John Dean was counsel to the White House during the Nixon era, and spend four months in prison after having been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and defraud the government in the Iran-Contra affair. His sentence might have been longer if not for his decision to cooperate with the prosecutors, known in the vernacular as turning state's evidence or rat-finking.
Now he seems to be up to his old tricks again. In advocating an investigation of White House subordinates rather than impeachment of Bush & Cheney, he knows from experience that once the subordinates have been convicted, Bush can pardon them. Nobody suffered greatly from having waged an illegal war, sold arms to terrorists, taken money from drug smugglers to fund a black budget and lied to Congress about it, or any of the other high crimes and misdemeanors involved in Iran-Contra. Most of them, like Dean himself, are doing very well today, thank you, and some hold important positions in the Bush administration, like John Negroponte who was involved with the death squads in Nicaragua, and is now involved with the death squads in Iraq.
The Democrats, having taken impeachment off the table, are scrambling to hold on to their base. Don't worry, their operatives will tell you, this isn't what it looks like. This is just part of a subtle strategy that will unfold later on, but of course it never does. The Democrats have consistently voted in support of everything that Bush has done. They're going to keep right on supporting the military-industrial complex that fattens their stock portfolios with war-profiteering. Pelosi has announced some phantasmagorical plans to raise the minimum wage and make health care and education more affordable, but first Pelosi has to vote for the Bush defense budget in order to be able to blame him for the fact that there's no money left to fund those plans.
Dean and the Democrats are organizing an cover-up to protect Bush and Cheney the same way that the Kerry investigation protected Poppy Bush and the higher-ups in the Iran-Contra investigation, so that they could pardon and later rehire their subordinate felons.
I remember when a Democratic President pardoning a Republican President justified it by saying, "We have to retain the precedent." The precedent in this case, is that Democrats will pardon Republicans (but don't count on Republicans pardoning Democrats -- as you may have noticed during the past six years in Congress, bipartisanship is a one-way street).
Democrats have an excellent record of promoting the Republican agenda, voting for it, and of conceding to Republicans, protecting Republicans, and pardoning Republicans. Does anybody think that a President Pelosi, who has taken impeachment off the table and insists on voting for the Bush defense budget rip-off, wouldn't issue Bush a Presidential pardon?
If you oppose the illegal invasion of Iraq, but keep supporting and making excuses for the Democrats, don't say I didn't warn you. Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat and repeat and repeat it. This is the same game, the same players, the same war-profiteering, but with different victims in a different country. And a new generation of suckers to fall for it.
We can support the Democrats while working to replace them
It seems that with regard to the Democrats, we divide into two camps that I say can be merged. Some of us expect nothing good from the Democrats and are looking elsewhere for solutions, while the rest, Rob for example, call for giving the Democrats a chance to do the right thing before writing them off.
Why can't we do both simultaneously? It's not necessary to know what the Democrats will do. We can reserve judgment on the Democrats for now provided we are simultaneously building an alternative to the Democrats that can win elections.
This is an excerpt from a prior post exhorting us to support the Democrats until there is an alternative, and simultaneously, immediately begin building that alternative liberal political edifice to replace them as soon as possible should the likely come to pass and the Democrats fail or sell out:
"[W]e cheered that the Republicans lost, and rightfully so. We are grateful. But that's the same as cheering that a car rolled all the way to the brink of a precipice and then stopped while teetering and threatening to fall. OK, I admit, it's something to be happy about. But only for about one nanosecond. Whether the Democrats are complicit or unwitting and incompetent fools doesn't matter. They cannot be trusted.
"We haven't won the war. We've just bought a little time, time which I expect will be squandered waiting on the Democrats to perform instead of spent intensively organizing a liberal political mechanism capable of winning elections and putting progressives back into power in America. There may or may not be enough time and other resources to do this before the Democrats push the car over the cliff through incompetence or deliberately for a few bucks, but any time spent waiting for the Democrats to perform is precious time wasted.
"Remember, if you're a congressional Democrat, you've been on the short end of the lobbyists' teat for a long time now, and you may only have two or four years to suck it dry before Rush et al. hypnotize the American people into forgetting everything that they just learned and giving the Congress back to the Republicans. These Democrats aren't statesmen; they're toadies and lickspittles. The statesmen have almost all been eliminated or silenced.
"The last time Congress raised a peep of objection in opposition to the neocons (2002 I believe), they were anthraxed and subsequently shut up and rolled over. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it. You're looking for heroes, but this is America. The heroes are few and far between in this culture, and they are savaged by the entrenched powers, usually with the people's blessings, every time."
Notwithstanding all of this or however little we expect from the Democrats, we should be ready for them to do better if they surprise us and begin representing progressive values again. Why wouldn't we while concomitantly working on their replacements if needed?
I would add a third contingency: if the Dems fail and the new party never forms or can't win elections, be ready to leave. This country's citizens are reasonably likely to go through hell in the upcoming years. They didn't stand by me when I was a war dissenter, and I don't feel any further sense of obligation to stand by them as they reap the rewards of their conservative foolishness, something that many of us tried to warn against and were jeered and heckled at (and brutalized and arrested) for our efforts.
