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Memo to Congressman David Obey
MEMORANDUM FOR: Congressman David Obey
FROM: A Former Admirer
SUBJECT: Ducking the Challenge
"We can sit, frozen in our own indifference, as President Roosevelt once said..." That's what you said yesterday in connection with saving teachers' jobs. Sadly, it also applies-in spades-to saving lives in an unnecessary war.
It is amazing how you've changed, Dave, in the 25 years since you told then-Secretary George Shultz from your subcommittee chairman seat, "I did not take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States until I got tired." (As you'll recall, Shultz had made the mistake of saying, in effect, screw the law; the American people are tired of hearing about Iran-Contra.)
Now we are supposed to feel sorry for you because you say you are too "bone tired" to do your duty to defend the Constitution as it continues to be undermined by an illegal and futile war in Afghanistan in which over 1,000 American soldiers have already died.
Have you made your colleagues aware of the unconscionable fact that little thought has been given to the need to appropriate hundreds of billions more to care for those wounded in battle? Even now, most of our veterans are already being treated shabbily. You know that.
You recently told a TV interviewer you thought the war in Afghanistan was a "fool's errand." But you then added quickly that, if we are to pursue this errand, it must be fully funded. You are smart enough to know there is no logic in that.
Two important things happened yesterday:
1-You made it clear that your "chairman's mark" on the supplemental that provides for $33 billion more for the war will be augmented by the lipstick of $23 billion for teachers' jobs in what you plan to send forward from Appropriations.
2-You refused to meet with former Iraq War veteran Josh Stieber to hear how the Pentagon's "rules of engagement" have brutalized our own soldiers-not to mention countless Iraqis and Afghans. Stieber's two-week attempt to get a few minutes of your time was given the cold shoulder-even though he spent from 8:15 AM to 6:30 PM yesterday in the Rayburn building.
You owe the Josh Stiebers of our armed forces big time. We all do. You must not have taken the time to view "Collateral Murder," the Army gun-barrel video showing American troops killing Iraqi civilians in a turkey-shoot on July 12, 2007 during the "surge" in Baghdad. In blowing off Josh Stieber (who was in that unit), you also blew off the 100,000 of his former buddies already in, or headed to, Afghanistan. Thousands of those will have their lives destroyed, in one way or another, with the help of $33 billion more for what you, in a candid moment, called a "fool's errand."
A sad irony here is that when you came to Congress, you helped end the Vietnam War by cutting off funding. Another sad reality is this: I know that you know that Afghanistan is another Vietnam-only more feckless. Sadder still is the fact that you are unwilling to tell your colleague about Joe McCarthy and scare tactics-whether they are about communists or terrorists. And it is both profoundly sad, and highly ironic, that Joe McCarthy's demagoguery was what prompted you to get involved in politics.
Not all that hard to do, I suppose-I mean, to give President Obama the wherewithal to fund the war rather than wind it down. After all, your sons will not have to go; nor will any of your neighbors in the 22207 zip-code area of Arlington. Neither will the sons of your colleagues in Congress. Our "professional army" is a poverty draft, and you know it. "Preferential option for the poor" be damned.
In my mind's eye I can see a long line of people, once proud of you, now wondering what has happened. I don't mean only La Follette, who of course didn't know you, but after whom you have styled yourself. No, I mean people who did know you and once admired you: people like Sister Margaret, Sister Tecla, John Francis Dearden, Tom Gumbleton. And people like me.
When "heartland progressives," as you call yourself on the cover of your book, get "bone-tired," that is precisely the time when they should stick to their principles and go out fighting. What, in God's name, have you got to lose?
Call me an "idiot liberal," if you will. I'll refrain from name-calling-although quite a few come to mind. I just want to register my profound disappointment at, and inability to understand, the Faustian bargain you appear to have struck, as well as my grief over the lives that will be lost and damaged as a result.
