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MoveOn: Break the Silence on Torture and War
Progressives who have been silent on the escalating wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan have a new opportunity to change their stance now that the nearly $100 billion Congressional war supplemental (HR 2346) authorizes suppression of hundreds of torture photographs held by the Pentagon.
The amendment, by Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, is designed to bar the release of photos revealing torture at military prisons during the Bush administration, by exempting them from the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.Democrats are in disarray over the issue. According to Congressional reports, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at first approved the Lieberman-Graham amendment, then backtracked after hearing complaints from Representatives Barney Frank, Louise Slaughter and others from the Democrats' liberal wing. In the meantime, Hillary Clinton was dutifully making phone calls to pick off votes from the fifty-one Democrats' who opposed the House version in May.
Groups like MoveOn.org, with millions of members and campaign dollars, become crucial during close Congressional votes, either by their presence or by their absence.
When I recently posted an article questioning MoveOn's silence towards the escalating wars, the response of MoveOn's leadership was to question its accuracy and demand corrections from anyone publishing the piece.
I never meant to suggest that MoveOn's executive director explicitly or verbally promised President Obama at a White House meeting that MoveOn would keep silent about the war escalations. What I did write is that MoveOn told Obama they were supporting his domestic agenda, which, in Beltway culture, was a clear message that this former antiwar group would not be opposing the president's military escalation, nor his Predator strikes, nor the civilian casualties, not even his backtracking on torture promises. At that point, MoveOn had not even polled its membership on Afghanistan, Pakistan or torture.
Move.On's continuing silence only speaks for itself. While their internal discussion of Afghanistan and Pakistan unfolds, they at least could express strong opposition to the administration's non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, as well as support for Rep. Jim McGovern's amendment calling for an exit strategy by December.
But now with the amendment pending to suppress the torture photos, the moral pressure to break the silence is increasing. The administration added to its policies of secrecy yesterday by urging a federal court to suppress documents detailing the CIA's videotaped interrogations at secret prisons.
The Obama argument for suppressing the torture photos is specious. The administration claims that their release will inflame greater insurgent hatred against American troops. But the Abu Ghraib torture photos already have served that inflammatory purpose and the current cover-up will undermine confidence that America's secret policies are changing.
This is an administration that once pledged no more supplementals--the spending bills that avoid the scrutiny of hearings. Having reneged on that procedural promise, they now are loading the war appropriation measure with the FOIA exemption amendment, not to mention funds for swine flu and the International Monetary Fund. These administration approaches undermine the deliberative process and weaken the role of the legislative branch.
The real effect of Obama's censorship decision is to dampen any resurgence of antiwar sentiment and public support for an investigation of past crimes. Silence in the face of censorship means collaborating in the cover-up of torture. The political effect is to leave antiwar Democrats under greater pressure to yield than to stand their ground.
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70 Comments so far
Show Allodoco
Obama already has effectively become an accomplice in war crimes, and MoveOn has effectively lost any credibility it once had with the Progressive movement vis a vis the war and related topics.
It should be apparent to anyone who has watched this catastrope unfold that a 'third' movement must take place before the next presidential election, and hopefully before the next mid-term elections in 2010. The Progressive community must find qualified candidates to run in the primaries, especially against Blue Dog Demowits that continue to block any progress even mentioned by members such as Kucinich, Lee, Woolsey, et al.
agreed odoco
i think we need a banner free movement - excluding the likes of moveon etc
why a cynical person might even suggest that they were a plant or subterfuge all along
like many posters i wonder where is the paralysis coming from
it is certainly not - as spiro agnew used to say - the paralysis of analysis
Color me "cynical". I do believe that George Soros, a New World Order minion, set up MoveOn as a front group to co-opt the anti-war element, or at least the so-called progressive opposition to Bush's wars. They are strangely neutered now that Obama is continuing the agenda and widening the scope of the wars.
Bravo.
