We Gave Them Our Hearts, They Gave Him A Blank Check
It is a dark day in our nation’s history. That sounds melodramatic - but it is true. Today America watched a Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth - all in order to continue the most unpopular war in a generation at the request of the most unpopular president in a generation at a time polls show a larger percentage of the public thinks America is going in the wrong direction than ever recorded in polling history.
The numbers are not pretty. First, 216 House Democrats cast the key vote to send a blank check Iraq War funding bill over to the Senate. As I reported at the beginning of the day and as the Associated Press now confirms, the vote on the rule was the vote that made it happen. As the AP said: “In a highly unusual maneuver, House Democratic leaders crafted a procedure that allowed their rank and file to oppose money for the war, then step aside so Republicans could advance it.” Nauseating.
In the Senate, we saw lots of promises and tough talk from senators telling us they were going to do everything they could to stop the blank check. Some of them bragged that they were going to vote against the bill - as if that was the ultimate sign of heroics. Then, not a single senator found the backbone to stand up to filibuster the bill a la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. To quote the Big Lebowski, “These men are cowards,” because apparently, Senate club etiquette comes even before the lives of our troops.
The blank check sailed through the upper chamber on a vote of 80-14 with 38 Democrats (the majority of the party) voting yes. In all, at a time when 82 percent of Americans tell pollsters they want Congress to either approve funds for the war with strict conditions or cut off all funding immediately, 90 percent of House and Senate Democrats combined voted to give George W. Bush a blank check.
The worst part of it all was the overt efforts to deceive the public - as if we’re all just a bunch of morons. House Democrats have the nerve to continue to insist the blank check they helped ram through the House was all the Republicans doing, and that a sham vote on a GOP amendment today - which most Democrats opposed for show - was the real vote for the war. But, again, as the AP reported, it was their parliamentary motion - passed so quickly and under the devious pretenses of mundane procedural necessity - that showed their calculated complicity. Now, tonight, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is actually sending out fundraising emails claiming “the House just passed legislation that will go to the White House that includes critical issues Democrats have been fighting for including canceling the President’s blank check in Iraq.” Beyond nauseating.
I’m not a purist nor am I a “pox on both their houses” kind of guy. I have worked to elect Democratic politicians and I supported Democratic leaders when they pushed an Iraq funding bill that included binding language to end the war. But what happened today was perhaps the most stunning travesty I’ve seen in a decade working in Democratic politics. A Democratic Party that six months ago was elected on a promise to end the war first tried to hide their complicity in continuing the war in the House, and then gave a few token speeches as the blank check sailed through the Senate club. And it all happened, as the New York Times reported today, because these Democrats believed criticism from President Bush - the man who polls show is the most unpopular president in three decades - “seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left.”
Democratic politicians, Capitol Hill staff, political consultants and all their lobbyist friends sitting comfortably tonight in their Northwest Washington homes believe the public thinks Democrats are “weak” because they don’t more strongly support leaving American troops to be killed or maimed in the middle of a bloody civil war in a country half way around the globe that had no WMD and had nothing to do with 9/11. What they seem unable - or unwilling - to realize is that the public has believed Democrats are weak not because some in the party have opposed the war, but because many in the party refuse to wield the power the public entrusts them with on all sorts of issues. At least on Iraq - the biggest issue of the day - the public’s perception has proven right. As I wrote to one congressional lawmaker in an e-mail correspondence we had today: “The spoils go to those who use the power they are entrusted with, while infamy goes to those who squander it.”
In the movie “Say Anything,” John Cusack famously laments after being dumped that “I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.” The American people gave Democrats their heart in November 2006. In return, Democrats gave George Bush a blank check in May 2007. We gave them our heart, they gave him a blank check. That will make May 24, 2007 a dark day generations to come will look back on - a day when Democrats in Washington not only continued a war they promised to end, but happily went on record declaring that they believe in their hearts that government’s role is to ignore the will of the American people.
David Sirota is the author of the book Hostile Takeover. To subscribe to Sirota’s regular newsletter, go to www.davidsirota.com and sign up on the left hand side.
© 2007 David Sirota
No Dem will get my vote in 2008.
mr. sirota,
will you continue to give your support to the democrats? the vote did not surprise me.
If the Democrat brand is to have any value in future, it is imperative that each and every Democrat who voted for the war funding receive a challenge in the primary next year. Peace candidates who get started now will be able to raise the money needed to oust these Quislings.
Or maybe, I’m just too bleedin’ optimistic.
They said.. “Quit belly-aching and whining and GO OUT and do something”. So we did. We passed flyers, e-mails, polls, and newsletters all around to get more and more people out to VOTE in the November elections to stop the President and his corrupt administration from destroying this country.
