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February 24, 2008 at 06:58:21
The Democrats' (and Elections') Sleight of Hand by Dr. Dennis Loo (Posted by Dr. Dennis Loo) Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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In the frenzy surrounding the elections, the major candidates are acting like magicians, hoping that their audience won't notice. I am going to focus here on Obama since he is the one most attractive to progressive minded people. (Obama, by the way, and I share some things in common - both of us attended Punahou School in Hawaii and Harvard - but that's where the similarities end.) Obama tells us that he is on the side of the angels on the war in Iraq - he is against it - and that he's against torture and for the restoration of habeas corpus. The question you have to ask here, however, is if this so, then why hasn't he done anything about these things other than make eloquent speeches about them? He's been in the US Senate after all. He's voted for war funding to continue this immoral and unjust war and has not once used the opportunity to block - i.e., filibuster - any of the horrid bills that legalized torture and stripped habeas corpus rights from people (e.g., the Military Commissions Act of 2006). On the telecom immunity bill that just passed the Senate, giving the major telecom companies a free pass for their express violations of the law - and FISA in particular - by bowing to the White House's February 2001 demands that the NSA be allowed to intercept all of Americans' electronic communications, Obama and the rest of the Democrats should have, but refused to filibuster the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did his obligatory bemoaning of the fact that he couldn't keep all of the Democrats in line to vote as a group against the bill. This is another element of his and Nancy Pelosi's disengenuousness and the game they're playing: they vote against bills they say they don't like (so they can say that they voted "no"), but they don't use their powers both as leaders of the chambers to block a bill from even coming to the floor and/or as individual members of Congress to filibuster it. 
They don't do anything, in other words, that would actually make a difference.
The GOP hasn't been afraid to filibuster bills they don't like, yet the Democrats, our self-proclaimed saviors, won't do it. What are they afraid of?
They are afraid of precisely the thing that they claim that we should support them in fighting against: they will not take on and repudiate, they will not fight against and expose, the fundamental lie of the Bush White House - that anything and everything is acceptable, including torture, massive, illegal spying, indefinite detentions, and mass murder - in the name of "defending American lives" and in the name of "national security." In fact, the Democrats will not take on anything that vaguely hints at challenging the rightness of American Empire and American dominance and plunder.
No civil liberty, no civil right, no law, nor Constitutional provision, no international law or institution (e.g., the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the Geneva Conventions), no common human decency, and no scruple is safe from their aggressive and immoral assertions that it's okay to do monstrous things as long as you wrap it in the garb of "protecting Americans' lives and property."
This is not a slippery slope; it's a straight, dead drop off a cliff. The question we have to ask ourselves is: are we lemmings?
Are we willing to follow the immoral sleight of hand trick that the major candidates are purveying? Even if you feel that getting someone else into the White House in January 2009 is critical, are you willing to say that the daily torture and the daily new outrages of shredding any legal protections against dictatorial and fascistic actions are something that can be allowed to continue every single day for the next year?
What kind of morality is that? What kind of moral leaders tell us that something is terrible and they plan to do something about it, but we must wait another year for any action to be done about it? What kind of people are we if we aren't fighting these crimes against humanity every day? What kind of fools would we be to be taken in by speech-makers who have refused every day of their political lives to actually fight against and actually put a stop to the things they say they're against? They can't hide behind the fact that they don't have the power. They HAVE the power. They won't use it.
And if they won't use it now, as they haven't used it for the last seven years when it actually counted, then why would they use it a year from now? You don't fight against crimes against humanity when it suits you. You fight grave crimes always. If you don't, you don't deserve to claim the mantle of leadership. You should withdraw from public life and hide in a cave in shame.