MoveOn and other Democratic Party Operatives like David Sirota totally diffused the anti-war effort in '06 when we elected a Congress to get us out of the war.
Corporations must love liberals. They're so easy to fool. They don't need the hours of daily propaganda that right-wingers require.
Why are we hiding our torturous behavior? Will there be torture deniers as there are holocaust deniers? TRANSPARENCY where are you?
There ARE torture deniers.
Someone please explain the difference between Bush and Obama to me.
And Obama is not all that articulate, he uses the same stock phrases over and over.
What does Move On gain from supporting a President who is either extremely weak or a great fraud?
glenn ford: "What does Move On gain from supporting a President who is either extremely weak or a great fraud?"
Do you really want to know the answer to your question or was it rhetorical (you already knew the answer)? MoveOn continues to support Obama because it has a "good thing going" in term of revenue and the egos of its tiny staff of narcissists. And it has this going because of the immense number of "progressive" sheeplets who believe that because Obama uses such pretty words (his own or a speechwriter's)and has such an inspiring personal "biography," he is a fit object of their continued swooning. He's a rockstar, baby, and you don't fight rockstar celebrity.
Thanks Jerry, it is always good to read articulations of reality.
I think so many people are traumatized by Bush they can not face another destruction of their belief systems and faith.
Sioux Rose
GLENN: I think a lot of people are taken in by Obama's comforting words and do not understand, ,or even SEE the actual policies being implemented. Let's face it, almost nothing in the mainstream media is showing the disconnect between stated words and ACTUAL agendas implemented. Every time Obama even seems to move in the direction of doing something the left would support, the right wing echo chamber kicks up its noise machine a few notches to misrepresent whatever initiative is being toyed around. I often think these "debates" are being choreographed in the same way dynamic moves are pre-arranged in World Wrestling Federation spectacles. The most basic part of our lives--what we eat is no longer composed of genuine biological materials, much has become the "substantial equivalent" via genetic engineering. If "you are what you eat," imagine its parallel in the media-driven climate of today's "food for thought."
Sioux Rose: see my good cops/bad cops analysis about the health care "debates" on today's CD article by Donna Smith; it's another version of your very appropriate comparison to faux "feuds" on WWF where everybody who fights is working of the same company. (In the health care "debate" the goods (Ds) and the bads (Rs) work for the same health care industy.
Right and Left pockets of the same corporate pair of pants.
Moveon, Daily Kos etc. are for the politically challenged.
"I often think these "debates" are being choreographed in the same way dynamic moves are pre-arranged in World Wrestling Federation spectacles."
I completely agree. I think it happens within the Party as well. For example, I've always had doubts about why the DNC wants to keep Kucinich around. I don't really question Kucinich's sincerity, but I think the DNC uses him to nurture the false impression that progressive ideas are welcome, when they really aren't. It's similar to holding a small hearing on single payer after announcing that it won't be considered. They've given us a "place at the table", but sadly it's at the children's table.
Excellent! You are awake...I would not bet much, if anything, on any sitting politician's sincerity...
Obama's skills as an orator show in what he does not say but manages to get taken as implying.
I find no excuses for MoveOn. I should think that any rationale for ever supporting a "least worst" candidate would involve unsupporting his -- or her, should that happen -- reprehensible views as of Day 2.
In a similar vein as some others have commented: the differences between the two factions of the ruling duopoly are mostly peripheral and cosmetic. Obama, similar to Clinton before him, has loads of charisma and public oratory skills. He has put a warm and fuzzy facade on the status quo.
The larger structural/systemic problems are to blame: a regressive and un-democratic winner-takes-all, two-party electoral system (that is one party), a corrupted and unregulated money-as-free-speech political/economic culture, a de-regulated and un-accountable media oligopoly that directs, frames and constrains political discourse. A corrupt legal culture and system where corporations enjoy the same rights as human beings. In short, it is not democracy but plutocracy and now kleptocracy. The few monied interests win, it is just a matter of which faction: the Far Right (R)or the Moderate Right (D). What is even worse recently is the Bankster classes have looted the public wealth for trillions, the largest theft in history of the world.