We went out in great numbers proving, so we thought, that THE PEOPLE run this country.. not one man. We made our voice clear. Now, president Bush and his dogs Cheney and Rove, are loose out on everyones property again and the democrats are just sitting there watching them crap all over our country. Thank you Nancy Pelosi and Company for such a short term.
What the cynical Dems believe (including many progressives who just don’t want to believe the truth — that this has always been a bi-partisan war and the Dems as a party will continue to support it while trying to appear as if they don’t) is that in the end, let the anti-war wing scream, yell and whine because elections are a choice between 2 people in the two-party system, and none of us is going to vote Republican at election time. As the Dems have no integrity, decency, honesty or patriotism, they’re perfectly willing to vote funding that causes the children of primarily working class and poor Americans to be killed and maimed so that they win in 2008 (even though they won’t) and call it supporting the troops.
The Dems successfully projected a sense of the “inevitability” of their having to vote to fund the needless killing and maiming of more troops and Iraqis over the objections of 70% of the electorate. That “inevitablility” was repeated right from the beginning by the leadership, so all of us were supposed to feel that even though we’re angry, deep down we understand it wasn’t the Democratic controlled House and Senate’s fault that they had to vote through the “kill and maim our troops so we can get elected” bill and betray those who gave them control of both Houses to end the war. People as intelligent as Tom Hartmann from Air America keeps implying he disagrees with, but understands, the betrayal of the troops by the leadership Democrats — as do the pundits (with the exception of Keith Obermann) who got all this wrong in the first place.
What we have to do as progressives is come up with a way to stop it. Don’t get mad get even. I think if all of us put away our differences, stopped trying to impeach Alberto Gonzales (just another Bushbot), and united and demanded that Pelosi put Conyers in charge of actually moving impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney, we would have a mechanism to end the war and the high crimes and misdemeanors this Bush group is doing within about 4 months.
We should not take “no” for an answer. As a result of the cynicism and hostility to the troops demonstrated by the Democratic majority, this war will go on unabated. Even Murtha voted to kill and maim more troops in the interests of the party. The leadership Dems have anticipated we may go there and have given many lame excuses why we shouldn’t go the impeachment and removal route — trying to portray it as a nutso idea that would inevitably fail.
And we shouldn’t wait until September. We should start now. If the leadership Dems have a better way to stop the war and get the troops out within 3-4 months, to stop the daily criminal actions of this Administration, then they should put it forward and better succeed in carrying it out. Otherwise impeachment and removal are the only tools we have to end Bush/Cheney’s reign in the near future. If the leadership Dems won’t do it, then we should fight them in all primaries at all levels and let them know we cannot be taken for granted. We should make the Demorcatic Party look like Iraq, without the killing, maimings and torture.
Nancy Pelosi for the first woman US President in 2007, whether she wants it or not.
The Democrats in Congress chose to enable Bush’s illegal war. Lamentable but not surprising. They owe Neville Chamberlain an apology, the sellouts.
The Dims are primarly opportunists. They may play “good cop” to the repug “bad cop” but they are part of the same rotten corporate scheme. They always have and will persue the same interests.
Oh, c’mon. When was the last time any Congressman did anything for the American public? They do whatever big business and their self-interest tells them to do. American citizens have long ceased to be relevant. You have only to look at the past ten years to see that U.S. government is increasingly run by corporations. Who wrote the so-called Bankruptcy Reform Act? The banking industry. “Our” Congressmen are far too busy flying in corporate jets to company-sponsored golf outings to bother writing their own laws or, in many cases, bothering to vote on them. Feh.
can we say “fascist corporate state”? surprise, surprise, when corporations have the same rights as citizens, Mr. Nader has been warning us about this for how many decades?, regular people lose out. The congress is a multi-millionaires’ club, do people really believe congress has the peoples’ best interests in mind?
The Democratic leadership must think we’re as stupid as Bush thinks we are to call this bill progress on ending the war. Or maybe they think the public will get mad, get over it, and go back to watching TV.
Time for some populist candidates to step up to the plate.
Simple Strategy for Citizens
Who Want to Renew our Democracy
http://www.gpln.com/renewourdemocracy.htm
Moveon.org, Common Dreams, Impeach Bush/Cheney, Democracy for America, CLC, Act for Change, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, the Huffington Post, truthout and the many I haven’t named should call a national coalition meeting for the purpose of DEMANDING that the Dems move Impeach Bush/Cheney in an intelligent way. They should draft Articles of Impeachment and put their combined constituencies into pushing the House to adopt the Articles drafted. The Articles should cover the whole gamut of high crimes and misdemeanors, all covered within only 4 or 5 headlined points.
This creates a united effort by pro troop, pro Constitution, anti-war, anti-corruption forces to connect all of the dots and puts us on the road of getting out of this lying Bush/Cheney “screw the people, screw the law, give out no-bid contracts” criminal syndicate in 3 or 4 months. It’s the only way we can get rid of them expeditiously.