Yours truly,
/s/
Ray McGovern
Arlington, Virginia
May 27, 2010
18 Comments so far
Show AllRay McGovern is a national treasure. I have long admired his analysis and his courage in sharing it.
In fact, from of all his writings, the only quibble I've found is his assertion that we owe Josh Stieber "big time." If he is saying that we should commend Mr. Stieber for his mea culpa, I certainly agree with that. If, however, Mr. McGovern is saying that we owe all American soldiers who serve or have served in Iraq or Afghanistan anything other than contempt or pity, I disagree...vehemently.
I'm willing to consider evidence to the contrary, but, at least since the Cuban Missle Crisis of 1962, I cannot name a thing the United States military has done in defense of the United States. Can anyone?? Vietnam? Panama? Grenada? Iraq? Afghanistan? NONE of these things were done for national security.
As to the argument that we should honor these soldiers for following orders, I would suggest the following. If every order given to every American military member after 1962 were disobeyed, wouldn't America be better for it? If following orders is to be venerated, surely we shouldn't incarcerate any drug dealer who has a boss.
As unpopular as it might be, those of us who aware of the damage wrought by our standing armies (again, if you can think of some defensive service they perform, please enlighten me)must start making a loud, simple statement: "We do not support the troops."
The US first put missiles in Turkey and the USSR logically responded by putting missiles in Cuba. Our military brought about that crisis which was defused only by JFK, surprised to discover we had missiles in Turkey, secretly agreeing to remove them.
90% of the US defense budget is corporate welfare - the EU points this out whenever the US accuses them of unfairly subsidizing their corporations.
Thanks for info on JFK's surprise.
Other than to be insulted, I've yet to get any response to my question of what the military has done to defend the US after 1962. It is a sad state of affairs that NO ONE in a position of responsibility vis-a-vis the federal budget has ever asked for a simple cost/benefit analysis of the military expenditures.
I mean if a business spent such a large part of its budget on a particular item---for instance, advertising---wouldn't it be the fiduciary duty of management to ask: "Say, Bob, I notice that 43% of our discretionary budget goes to advertising with your uncle's radio station...mind running the numbers on what kind of return we here at Spacely Sprokets are getting on our investment?"
Pathetic...but not surprising given the stranglehold the MIC has on our beloved country.
The Cuban Missle Crisis was somewhat lesser known than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sorry.
Don't forget the jobless and seniors and mothers with children and working poor that are being robbed to reward the mighty war machine of state, enriching the coffers of the greedy oligarchs that actually run this country.
Wake up US of A! Smell the rotten putrid garbage of our despair
Wake up US of A!
If and when the USA "wakes up", it will find itself like the protagonist of "The Vanishing" - buried alive with no way out.
If peace is left to the dead;then what is a life for?Tony
Memo to Congressman David Obey
Shave your beard, get a buzz cut, become a Republican.
Corporate military is bankrupting America --
and destroying people/nations all over the world --
along with the Drug War!
We can do without either --
Let's go!!
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
"La Follette, who of course didn't know you, but after whom you have styled yourself."
Is that junior or senior? He may be like junior with his endorsement of the America First Committee and the ability to lose an election to the likes of Joe McCarthy but when it comes to senior he's a cheap plastic chinese imitation that breaks with any use. Robert Sr. never would have been as servile as Obey has become.
David Obey?
Slowly I turn... step by step... inch by inch...
In July, 2008, pre-Obama, I referenced Obey in one of my ongoing rants about the transformation of national politics into a para-corporate service delivery system, excerpted herewith:
_______________________________
... It's cronyism writ large-- so large that it's apparently gone right over We the People's heads.
Sorry to bore or annoy by restating the various observations and arguments that have put such wear and tear on my soapbox during the past few years. But I must repeat my view that our political process has slowly transmogrified in plain sight from an imperfect and flawed system predicated on ethical, principled conduct, or at least conduct amenable to ethical and principled behavior, into, well... Organized Crime.
