopathy.
BNK
Yeah, it is the “reasonable” ones who felt it appropriate to go along with the bankruptcy bill, and not fight the Bolton nomination.
During Clinton’s time “reasonable” voices touted NAFTA as a good thing.
“Reasonable” planners within the Democratic party thought it prudent to cease fighting over the 2000 election fraud — and again, in 2004.
“Reasonable” strategists thought it imprudent for Kerry to bring up Abu Grhraib, and Halliburton and Enron, and PNAC and 911 contradictions during the very reasonable televised debates with George Bush.
Can you see any reason for these “reasonable” people to urge us to stand by and watch the daily rape or our country, Constitution, culture, and planet?
After losing major rights, after watching and helping stack the last-resort Supreme Court, after “reasonably” not wanting to challenge the Commander-in-Chief about his right to single-handedly start yet another war, one with nuclear consequences, does it seem that the “reasonable ones” should continue to be trusted to make sound political decisions about how to deal with the hijacking of our nation? ? ? ? !
Here is a perfectly UNreasonable idea that might actually move some “reasonable” asses into action: apparently, they only understand pressure from the OUTside, so go to http://switch2green.org, read up, and exercise your option to stand up and say: “I want to end the war and its funding NOW! I want Impeachment NOW!”
There is a reasonable chance you might get their attention, and that they might get the message — and maybe even follow the People’s lead in defending this nation.
In the US, compromise is not about sharing, it is the last refuge of a scoundrel in a losing position.
To see the above-mentioned, site, drop the comma: http://switch2green.org
it’s a wonderful article.
it’s simple and powerful.
It’s time to throw the money changers out of the temple. Flood the offices of your senators, congressman, and speaker of the house with one word over and over again: IMPEACH !!!!!!!!