There is already more than sufficient evidence to impeach and remove them for high crimes and misdemeanors. The incumbent Republicans up for the 20 Republican Senate seats up in 2008 will have a choice of voting to remove or being removed, once the whole picture is presented in an organized manner to the American people.
You people are amazing, especially someone supposedly as politically connected as Mr Sirota. You are either naive or just stupid. What makes any of you think anything is going to change regardless of who we vote for. It’s over morons, get over it.
noamnesiac:
You are right. This calls for new ways of thinking - liberals forming broad coalitions to get our elected representatives to do their jobs. I have been impressed with the way hearings have been going with the House committees really getting mad and all, but have we seen any real changes? Some things take time, yes, but other things like the war need to be addressed now. SWIFT ACTION needs to be demanded where it is essential. I haven’t agreed with some of the positions that MoveOn has taken recently, but they stood up when it counted on this last vote. To maintain credibility they need to take the next logical step. In unity there is strength. Union!
The American people may have given their hearts to their elected officials but don’t forget that corporate America gave our elected officials something more valuable. Money. This war will end when it’s no longer profitable. But corporate America isn’t worried. War is an everyday part of life in the United States of Everything.
Hoa binh
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Sounds about right.
To paraphrase the old joke about politicians, How do you know when their lying? When they’re speaking. Sounds cynical and I didn’t feel this way when I was younger, but this truism is quite apparent and accurate. The difficulty is trying to find out when they are really telling the truth.
A reminder is needed here:
“You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
…
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork4.html
Paddy was prophetic.
What do you do when you finally realize the truth? There is no democracy. There is no republic. Its all a sham. And you are powerless to do anything about it. Remember what happened to Howard Beale would happen to any politician or media figure who gets too close to really challenging the nature of power in America and the world. They are quite willing to kill to protect their interests. Americans are not willing to die to resurrect a democracy. That is the hard, cold calculus of what we are facing here. And when the economy craters and the world roils in the effects of global warming and peak oil, it will be far, far too late.
People who support the Democrats expecting anything other than this are fooling themselves. Stop trusting people who repeatedly betray that trust. There is an alternative. The Greens are waiting for you.
The Democrats have just hammered the last nail in their own coffin–I hope. Now maybe “liberals” and “progressives” will acknowledge that we need a third party (or fourth, or fifth). Nothing like a little competition to keep people reminded of who’s paying their salaries.
Yes, they broke our hearts and they won’t get us back. It is a dark day indeed because as lame as the Democrats are, they aren’t dangerous and bent on tyranny like the Republicans they just handed a return to full power in 2008. This will sound dramatic, but I believe it true: we are doomed unless something truly astounding happens very soon.(are you listening Al Gore?)
“Our government will soon become what it is already a long way toward becoming, an elective dictatorship.”
Senator J. William Fulbright
“Our politicians have sacrificed their principles on the altar of special interests; our corporate leaders have sacrificed their integrity on the altar of profits; and our media watchdogs have sacrificed the voice of dissent on the altar of audience competition.”
Cornel West
“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”
Ernest Hemingway
“In individuals insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
To initiate a war of aggression … is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany - 1946
to the clueless dude who wonders if any of us work - go back to your job making widgets or whatever. it obviously is something you know how to do. but please don’t think that those of us who choose to “come together” around these all-important issues are just lazy-assed simpletons who have nothing better to do than “chat.” one day you may wonder why you didn’t bother taking a bit more time finding out what’s going on.
Ezeflyer, thanks for the relevant quotes. And Kegbot, I recently watched Network again, and wow… prescient, indeed! I don’t think we can live without hope; and the belief in justice is so intrinsic to the human spirit. We must bring together all disenfranchised groups and give a 3rd party the tread it needs to break the logjam called politics in the USA today. It may take years to get it happening, but if we can direct the massive disillusion and anger at the sold-out leaders into a new progressive direction, maybe we have a shot. It reminds me of the unlikely coalition that took down Darth’s death star in Lucas’ prophetic Star Wars trilogy.
There is a jackass a couple of entries above who has had nothing better to do with his (yes, I am assuming it is a male) time than to ask us whether we work.
Well, jackass, perhaps it is time for you to ponder the following:
if you don’t deal with politics, politics will deal with you.
Since when is work a sacred cow, anyway?
The two party system hasn’t worked for years. It’s no suprise to me that big money, big media and the “military industrial complex forms the basis of all the countrys policies. It is just a voting shell game every 2 and 4 years. The basic theories of democracy are more solid and carried out more fairly in many other countries. This ruling class isn’t going to change itself. It’ll take powereful forces from within these borders and maybe from without to bring about real change.
I am so concerned about a Presidential Directive that was signed by President Bush on May 9th giving him unconstrained powers in case of a national emergency. In the case of a national emergency (terrorist attack), I don’t want that psychopath in charge of anything. How can he get away with this? It’s terrifying!!!