My opinions began crystallizing around small and seemingly-trivial phenomena: Congressmen like John Conyers, David Obey and Barney Frank, still viewed by Democratic loyalists as "good guys" who work(ed) hard to support the common citizen against depredations by the rich and powerful, began responding to those all-important attempts to hold their cloven hooves to the fire on issues like ending the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and impeaching the Misfeasor(s) in the Executive Branch, with naked superciliousness, arrogance, and hostility.
Obey viciously snarled at a soldier's mother who demanded that he stop funding the Iraq debacle, then ranted about "idiot liberals"; Frank excoriated critics taking him to task for these same issues, and his unwillingness to advocate for transgendered rights in his pet LBGT legislation with a withering observation that these critics were "living in Oz..."; Conyers had Cindy Sheehan and others arrested when they refused to accept his discouraging doublespeak regarding the necessity to impeach President Unitard.
... [A]fter considering incidents like these, it flashed upon me that these politicians sounded very much like technocrats: corporate middle managers or executives denouncing unhappy shareholders as clueless amateurs who didn't understand the system, the way government "really" works. In each case, the politicians were obviously personally affronted and infuriated that their putatively honorable and skillful performances as professional power-brokers were not respected and applauded by even their supporters-- who had, somehow, in THEIR eyes, suddenly become an ignorant and preposterous rabble of critics.
And their outbursts-- including Conyers' twinkle-eyed understated outbursts-- invariably boiled down to declarations that the business of Congress is business. Not just in the narrow sense of acquiring, accounting and disbursing revenue, but in the broader sense of Taking Care of Bidness by ensuring that the quotidian wheeling and dealing proceeds with bipartisan comity. In their collective view, it would behoove the few noisy citizen nobodies swarming around them like gnats to stay the hell home or immerse themselves into the entry-level business of modern politics.
_______________________________
Two years down the line, I stand by this analysis. And I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who remembers the "idiot liberals" crack.
I was going to bring up this recent history of Obey the once-upon-a-time liberal, but Obd't Sv't beat me to it, filling in much more than I can recall of the revealing "idiot liberal" remark Obey made to the soldier's mother. I recall seeing the YouTube video of this disgraceful moment. I have loathed Obey ever since and I'm glad he's bone tired enough to retire, even if he's being painted as some valiant crusader of the long-gone liberal cause. He clearly gave up on that persona during the Era of Unstoppable War, 2001-2008, and beyond. Good riddance, Obey. Ye never were Obi-wan Kenobi.
In the 70's a poll showed roughly 40-44% of Americans favored war as a solution to foreign crisis and int'l political crises. Now? 60-65% do. To argue against Afganistan is to unelectable in America today. Iraq, maybe. We love using mercenaries( private armies) to do our dirty work. We feel the need to kill and retaliate. 9/11 changed everything.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Thanks Ray for another excellent article.
To hell with Obey and every other DLC stooge like him. One more reason why we need to form a true progressive populist Third Party ASAP. The Democratic Party has rendered itself into industrial hog farm waste and needs to be consigned to the dust bin of history by 2012.
The saddest thing about our present situation is the number of people insisting on sticking their heads in the sand about Obama who, when you criticize Obama will reply with, "Well, I like him better than Bush," or "I know he cares more about the people," or "He's doing a better job than Bush did," but when you ask for specifics they can't give you any. Most Americans still cling like children to partisan messiahs to run the country and listen to just enough of what these corporate hacks say to satisfy themselves that they should stick with them and then turn off their brains and ignore what they actually DO in office.
I suggest yet yet again
that this Congressional election year
we beat the heads of Congressional re-re-re-election seekers
with Public Law 107-40.
Both political parties ignore this law.
Corporate media ignores this law.
All the war-mongers ignore this law.
Therefore, Progressives should not.
If you want to end the insanity, end the law that declared war against future terrorism.
(obviously, wording meant to trap us into war forever and ever, amen).
The perfect stealth war-law.