MoveOn never challenged the structural/systemic status quo, they are firmly placed within it.
Oregoncharles
"Someone please explain the difference between Bush and Obama to me."
Don't expect an explanation anytime soon. I ask this question all the time and get nothing. Arianna Huffington wrote a list but most of it consisted of things Obama has said, not done. And there were some minor progressive perks.
I'm glad Obama and the Dems won big. As I always said: If they win, they will stand before us stark naked in the light.
Had McCain won, however, we might still have an anti-war movement, a little agitation.
Mission accomplished!
The difference between Bush and Obama? You can't see the difference?
Why, it's the difference between syphilis and gonorrhea.
Hope this helps.
"MoveOn has left the building." as was said of another formerly star, and now dead, performer, who was destroyed by corporate money and fame..
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
MoveOn has died but remains, silent and stationary, decomposing further with each policy choice.
The thing about MoveOn is that they, just like Obama, never really were progressive, nor liberal, nor anything but another market driven, ego and greed driven incorporated group. Maybe their style of greed was a little different, but it's still greed in essence. When we can differentiate who and what is real over the false, the wolf in sheeps clothing, the trojan horse, we will no longer fall into the wish fantasy traps we create for ourselves. This gnawing at our own proverbial legs to try and free ourselves from a trap that we create and hold ourselves within the jaws of, is chilling.
Lets just not go for cheese that is on an obvious contraption intended to entrap ud, get our pledge to membership and ultimately, money. Like MoveOn. Call it what it really is, StagNatiOn. Spring the trap. :)
You're right about MoveOn never having been truly progressive. I remember how they studiously ignored the issue of impeachment during the Bush/Cheney years. Their member polls were clearly designed to skew results in favor of the issues of primary concern to MoveOn's leaders, and punishing Bush/Cheney/Pelosi/etc. for war crimes was not on their list.
"The thing about MoveOn is that they, just like Obama, never really were progressive..."
-okay
But how progressive was Hayden when he wrote article after fawning article hailing the new messiah and detailing why we should vote for Obama and all the wonderful things he stood for and was going to do? Remember all that crap he wrote? Seems the punch has lost it effect now that the party is over.
And doesn't Tom Hayden bear some culpability when he pushed so hard to get Obama elected? It isn't like he was a neutral outsider.
Where was he when we were pointing out Obama was who he has turned out to be? We pointed out his website said he would leave an unspecified number of troops in Iraq and after he eliminated Billary Clinton he turned hawkish on Afghanistan. Where was Hayden then?
I think he has nerve to write this article before apologizing for his part in it.
MoveOn clearly refuses to criticize a Democratic administration.
They may have some utility during campaign years: some of their petitions during the campaign had value, and I can glance at the subject lines of their emails and delete delete delete until these show up again, perhaps in 2012.
Otherwise there's not much argument for a least-worst lobbying organization.
Move on is a phony organization!!!!
For years, they have ignored and actively fought against any suggestion of criticizing Bush/Obama foreign policy - especially anti-war and/or tortue.
If you study the background if the folks behind the throne, I think you will find a right wing bent.
They have removed any and all attempts to post requests that these topics be considered. For years I kept trying to indicate this as a priority in their annual poll of concerns - never showed up. I know at least two others who experienced the same difficulty and censorship.
In my opinion they are part of the ruling corporate, military arms comlex, rich oligarchy. In this light they have been very successful at distracting progressive energy from actively pursuing any confrontion on these issues.
But I could be wrong !
Oregoncharles
You haven't been wrong so far as I can tell. But you know your record better than I.