Article link:
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
” was
signed May 9, notes Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column
.
It was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.
The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments,
as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency.
“Catastrophic emergency” is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage,
or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
It says the president can assume the power to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
The directive says the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, currently Frances Fragos Townsend
, would be designated as the national continuity coordinator.
Corsi says the directive makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created for the national continuity coordinator with the National Emergency Act
,
which requires that such proclamation “shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.”
A Congressional Research Service study notes the National Emergency Act sets up Congress as a balance empowered to “modify, rescind, or render dormant” such emergency authority if Congress believes the president has acted
inappropriately.
But the new directive appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of national continuity coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position, Corsi says.
The directive also makes no reference to Congress and its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists.
It suggests instead that the powers of the directive can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke affirmed to Corsi the Homeland Security Department would implement the requirements of the order under
Townsend’s direction.
The White House declined to comment on the directive.
“It is a dark day in our nation’s history.”
And, since this new blank check says nothing about NOT bombing Iran, the clock is now officially ticking, and legally covered. Darker days to come.
“It is a dark day in our nation’s history.” And, besides whining, how will y’all respond to such vile betrayal? 50 million voters switch parties by Wednesday? Have the massive sit-ins been scheduled yet? Are the buses already rented for the 10 million Progressive March? No?
Oh, right. We don’t do stuff like that anymore. Forgot. Sorry.
lh2640 May 25th, 2007 3:46 pm
“Don’t you people have to work?”
Hmmm, you question people’s work ethic but nevertheless find time to happen upon this website, peruse the article and many of the related posts, register and post a comment yourself. Some might call this hypocritical, but I’m guessing you were able to do all this during the 10 minute break in your usual 24 hour shift. Very impressive, grasshopper.
“What the hell happened to this country?”
Look in the mirror and imagine a bunch of lh2640s running around.
The democrats turned ot to be as useless as tits on a boar.
I am very disappointed that the Iraq emergency funding bill passed. Many of us who worked so hard for democrats this past election are now considering becoming greens. The democratic party has let us down en masse and we won’t forget it. They pissed off the wrong group of voters this time. Bad triangulation.
Frustrated? I am enraged and heartsick–the worst possible combination. Here is my response, which I am sending out to everyone:
The people of Iraq do not blame us (in the sense of holding you and me responsible) for the actions of our military and government. I think that when we (you and I) prevail upon them (U.S. Government) to leave Iraq, the people of Iraq will be grateful to us. No sweets and flowers, but they will meet with representatives of a new regime in the U.S. to arrange a new and better relationship.
But they will do this ONLY if they see that we have made a sincere effort to remove from the government and military those elements that created the current state of affairs.
We should do them the further honor of extraditing all Americans who supported the war to Iraq for trial. When convicted, their accumulated wealth should be set up in a fund to support the victims of the war in perpetuity, including our veterans and the injured and dead in Iraq.
We need a complete program that sees the matter through to the end. Just ending hostilities or just impeaching, imprisoning, and extraditing the president, vice president, attorney general, Condi Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld is not sufficient. We need to take further steps to purge the ignorance, racism, sociopathy, sadism, and war mongering from our government and to place the criminals responsible in the dock of justice in Baghdad.
THAT’S THE END OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED AND I’M SURE THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WHO OPPOSE THE WAR. THEIR ACTION JUST PUT ANOTHER REPUBLICAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. OUR VOTE GIVING THEM CONTROL OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OBVIOUSLY MEANT NOTHING TO THEM. IGNORE US AND REAP THE DISASTER, YOU STUPID DONKEYS.
I joined the Greens several weeks ago.
lh2640 May 25th, 2007 3:46 pm
“Don’t you people have to work?”
Sicko?
This gives a lot of credence to the argument that it makes no difference which party you vote for.
What the hell happened to all the anger behind “No more rubber stamping!” for this president? What crap.
Beyond nauseating.
WHY DO THEY HATE US SO MUCH?? (the all-time most audacious question asked by supremacist xenophobic Yanks and their Fascist allies)
——————————————————————————–
Read that question w/ some whining noise added to it for fun!!!
This is a response from a world citizen to the all-time most naive question I have heard/read so much from the so-called analysts, writers, politicians, and hands of IMPERIALISM in your dishonest media.
In your undying, never-ending hatred for Iran and drowned in an ocean of narcissism, you simply have forgotten, or yet better, chosen to forget, the crimes, inhumane policies, arrogant attitudes, and pain inflicted by you “patriotic” psychos on many a nation, including Persians.