A meaningless title (A.U.M.F.)
Almost nobody notices it
nobody does anything about it.
Nobody did anything about the Reichstag Fire decree, either.
And look what happened to Germany.
Reichstag Fire decree, the day after the 'Communist terror' attack.
Public Law 107-40, 3 days after 9/11.
The war-mongers learned well. When will Progressives?
What do we do about the brain washed brain dead who have had too many flu shots and take 59 different pills a day and are clinging to the Matrix for dear life! If it weren't for all of the brain washing and mind control including of the troops I would heartily agree about the troops. However having only half the picture will be deadly. The best thing to do in the short run is look at all of the stories within the big Myths and Big lies we are forced to swallow! You won't believe how deep it goes. Educate yourself and know your challenges for you must prepare. They have always counted on our misconceptions and our apathy. What you are seeing is only the tip of an ice burg so toxic it will make your eyes burn, then your heart, then your intellect. If you have a bad feeling about what someone is doing follow your instincts they will be right on the money. Trust no one in power they have all sold out to get there. They have also been subjected to some incredibly powerful Coercion,
mind control, threats, and black mail. Evil does exist and yes the Faustian bargain's are everywhere! If you feel oppressed just be thankful that you aren't one of them because a soul is an awful thing to lose. Many of them were tricked and are now trapped or have been literally replaced like Saddam Hussein and his doubles.If Congress is to be viable they must all go and the new group must be protected from the same negative takeover or it will be a useless sacrifice of good people.The many lobbyists, private institutes, entities of the different agencies, the Pentagon and private defense and security Contractors are a major threat of negative influence to the changing guard if we are lucky enough to get real change for ourselves that we can "count on" finally!Peace and resist
Well he's obviously changed to a point at which his retirement is no big loss to anyone - neither his constituents, nor the soldiers he's so obviously willing to sacrifice, nor the nation. Bye bye, David Obey, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
But I wonder how many in Congress have ever considered the value of truly ethical behavior in warding off the kinds of "fatigue" that are sending Congressman Obey into his chosen retirement? If you sell out, over and over and over again, it wears on your soul. On the other hand, if you continue to fight, you might just find that your grateful consituents feed you enough praise to sustain your enthusiasm for the Good Fight.
Let's collectively concentrate on finding a more worthy successor. Even if we have to do this one by one, eventually we'll reach a tipping point. And to the DLC - we really don't want any of your "help" on this.
I took at closer look at Dave Obey back in the '90s, due to an issue about which this generation, oddly, has remained utterly apathetic, apparently completely oblivious to the way policy decisions made fort one segment of the population inevitably "trickle up", effecting another. In this case, the subject was our horrendous welfare "reform" agenda (horrendous not only for the poor, but for all of the working class). I had the opportunity to raise this issue once to Obey, whose blunt response showed his utter contempt for the poor, the unemployed, ill/disabled, etc. It was quite enlightening.I can say, though, that Obey was pretty consistent.
Beyond Obey, it truly surprises me that there are people who haven't figured out that the New Democratic Party (established by Clinton, maintained by Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, etc.) has absolutely nothing to do with progressivism. Nothing. Under the post-Clinton Party, we became a single-party country where the Republicans propose, Democrats enact. There is a single pro-war, pro-corporate agenda maintained by both branches of the merged Republican/Democratic Party. As long as we do nothing about it, this isn't going to change. It take piles of money to be in politics, and that money comes from corporations. This isn't going to change; at best, we'll periodically get a very weak law that is easy to work around (or ignore) to reduce corporate influence in government, but it's meaningless. To change this, we would have to hit the streets, go on strike, march to Washington, and get too loud to ignore. I just don't see this generation getting off its butt to even try. We know the future of this country is at stake, but gees, it's such a hassle to get a protest permit...
If everything that we've been through wasn't enough to shake Americans out of their complacency, what will it take? I sure don't have the answer. Movements don't move without a real leader who can get people to their feet.