Published on 2/22/08 at click here
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| 3 comments |
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The Wizard of Oz Syndrone
Good analysis and great rage. The obfuscation isn't the fault of Obama or any party, it is the corruption of the media and message that produces the parameters of critical thought that limit our culture, society, and identities. For profit to the extent that "what is good for Corporate America is good for America" is the cause and today's castrated body politic. The machine mindset of the "bottom line" and how to maximize profits while minizing loss is the pathology and mechanism of progressive corruption. No one individual, no one person, no one politician can be responsible or oppose such an organism that feeds on man's labor, the world's resources, while convincing the people that all is well. The materialism that drives more for more's sake and it must be 10% more than last year or last month pathology is destroying the world. Obama may be the person who Sara Robinson comments in her article on AlterNet (http://www.alternet.org/democracy/77498/ ) that is our hope for change, but if not or can not it be, then revolution from our repultion and rejection of this corrupt capitalism is the only remaining hope. by Casey Reed (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments) on Sunday, Feb 24, 2008 at 8:12:28 PM  (0+)
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Reply: What One Person Can Do
You are absolutely right that no one person could turn this situation around, even assuming that they were trying to, which Obama isn't, for the reasons I argued in my essay. It would take - it does take - a movement because the forces arrayed against us are very powerful and well-placed. Our adversaries are immensely UNpopular, particularly the Bush White House, but they have their hands on the levers of institutional power and the backing and compliance, as you correctly note, of the mass media. I found the Sara Robinson piece you refer to interesting. The conditions for a revolution are certainly to a significant extent present. I find her argument a little strange, however, because she seems to equate Obama's candidacy with a revolutionary desire. People who are excited by Obama are being drawn to his rhetoric, and many of them would like to see fundamental change, which is why his speeches and stance are appealing to them, but they aren't looking carefully enough at what he has actually done and more to the point, hasn't done as a senator, what his platform is (it's hardly different from Hillary's and well-within the parameters of American imperialist interests), and what he's even said about things like his willingness to use military force in an attack on Iran and military strikes on Pakistan. His objection to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was that it was "sloppy," not that it was barbaric to use torture and tyrannical to strip habeas corpus from our rights. Obama, in other words, is no revolutionary. Not by a long shot. His appeal, the fading appeal of Hillary (who has positioned herself as, and is, centrist/establishment), and the fact that on the GOP side, the more obviously establishment candidates couldn't get the votes, reflect the strong desire in the electorate for change. The governing class has to pull out more stops than usual - a black and a woman - to try to hold onto people's allegiance. We need to look very carefully, and without wishful thinking blinding us, at what Obama really is. He's a new face on a monstrous system. We don't need a new face. We need a new system. One person can do something IF they are taking the moral high road in this dire situation where torture has become standard practice and where the government claims the express right to spy on everyone. Obama is not doing that. Citizens who do take the moral high road, ranging from the famous (check out the Oscar winners and nominees who were wearing orange ribbons yesterday! click here) to the high school student, can make a real difference. One person can do something if they tell the whole truth and call on others to do the same and act accordingly. I made some further comments about this matter in this posting here: click here by Dr. Dennis Loo (39 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments) on Monday, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:35:17 AM (0+)
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Milgrams shows Oz Syndrom is Business as Usual
The comments about Obama are correctly reasoned and they parallel those by Sara Robinson, but she indicates that Obama is not the real deal for sure, but if he is not, hope is lost. Obama could well be the final straw in the domino scenario for revolution along with a major economic correction, stir well with religious zealots polarizing the populations of the world, heat with military conflicts or nuclear weapon use and you have the explosive mix necessary for collapse of government and revolution all over the world. Further your arguments are good studies of cultural literacy and contemporary research that support the R We Lemmings racing to our own end theory. It seems that the warehousing of U.S. children with cruel uneducated teachers has produced a group Milgrams would not have to instruct very much at all to get them to work at water boarding people, killing a million Iraqis, or supporting a corrupt and ethically bankrupt openly religious political party who acts as Milgrams writ large. Critical thinking and individuality is not promoted or developed in such cultures. Blind following, drinking, smoking, drugs, football to wrestling mindsets are the needs and interests of the dummy downed pleasure bubble materialists are qualities dominating many Americans' identities today. Very hard to go from the dummy downed materialist mindset to Gandhi and critical thought focused on environmental harmony and survival, instead of manifest destiny based religious delusions of superiority and justifications for world domination that occupies U.S. foot ball NASCAR strategists voting and running the country today. Problem: Ego centered male dominated misogynous monotheistic Abrahamic religious supremacists (the world is their domain/materialism from Alpha male Jewish, Muslim, and biblical guidance) by definition can not work toward environmental harmony by not burning fossil fuel (current technology owned by current alpha males), and must dominate instead of developing pluralistic unity and respect with other cultures to develop a war free world community. We need a Constitutional amendment that declares the rich and powerful, the special interests, corporations are not the people, but benefit from the work, participation, and patronage of the people and owe the people gratitude for their prosperity. Therefore it so deemed that incomes are limited and wealth redistributed to the people at the rate of 1000 times the income of the poorest people. This is done to raise all boats and not stifle the motive for creative and original innovative or inventive discovery and application of new technologies. That new beneficial technology should be profitable to the inventor and corporations producing new technologies, but not at the detriment to the people. by Casey Reed (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments) on Monday, Feb 25, 2008 at 4:15:57 PM (0+)
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