Well, the Northern Christian hypocrisy and self-love on one side; its harsh animosity and blood thirst for Iran is something else. It was evident in your clownish, arrogant President’s speeches and now it’s epitomized by the most blatantly hateful, Nazi pieces of propaganda which Goebbels himself would love you for ), there it comes, suck it and swallow it w/ AMERICAN (w/ a thick R the way you like it) pride and xenophobia.
By what I have read from the likes of you in your very “OBJECTIVE” media (no shortage in the ” objective, informed, and bright” nation of yours), you completely epitomize what the monstrous Northern Christian imperialism means to billions of impoverished, victimized, oppressed masses of the world and what it has done for the past several centuries only in order to secure its own filthy interests derived from your selfish, self-indulged, self-centered, egotistic, materialist, and Calvinist lifestyles and worldviews. If and only if you were interested in the truth and facts, you could easily find the answer by reviewing your friends’ list and also crimes’ list for decades or centuries (for those Euro liberals!!). It doesn’t take a genius, does it?
YOU are the epitome of unfairness, injustice, governmental terrorism and bigotry. These are some of the crimes against humanity committed by your patriotic asses all over the planet (the list would be only too long but I mention a few here):
U.S. sponsored coup against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over the course of four decades.
U.S. overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to murder 3,000 people.
1973, the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against he democratic government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000 people.
1965 the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over 250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbours) against Nicaragua in the 1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as the U.S. government used to call them before the term “collateral damage” was invented–”soft targets”).
U.S. war against the people of El Salvador in the 1980s, which
resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000 people, or “soft targets”.
U.S. sponsored terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola) that began in the 1970’s and resulted in the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000.
U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas season of 1989 and killed over 5,000 in an attempt to capture George H. Bush’s CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual Noriega.
U.S. sponsored a brutal coup that resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1978.
This doesn’t even mention the crimes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Bay of Pigs and before that the support for and direct involvement w/ Batista’s regime in Cuba, the 8-year war against Iran -including chemical weapons usage- by (the former friend!!) Saddam, death squads in Central America, the 5 decades of Israeli crimes in Palestine and Lebanon (the veto policy), the “missing” in Argentina, and of course the “silent coup” in Algeria in 91 (w/ deceitful cooperation from the French bastards) that stopped the FIS from winning the elections thus plunging the country into a civil war for years…………….
We can never forget your crimes or undying sense of self-love and ego that make the Yankees and their NATO/G7 lovers the most detested nations on this planet, perhaps galaxy.
Now kill as many innocent people as you want. LAUNCH, LAUNCH as a bastard called JAMES WOODS declared on JAY LENO. Brag about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Beirut bombings. Brag about killing of the innocent family members of Kaddafi, all the countries’ leaders and revolutionaries who had the guts to say no to your Fascist Empire.
It matters not. The U.S. (and the British disgusting colonialism) will go where the Romans, German Nazis, Mongols, and the rest of the arrogant sorry excuses for humanity went. Now celebrate killing Moslems, Nationalists, and Leftists (not to mention nuns and priests), etc. in your never-ending fire of hatred, supremacy and ego.
Unlike many other foreigners, I am not simplistic enough to think you are just the minority and the “rest” are simply decent, nice, culture-loving individuals. The fact is it’s filth like you that votes for the criminals you call leaders (Reagan and Bushes, Blair, Merkel, Harper and Howard come to mind immediately). Also I don’t think, despite the popular belief, you are ignorant or just stupid; I think you know enough and simply choose to ignore because you are the most selfish, inhumane, robotic bastards this planet has seen for a long time. Your sense of “SELECTIVE MEMORY and JUDGMENT” is proof enough.
I think legendary Orwell got it right in this passage from Nineteen Eighty-Four, an account of the ultimate supremacist empire:
“And in the general hardening of outlook that set in . . . practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions . . . and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”
As a reaction to your actions, our (the South) hatred for you could only be compared to the feelings we have against Serbs, Nazis, Genghis Khan and Alexander the Criminal.
THE NEW ROME WILL FALL…… AND ITS FOLLOWERS, FRIENDS, ALLIES AND APOLOGISTS….. WE’LL MAKE SURE OF THAT. DEATH TO THE U.S. and EU!!!
A majority of Americans will support anything the USA does if it is winning.
Well I guess the Dem leaders are heavily invested in defense stocks as well, sheesh.
How do you get the majority of Dem voters to switch to the Green party or some other party with a conscience?
It doesn’t matter anyway as the next Pres-dent-ial election will be rigged just like the last 2.
Why even stay in the USA anymore? no living wage, no healthcare, no pensions, no more social security, overworked, overtaxed etc. etc.
The greatest nation on Earth is a fraud, the American dream is only a dream for most people, the pursuit of happiness is just a persuit.
I’d be just as safe sailing the world alone and lashing the wheel to catch some rest. Goodbye America.
Here we go again with the usual stereotypical doom-and-gloom cynicism and pessimism.