If somebody doesn't modify America's trajectory, it's headed right for fascism, and frankly, I don't intend to be run over by that train trying to help save the disloyal (to liberals and dissenters) American people from their own hate, greed, dogmatism and stupidity. Now, in return, I won't stand by them if and when the chickens come home to roost and America gets its well deserved karmic comeuppance.
Won't Americans be surprised to learn that border walls don't just keep aliens out! They can also be used to confine citizens just like the detention centers that are being built to complement the new laws that make all Americans susceptible to surveillance and to cynical charges of terrorism. That's the price of political failure by the left, and that could very well continue for many more years.
by
Yaybob (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 170 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 12:44:13 AM
Did you say that we can support the Democrats while working to replace them?
Could the Abolitionists have supported slaveholders while working to replace them?
Could the Germans have supported Hitler while working to replace him?
Maybe it is really possible that someday, given enough public pressure and a few other minor changes, like publicly funded elections to get corporate money out of politics, the Democrats might stop voting for Bush's Iraq agenda and voting to give him every penny he asks for, even at the expense of their own constituents' wellbeing. After all, they've only had six years to figure it out, and everyone knows they're slow learners. But while they're learning, innocent people are being tortured and killed for lies.
If you were the person being tortured, would you suggest that we support your torturer while trying to change him? Or would you want the torture to stop? My guess, and I'm only guessing, is that you wouldn't really care if the person torturing you was Republican and was replaced by a Democrat, if the torture didn't stop.
It is the inability of the Democrats and their supporters to empathize with and put themselves in the place of the innocent people being tortured and killed by means of legislation and defense budgets that both Republicans and Democrats voted for, and will continue to vote for, that prevents them from recognizing their own complicity.
If it is proven in court that I first decided to, and then actually did shoot somebody just because I didn't like their face, nobody in the Democratic Party or in Congress would argue that I wasn't guilty of murder in the first degree. But if instead I decide to hire a hitman to do the job for me, and I don't pay him out of my own pocket, but borrow the money from you or someone else to pay him, am I then less guilty or not guilty at all? The Democrats are considered less evil because instead of suggesting that we condone torture and kill innocent people, all they did was vote for it and fund it with our tax dollars.
When somebody is a danger to themselves or others, you can't just support them while working to change them. The Republicans are a danger to this country and to the world. The Democrats in Congress are supporting the Republicans while working (not very hard from what I've seen) to change them. And Democratic voters are supporting the Democrats in Congress while working to change them. And in the meantime our tax money is still being used to torture and kill innocent people and the Republicans keep insisting that it needs to be done and the Democrats keep funding it.
The person who pays a hitman is as guilty of first degree murder as the hitman who actually pulls the trigger. The Democrats who fund the Bush defense budget (out of our tax money, not out of their own pockets) are as guilty of torture and war crimes as the Republicans who ordered the torture and war crimes.
If it was just people with minor substance abuse problems, and they weren't hurting themselves or anyone else, a lot of us bleeding heart liberals and progressives would accept supporting them while working to change them. But if it is violent child molesters, serial killers, mass murderers, or perpetrators of torture and war crimes, you work to change them and you DO NOT support them. Any support you give them makes you just as guilty as they are, dig?
--Mark
by
Mark E. Smith (20 articles, 28 quicklinks, 68 diaries, 817 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 1:35:23 AM
By supporting the Democrats I mean, on an issue-by-issue basis, being open to the possibility that one or some may say or do things that sound appropriate. We support that by advocating for it, facilitating it where possible, and in general, by being ready to be pleasantly surprised if they succeed. That is all. There is nothing counterproductive or cross-purposes in that.
All the while, we do exactly what we would do if we knew for a fact in advance that the Democrats would fail us whether by design or incompetence. We work toward constructing a liberal party in America that can win elections against the Republicans and Democrats, and we make preparations to emigrate should both of those fail.
We do all three simultaneously. If the Dems fail or betray us, we will not be surprised, just disappointed.
If no liberal structure emerges by which the American left can regain political power (we're presently represented in Congress about as much as communists and devil worshippers are: not at all), then we are prepared to move on to a more just society elsewhere. That means that we have done our research and chosen a destination or two, attained our passports, become more liquid (divest of real estate and other illiquid assets).
Then, we wait to see if the Democrats perform, replace them if necessary and possible, and emigrate if not. Residing here unrepresented and despised as a liberal, vulnerable to nuclear and bioterrorist strikes, vulnerable to financial depression and runaway inflation, surrounded by foolish and fearful people, and threatened by a fascistic state increasingly being run by the churches and the corporations against my interests is simply not an option for me.
There is nothing lost in this approach. I am not suggesting trusting the Democrats or investing in them. I'm saying to root for their success, see what they can do, and accept any ground that they regain. You seem to imply that this is a mistake, but I don't see how it could be.
by
Yaybob (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 170 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 9:04:07 AM