I think you're onto it. This is all by design. Divide, distract, and conquer. And they're way ahead of most progressives. One of the Democratic Party volunteers in my town, very active, progressive gal, DIDN'T KNOW OBAMA HAD EVER VOTED FOR FUNDING THE IRAQ WAR! I was the first to break it to her. Another of their national volunteers who called me by phone said Obama voted against the Iraq war. I said no he didn't, she said she was sure he did. I said, look lady, he wasn't even in the Sentate at the time. He didn't vote at all. He made a self serving speech, got into the Senate and immediately began voting FOR the war.
So you see, most people are stupid. It's the "S" factor. I'm no genius but at least I pay attention.
It's all about "managing" public opinion.
Let's face it, most Dem voters are suckers for a lofty change-inspiring speech, even though the policies remain the same. You get the same old war, same old illegal detentions, same old torture.
In the case of MoveOn, it takes its cues from the Obama White House. It's all part of the same spin cycle. Most Dem voters would take umbrage at the idea that their party feeds them propaganda, but it's true nonetheless.
-TIA
We need to remember that MoveOn.org was formed to move Congress beyond Clinton's impeachment. The founders and early members were/are well-heeled Democrats and they strongly supported the Clinton free trade agreements and disaster capitalism. Their interests lie primarily in economic policies and the politics affecting those policies. IIRC MoveOn.org conducted an online vote among members to decide whether or not to support the anti-war movement. MoveOn.org is not inherently anti-war and the organization will support policies that best benefit the monied class.
No war but class war.
I think I feel a bowel MoveOn-ment coming...
may I suggest Pelosi's office.
hahahaha!
It's refreshing to see that most folks here at CD know the truth about Move-On, or at least the ones posting so far. Move-On has always been a War Supporting organization, just like the Democrats. What's disheartening is that folks like Hayden, who used to actually be worth a damn, think that Move-On is something different or could be convinced to be something different. It's like the people who continue to keep the blinders on in regards to O-blah-blah. Again, some of us here at CD were never fooled by this new slick Willy but when we tried to let people know, for the last 3 years, we were mocked, marginalized, and basically told to get in line with the rest of the Obama-Aide drinkers. I'm glad many of us didn't. My hope is that many more will join the ranks.
'Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.' - Pete Townshend
Move on from MoveOn
Move On has moved on to become part of corrupt mainstream politics. I don't think there is much of collective conscience to tweak.
There are lot of people outside this organization that object very strongly to what is going on but no one listens.
--->fakedemocracy<---
Screw MoveOn.org.
Screw Obama a.k.a. Blackbush
Screw the Democratic Party.
It's one thing to not know about injustice and do nothing. Its quite another to know and not do anything These low-lifes even take it a step further by continuing to advance their precious agenda of empire.
The three entities above are complicit in the torturing, murdering, looting and terrorizing of other human beings, ravaging their lands, families and cultures. And when their time comes to leave this world, I hope they--along with everyone affiliated with these a-holes--die long, horrible, and extremely painful deaths.
F--k 'em all, the bastards.
Yes! Amen!
Obysmal will most definitely need the votes of all those who voted for him in '08 but have no intention of doing so again in '012, no matter who the Republicans run. The MSM is now happily chirping that this country is out of the financial woods when it is not. In the next three and a half years the money bomb is going to explode. George Wanker Bush lit the fuse but it will blow up in Obysmal's face. The Republicans will attack like the Nazis overrunning Poland. They will blame it on "socialism". The same uninformed, fickle Americans who voted for hope and change will turn around and without so much as a second thought vote the Republicans back into power to finish the theft of the nation. And Obysmal can sit around his multi million dollar mansion and write his memoirs in which the words hack, coward and opportunist never appear. I wonder how he will reconcile all this within himself.
I agree, but never underestimate the capacity to justify and "rationalize" corruption, complicity and foul play. Since Obama is intelligent, he will (and has) come up with some sophisticated justifications for injustice.
Why do our choices for office holders always have to be between the cowardly, lazy, naive, ineffective Democrats and the ignorant, scary, batsh*t crazy Republicans?
Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
lawlessone...Where I live, there were EIGHT candidates on the ballot for president - plus a write-in option. The problem is with the voters who refuse to inform themselves. Really, it is time to admit that the average voter supports, war, torture, injustice, poverty, homelessness, and 18,000 deaths per year from lack of access to health care.................
Possibly the average voter supports these issues as presented to them and as they are situated in a corporate manufactured economic vise.
But I believe clearly presenting the whole truth without fear or manipulation to the average voter they would make the just and humane decision.
Consider the ignorant hell the average voter is steered into, admittedly often through thier own foibles.
I guess this would be healthy informed consent.
Hayden notes:
"I never meant to suggest that MoveOn's executive director explicitly or verbally promised President Obama at a White House meeting that MoveOn would keep silent about the war escalations."
Now he is apologizing to Move On for Christ sake.
Move on has kept silent = quid pro quo.
MoveOn made a film that promised to be the whole truth about the War on Iraq. No mention of OIL in that film. No mention of Peak Oil as a motive to invade Iraq. No mention of how 9/11 was not a surprise to the Bush / Cheney White House and that they wanted, needed the attacks to happen in order to get their oil wars going.
Groups like "MoveOn" don't really have millions of members -- they have an email list, but I doubt they've EVER had a "membership meeting." It is the liberal version of the public relations strategy called "astroturfing."
http://www.oilempire.us/moveon.html
And you can only get removed from MoveOn's mailers, not from their list. It's not an honest organization. As you say, it's astroturf. It just funnels money to Dem campaigns.
-TIA
MoveOn has been disappointing. They are losing support as people awaken to the reality of expanded war and a government that wants to keep it's activities secret.
In response to this, I just canceled my ongoing monthly donation to MoveOn. I'd been thinking about doing this for a while but I kept hoping for change from MoveOn. That hope's run out now, and this post was the catalyst. I let them know why I canceled: I started making monthly donations to help end the war. Now that they have moved on to other priorities while we are escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, my money is better used elsewhere.
I accessed the account management page by going to the site, clicking on "contact", and then choosing the appropriate FAQ category.
Someone has to be in Obama's corner if he is to get anything done. The crazy Naderites on CD just can't understand that there is politics to played here.
You can't give up the security issue and at the same time win your priorities on the domestic front. The Republicans want this issue and the torture is ok in some circumstances is the way they are going to frame their arguments. Torture has a lot of fans when you call it enhanced interrogations.
The withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan is fraught with political land minds. If we bring infrastructure first as we should have in Afghanistan pacification can happen.
The difference between Obama and Bush, is that Barack has a brain and George doesn't.
Political Reality -- we are there. The time to stick behind Obama is now, more than ever, but when you can't tell the difference between Bush and Gore and vote Bush in, then you cannot be expected to have faith in Obama.
If we can get out of Iran, without it becoming a failed state, then let's try it. If the stupid Bush administration would have hired the Iraq army and paid every soldier a few hundred of dollars the resistance would have never got off the ground.
If we would have given the contracts to rebuild to Iraq contractors instead of war criminals then we could have been out of there long ago. The mission was over when SH was out of power.
Obama understands how we got into the mess there. He will us out, and not pay the political price. Carter would have gotten the hostages out, if he had ignored the military bombers. There was an elegant solution available. Iran would have cut Carter the same deal they cut Reagan, and Reagan had the deal sewed up before the election occurred.
The Republicans took over for a long time, because of that one political blunder.
So, just stop the crazy attacks on a Obama. Nader will never be president in your life time.
Certainly, not in his.
Stop paying attention to politics and world events if you can't support Obama. You just don't get, an maybe, never will.
"Obama understands how we got into the mess there. He will us out, and not pay the political price."
-sure he does. By sending an additional 20,000 troops for starters and increasing the already obscenely bloated military budget by 6%.
Here we have it…proof positive that some people never learn. Yea...sure, keep dreaming liberal.
yep