All politicians are corrupt, evil, and stupid. Only we, the keyboard conscience, have the ability to understand divine truth. Why doesn’t America elect more people like us, who are obviously pure and above politics, to Congress?
Perhaps the inherent nature of the democratic process explains why Congress modified its approach on this matter.
To any progressive, anti-war Democrat. LEAVE THAT PARTY!
Anyone who remains a Democrat is pledging allegiance to a party that openly says that it is worth killing tens of thousands of human being, and maiming many others, because of the sick belief that this is the best for their party.
That is a sick an immoral position. From this day, anyone who says they are a Democrat is backing this sickening and immoral stand.
Anyone who stays a Democrat has blood on their hands. And its blood willingly placed there to improve their perception of their own political chances.
Anyone with any morals must flee that party.
I pledge that I will never vote Democratic again. If a progressive, antiwar candidate wants my vote, they must not run as a Democrat. Anytime I hear a Democrat talking like they are a progressive antiwar candidate, I’m just going to assume that the (D) after their name stands for ‘lying son of a bitch’.
The age of reason is nearing an end. We are careening back into the abyss of ignorance and fear that characterized the Dark Ages. Evidence for this consists in the rise of nationalism, jingoism, intolerance and religious fundamentalism. If we don’t soon wake from our zombie state, we will no longer teach the truth of evolution in our public schools. The stage is already set in Kansas for that sorry event to take place. Science and understanding will be supplanted by religious dogma and zealotry. No proof, no evidence will be necessary. We will live our lives by faith-blind faith; deaf and dumb faith. Ecological literacy will become a forgotten dream, as the earth sinks into irrevocable ruin in the bilge of consumption and industrial waste we created. Heretics, as was done in the past, will be subject to persecution; burned at the stake as blasphemers. Copernicus and Giordano Bruno will welcome the company. Free thinking and the publication of non-religious books will be banned. White supremacists (as they do now in the slave states) will hold the reins of power; and a new era of industrial slavery will be ushered in. Behold the twelve hour work day; rejoice in the seventy-two hour work week. And it will be called a free and open society-a Christian Nation. It will be called the Greatest Nation on Earth. It will be called ‘Amerika.’ Religious leaders will openly call for the assassination of democratically elected presidents of sovereign nations. The CIA and its henchmen will obediently carry out the orders. Ignorant, supercilious, bumbling stooges will be our war time presidents. We will exist in a state of perpetual war. Ours’ will be a permanent war time economy, until its collapse in a few short decades of flaming exuberance. The war machine must be fed with our babies-those of the working class. Elections will be rigged and their outcomes predetermined by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trails. Ignorance will be called truth. Hate will be called love. Words will have no meaning. The fascist police state is emerging. And the Democrats and Republicans are the same.
Are we ready to listen to Ralph Nader yet? He told us what we have to do 8 years ago.
Saladin, you’re right, and we are all complicit, even those of us trying to change things, because we are still benefitting from the heinous policies of this country. Part of me wants to leave this country and part of me wants to try to change it. If everyone who hates what we’re doing gets up and leaves, then what? I keep hoping the rest of the world will get fed up and drop sanctions on us. Let us feel some of their pain for a change. Besides, we need some outside help here.
I saw 3 little boys ganging up to confront a schoolyard bully. Iit can be done.
the democrats failed again as usual. we need a 3rd party now. i am sick and tired of the demorepublicratican party, the 2 headed beast that has our country in it’s grip.
The truth of our are so-called democracy here in the U.S., was told over 200 years ago.
In the words of the leading framer, James Madison. Political power, he explained, must be in the hands of “the wealth of the nation,” men who can be trusted to “secure the permanent interests of the country”—the rights of the propertied—and to defend these interests against the “leveling spirit” of the general public. If the public were allowed to participate freely in elections, Madison warned his colleagues, their “leveling spirit” might lead to measures to improve the conditions of those who “labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings.”
One man one vote as been a hoax perpetuated by the those with the money, to keep the ignorant masses pacified !
I know just another conspiracy theory.
Just look at the reality. Does anyone who really represents the will of the little people ever get into power?
63% was the last figure I saw that tells how many members of congress are millionairs.
As Warren Buffet the second richest man in the world, put it this way,”There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase “class war”. The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor.
Free trade” and “globalization” are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, put it well when he wrote “that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.”
My follow CD readers, it the frog in the water scenario
and the boiling point as almost been reached.
Goodluck!
What alternative do we have? The Republicans have been nightmares for nearly eight years — I resent their attempt to turn us into a one-party system. I will never vote for someone affiliated with that group.
Yet I voted third-party in 2000, and thanks to me and others who did the same, we wound up with Bush in the White House. I’d say that’s been worse than anyone could have imagined.
It’s a no-win situation: Vote Republican and get Evil, vote Democrat and get Evil-lite, vote third-party and throw the election to the Republicans.
