Defusing opposition through misdirection

After being inundated with the same bulleted talking points coming from the focus groups, political parties, and news networks over and over again, I have finally had it. My surprise quotient was brought down to zero a long time ago. It's now dipping into the negatives. It is time for me to set the record straight on a couple of things. The delay in me writing this comes not from a lack of will, but the perceived inefficiency in having to compete with such vast organs of power.

Neither major party has an interest in exposing itself as being no different from the other. If Republicans confessed to being no different than the Democrats, they would give Republican voters no compelling reason to vote for them. If Democrats confessed to being no different than the Republicans, they would give Democrat voters no compelling reason to vote for them. It's sad that I should need to belabor these things, but does that make sense?

The parlance of both major parties and the establishment media is designed to embellish contrast between the two major parties, in an effort to create a fiction of choice. The Republicans will accuse Democrats of opposing them, while the Democrats will accuse the Republicans of opposing them. News stories will say things like "moderate Republicans" question Bush's war policy. That language implies that those Republicans, being "different" from the rest, are like Democrats, who are "opposed" to the war. Yet, the real record shows that the war policy has been sustained with bipartisan acquiescence.

Okay, now that I have established those two axioms, let's discuss the war issue.

In the past, there has been Congressional homogeneity on war funding votes - both Defense Department fiscal year appropriations and supplemental appropriations. Throughout the last several years, only about 40 Democrats and fewer Republicans in the House have voted against the war funding supplemental appropriations bills. Out of that, an even smaller number of votes against the fiscal year appropriations for the Defense Department. Congressman Ron Paul and Congressman Dennis Kucinich are about the only two with a real antiwar voting record. The only way I can describe the Senate's voting record is with the word abomination.

You can't have a war policy without the war funding. Every time the Congress votes to appropriate more funds to sustain the war policy it is re-authorizing the war all over again. The problem isn't just President George W. Bush. The problem isn't just Republicans. There is complicity from all corners of Washington, D.C.

The only time a war funding bill has been voted on along party lines was the recent one. That was the war funding bill which President Bush vetoed on May 1st. The establishment media said it was a bill to "end" the war. Democrats, except for Congressman Dennis Kucinich and very few others, voted for it. Republicans, except for Congressman John Duncan and Congressman Ron Paul, voted against it for all the wrong reasons - viz., because the bill would "end" the war.

The reason why that bill was referred to as a bill that would "end" the war is because there was a withdrawal provision inside of it. However, it was a non-binding withdrawal provision with huge exceptions to the withdrawal. Objectively, the exceptions were to keep the war going. Furthermore, the pseudo-withdrawal deadline was set for September of 2008 - i.e., many months away.

When you realize that there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq, to delay the date of withdrawal - throughout the duration in which there will be more casualties suffered on all sides of the conflict - is treacherous. There is absolutely no excuse for prolonging the war by passing more funding to keep it going, no matter what kind of withdrawal provision is in it.

As Americans get angry over the war policy, "withdrawal" provisions are proposed, debated, and voted on. By the time the "withdrawal" date nears, it is forgotten, Americans are still angry, and so the War Party introduces new "withdrawal" proposals to buy itself more time. To deal with this growing consensus amongst Americans that the war policy must end, the right and left wings (i.e., Republican and Democrat) of the War Party had to create a fiction of debate to buy themselves more time. That was the purpose this recent war funding bill, which was marketed as antiwar, served.

The War Party took an objectively pro-war bill and amalgamated it with antiwar sounding rhetoric and platitudes. This maneuver successfully defused the opposition by misdirecting it straight into supporting a war funding bill in the erroneous belief that this would stop the war. The camp is now divided into indefinite war, or war with a pseudo-withdrawal provision. Having to listen to Republicans protest Democrats in a faux debate is bad enough. Now I have to listen to Democrat apologists explaining why Democrats can't stop the war because they don't have the votes necessary to override a Bush veto.

If Democrats want to end the war, they need not override anything. If you want the war to end, you should have been in favor of letting Bush's veto stand. Bush vetoed a war funding bill. To end the war, Congress needs to pass nothing. I mean nothing. No more war funding bills. The war won't end as long as it is funded by Congress. Only by defunding the war will it end. The argument about ensuring troops have body armor, etc., that Democrats use to excuse their war funding votes is a non-sequitur. If the war is defunded, it will have to end, the troops will be brought home, and the body armor issue becomes inconsequential.

The war funding bill which Bush vetoed passed by a very slim majority in the House. Far from opposing war funding bills, the Democratic leadership actually tacked on an additional $20 billion to the war funding bill just to buy the necessary votes to get it passed. By that, I mean largesse from the public treasury was offered to the districts of Congressmen who would have otherwise voted against the bill. Pelosi and company worked overtime just to get the war funding bill passed. Let's get this straight: If Congress wants to end the war, they need not pass anything. It isn't Bush who is stopping Congress from stopping the war. Bush doesn't cause Congress to give him money.

 1  |  2