Smac: Everything you mention is true for the moment, but other factors are about to enter the equation to alter things. Kathyoda: I face the same dilemma, stay? Try to be part of “the difference,” or leave? Many Jews pondered the same question thinking it was implausible that their peers were being rounded up in broad daylight and merely shot or taken away to camps. The “illegal alien” scene appears a ruse to close our borders, and already there are no-fly lists. Wiretapping of citizens, why the age has finally caught up with the paranoids! I think things are going to get worse before they get better, nor will the trials to regain liberty be easy. We are a generation brought up in relative ease and prosperity so the labors demanded of us to resuscitate our dying republic will be the equivalent of collective bootcamp to mind, body, soul and likely pocketbook. At times like this I’m glad I believe that earth is a school house, not the singular reality; and that the progress made individually and collectively is the stuff we take with us in this continuum called life, ever evolving, sometimes like the ocean wave slipping under itself (appearing to regress) only to eventually regain its forward momentum. Indeed the wave has slipped under bringing to mind every prior war, dark age, inquisition et al of history… but after the surge, the beach is clean again and all manner of life feel the calling to colonize.
When is it time to start serious talk of a third (and possibly 4th) party?
Highrie –
When a third-party actually gets a respectable number of seats in Congress and the House. They keep trying to start with the presidency and that’s never going to work.
The thin skinned immoral and cowardly actions from our Democratic representative/senators makes one wonder about conspiratory theories: like just what is going on with Bush sneaking in more troops. And the Oregon National reserves have just left for Iraq. Doesn’t Bush have enough private mercernaries to fight his dishonarable war in the Middle East? I think there is some no good secretive action brewing like invading Iran and Syria and where ever else. And what does the Bush secret police force have on the Democrats that they have no voice other than to copy their Republican war mongers?
I’m gonna cast a vote for Kucinich in the closed primary then join the Green Party.
I heard on the Hartmann show this week or on Air America that the Iraq “government” is funding Al Quida. Where’s CBS etc? Anyone else heard the rumor? It’s a secret and tangled mess over there but Cheney wants the oil so I expect a major confrontation is being hatched. Just see the headlines that the government we are “saving” is using our money to pay for the fanatics and killers and perhaps the average American will be up in arms and overthrow this sleezy administration. As for the fellow that was wondering why aren’t we people “working”. Well, it takes us retired folk who have time to keep abreast of the government and all their underhanded doing before the crooked Drs. and immoral drug companies get a hold of us and shut us up. The younger generation is so busy working 2 and 3 jobs just to keep food on their table and pay outrageous Dr. bills.
In considering the recent vote to fund Bush’s Iraq War without strings or timelines, it’s useful to keep in mind that the Democrats didn’t cave in to Bush, they simply followed the corporate-friendly Democratic Leadership Council script.
The problem with the Democrats, pretending weakness and disorganization, is the corporately-funded DLC, invented to attract the same Big Business bucks that keeps the GOP afloat. With the exception of Howard Dean and a few others, the Democratic Party is currently run by people with deep ties to the DLC. While they will pay endless lip service to peace, populism, unions, helping minorities and every other progressive cause, their true agenda is the same as the Republicans, as stated in this quote from former US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas:
“Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike.”
Regarding our situation in Iraq, David Podvin in his excellent article “Exit Strategy” (Make Them Accountable, Feb. 27, 2007), sums up why the DLC Dems will never vote to leave Iraq:
“When George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13303 that effectively transferred Iraqi oil into American custody it constituted history’s greatest acquisition of wealth. Iraq contains proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels, and geological surveys indicate that a similar amount of unconfirmed petroleum deposits exist. At current prices, the oil that lies beneath the Iraqi sand is worth approximately fourteen trillion dollars.
“If America were to leave Iraq it would constitute history’s greatest forfeiture of wealth, so America will not leave. Although the Democrats are saying the United States must withdraw sooner and the Republicans are saying the United States must withdraw later, it is performance art worthy of Oscar consideration. The American military isn’t going anywhere. Not sooner. Not later. Not ever. America’s exit strategy is to stay, which explains why hugely expensive military bases are being constructed throughout Iraq. The world’s only superpower did not build its financial juggernaut by being the type of impetuous nation that repudiates fourteen trillion dollars.”
(Read the rest at http://makethemaccountable.com/index.php/2007/02/27/david-podvin-exit-strategy/ )
The strategy of the DLC Democrats has been the same since Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 (Clinton was also one of the founders of the DLC): Talk progressive populism but pass legislation that favors the corporate agenda and take for granted that union workers, minorities, women, gays, lesbians, antiwar liberals, et al, will vote for you only because the alternative seems so much worse, or not vote at all, which amounts to the same thing.
Hence, Bill didn’t deliver the universal health care he promised, while pushing through Republican-favored legislation such as NAFTA, GATT, welfare reform (providing a vast pool of low-wage workers), and other corporate-friendly laws. Think about it: Would things have been much different had George Bush the Elder or Bob Dole been elected? As Michael Moore once said, Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve ever had, and even more effective than Ronald Reagan at selling the corporate agenda.
Except for the abortion rights and immigration sideshows, Americans have essentially been reduced to two choices in the political showroom: the Buick family sedan or the Chevrolet four-door, both basically the same car manufactured by the same massive corporation.
“While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.”
– Robert Kennedy. Jr.
And that’s what we have now, not only due to Reagan and both Bushes, but also thanks to eight years of DLC President Clinton and his minions in Congress, many of them still there.
The only way out, as I see it, is to start a new Democratic Party (really the old Democrats of FDR and Truman) who truly stand for the people and the Constitution against the interests of the multi-national corporate conglomerates. Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, even Al Gore these days, all represent the traditional populism Democrats embodied and stand in true opposition to the corporate GOP agenda. While I don’t expect this to happen, it would be nice to have three parties on the ballot in 2008: Republicans, DLC Democrats and New Democrats.
It’s also useful to keep these timeless words by I.F. Stone in mind when discussing the elected denizens of Washington, DC:
“Every government is run by liars, and nothing they say should be believed.”
The DLC Democrats are nothing if not liars, and they are deceiving the public once again as they secretly promote the corporate takeover of our nation that’s raising our gas prices and sending our jobs overseas, ruining our economy for the temporary profit of their campaign contributors.
It’s easy to see why they’d rather be thought of as bumbling cowards than vile traitors covertly complicit in the continuing dismemberment and death of Americans in Iraq, and our constitutional democracy and standard of living here at home.
RSJ: Excellent points! I’d like to add a short anecdote. About 20 years ago romantic Mel Fisher of the Florida Keys believed–against all prevailing evidence–that there was a sunken treasure galleon off the coast of south Florida. Due to his magnetic personality, he raised money and began years of trudging the ocean floor until at long last long bars of silver were found. These only hinted at the mother lode, which would take shape as gems and LONG thick strands and bars of gold. But when his crew laid hands upon this sunken treasure the sea extracted its own price. You see, during the night, the now heavily weighed down vessel began to sink, and it took Mel Fisher’s SON (and new bride) along. Bush and his bases may lay claim to the oil (”soft loan from Allah”) but already the price of dead sons (and daughters) is being extracted. How ugly these devil’s bargains over mammon.
these are the hollow men,the stuffed men.they agreed to give this travesty of an administration powers over war-fighting which the british monarchy had relinquished to parliament nearly a century before the american revolution.no habeas corpus,no sep. of powers.at least the queers can’t marry,huh?
Interesting story, Siouxrose. Unlike Mel Fisher, the problem in Iraq is that the sons and daughters who are doing the dying aren’t related to those in the White House and Congress who keep prolonging the war there. (With a couple of exceptions in Congress.)
If they were, the war in Iraq would end quickly.
RSJ: As a writer I like to exercise poetic license. Not every analogy is “right on” but they still may reveal useful insights via metaphor. I appreciate your informed commentary. Aren’t you glad this site doesn’t just serve chocolate and vanilla?
“Fisher’s SON (and new bride) along. Bush and his bases may lay claim to the oil (”soft loan from Allah”) but already the price of dead sons (and daughters) is being extracted. How ugly these devil’s bargains over mammon.”
Well, there is a difference between Fisher loosing his own son, and Bush loosing somebody else’s sons.
Maybe it’s really air which affects …
Things just get worse and worse, I wonder how we are going to break free of the oligarchs rule.
nonamnesiac,
Re: This creates a united effort by pro troop, pro Constitution, anti-war, anti-corruption forces to connect all of the dots and puts us on the road of getting out of this lying Bush/Cheney “screw the people, screw the law, give out no-bid contracts” criminal syndicate in 3 or 4 months. It’s the only way we can get rid of them expeditiously.
Is this a joke? The Dems just announced that it’s now the government/corporate complex versus the people! When you’re a congressman/woman, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s how you vote. And 75% of the Democrats and virtually all of the Republicans just voted “SCREW YOU”.
And these are the people you think are going to move to impeach and remove Bush and Cheney? LOL! These people couldn’t even shrug off a presidential veto!
Look, here’s the deal. The Dems didn’t have to do anything. They could have merely said, “well, I guess he doesnn’t want the money that bad then”, and gone on with other business. But they didn’t. They actually engineered a change of congressional operating procedure to resuscitate and guarantee the passage of the blank-check version.
These are not the actions of an opposition party. Wer the people are now the opposition, and we must recognize that we have no representation whatsoever in our government.
Get ready for the nukes and for the inquisition. It won’t be long now…