Genius.
And yet there remains this fringe leftwing moonbat group consisting of about 80% of Americans who oppose the occupation of Iraq in the ordinary sense of not wanting to waste trillions of dollars keeping it going. And, remember, the true cost of the occupation includes interest, care for veterans, the increased price of oil, and other major elements placing the total in the trillions according to the calculations of Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.
And yet, what can we do? We're pretty helpless, right, we poor hundreds of millions of Americans who are still sane - we don't have any power, do we? They beat us at every turn, don't they? Our best hope is to turn the Democratic Party into a close approximation of the Republican Party in hopes of winning like they do, right, and then after the elections when we aren't needed anymore somehow turn the Democratic Party back into something else again - something we actually like, something people would actually vote for.
Are we so helpless as all that? Aren't we the people who created the single biggest day of global protest prior to the invasion? Didn't we block the legalization of the invasion at the United Nations, making the invasion the supreme international crime? Didn't we force the Cheney-Bush gang to come up with a pile of lies to justify the invasion? Didn't we expose those lies? Didn't that help forestall an invasion of Iran, at least so far (although it's a safe bet some of that $178 billion will be misappropriated if they still decide to do it)? Didn't support for the war and the president plummet just behind awareness of the lies that we exposed? Aren't we in touch with each other and our allies around the world through the internet, informing people that Americans do not support the slaughter? Isn't global warming a top issue for Americans even though unheard of in the media? If you think we have no power, consider this. Last week, Senator Hillary Clinton gave the peace movement credit for her defeat. She hasn't conceded, but mathematically it's over. She was speaking specifically about her losses in caucuses, when she disdainfully referred to us as "the activist base of the Democratic Party." According to Clinton, these activists "turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of [my] positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them."
Any third party should consider that a ringing endorsement. A Democratic senator who wants to be president declares that the problem with the Democratic Party is that it has too many damn active supporters. You know what? Maybe it does. Maybe the third parties do too. Maybe the entire mad election disease should be contained, and citizens should put a little bit of focus on running the country in between elections. Maybe in the end, that would give us better candidates and elections too.
In 2006, we elected a new Congress to end the occupation of Iraq. Even the corporate media understood and admitted that. We gained enormous strength through that effort, which was primarily accomplished by the peace movement, not by electoral campaigning. But the so-called leadership of the new Congress immediately announced that it would never use its power, the power of the purse, to end the occupation. And huge segments of the peace movement shrieked in terror, crawled quietly into abandoned voting booths, and stood crowded in there shaking and shivering for the past year and a half. Some made their position opposition to escalating the war, after having just won a landslide demanding the de-escalation of the war. If 2008 ends, and Congress has done nothing to end the occupation of Iraq, the power we gained by electing them to do so in 2006 will be gone. If we cannot hold elected officials to their commitments, why should they bother even making them next time?
We don't know who the next president will be or who will be in the next Congress, but we do know that whatever the answers are to those questions, the occupation of Iraq will not end unless we push for it. And we know that it takes time to build momentum and awareness in a push for change. If we keep shutting down our movement for a year or more every two years, we will never win. If we keep pushing forward as citizens rather than as the pawns of one political party, we will win. We might even win right away. We might not win for a long time. But we will certainly win sooner than if we pause in our work.
I'm fond of the saying "Let's save our pessimism for better times."
I also read an important remark online recently that was attributed to I.F. Stone:
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it — to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it."
That means continuing to push Congress to listen to us even when there is an election within two years. (Guess what? There is always an election within two years.) It also means advancing the crucial work in high schools of counter-recruitment, at which activists in many school districts have been very successful. And it means recognizing but not succumbing to the triumph of what this nation's founders called Factionalism.
Our Constitution does not mention political parties, and our founders feared their influence. Most congress members today have almost no concern for what powers the Congress maintains as against the White House, but have extreme concern for whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican. This mindset facilitates the transferring of still more power from the legislature to the now misnamed executive. This means that for peace or impeachment to happen requires the approval of the Democratic leadership and of Senator Obama. And that means that we need to bird-dog Obama until he gets it right, not in order to defeat him but in order to push him to positions that will make possible a landslide. I don't know how many of you have noticed how votes have been counted in US elections in the past seven years, but I am convinced that Obama can only take the White House with a landslide. A narrow victory won't work.
One way to get a landslide would be for Obama to lead a filibuster against the occupation funding. He could still fund a withdrawal if he thought that kissing up to the media required such a superfluous gesture. But when he debated McCain, he would be able to take an opposing position and not see it easily dismissed. If the Democrats fund another year and a half of slaughter, the only people who benefit will be war profiteers and third party candidates. Republicans may benefit too, since Democrats make themselves look weak every time they refuse to stand up for what they supposedly stand for.
If the Democrats fund more slaughter, they will probably also take another step that makes them look even weaker. They will actually legalize the occupation of Iraq. While the invasion was illegal under the UN Charter, while Bush misappropriated funds to begin it in secret, while Congress never properly declared war, while the war crimes have included the illegal targeting of civilians, journalists, ambulances, etc., and the use of illegal weapons of mass destruction, etc., the United Nations has given one level of legal cover to the occupation, and that legality expires on December 31st. Congress can allow a further level of illegality to be added and leverage it into an end to the occupation, and we can really party this New Year's Eve like it's 1999 and the nightmare is over. Or Congress can allow Bush and Maliki to negotiate an unconstitutional treaty to give new cover to the occupation, something Maliki may already have killed by allowing the Iraqi Parliament to reject it. Or, and this is the worst option so you can be pretty sure they'll choose it, Congress can work to renew the UN fig leaf or provide a new one of its own. Democratic strategists will find this approach appealing and in accord with their double policy of doing everything people oppose in order to win an election in a way that allows them to avoid immediately doing anything that people want.
Of course, we can fantasize about how great Obama will be as president, and explain his lack of greatness now as necessary catering to the corporate media. Norman Solomon thinks Obama is secretly FDR and points out that FDR didn't sound good in his first campaign. I'll admit that gives me hope, but FDR's policies evolved in response to activism, strikes, and people's movements. FDR told A. Philip Randolph he'd support his requests if Randolph went out and organized a movement that made him do so. If we want Obama to be FDR, we'll need to start now organizing the required activism. We don't have time to waste volunteering for a campaign that is not yet taking winning positions. If possible, we will force Obama to take better positions prior to the election, which will help him win. If possible, and it is entirely possible, we will end the occupation funding this month, guaranteeing huge popular support or whoever in Congress helps bring the troops home alive.
But, I have to tell you, I place saving human lives ahead of any election, and I place saving our democratic republic ahead of any election. I think it's more important that future presidents and vice presidents have to obey laws than who the next president is. And I think there is an urgent need to reestablish the rule of law as soon as possible.
And yet there remains this fringe leftwing moonbat group consisting of about 80% of Americans who oppose the occupation of Iraq in the ordinary sense of not wanting to waste trillions of dollars keeping it going. And, remember, the true cost of the occupation includes interest, care for veterans, the increased price of oil, and other major elements placing the total in the trillions according to the calculations of Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.
And yet, what can we do? We're pretty helpless, right, we poor hundreds of millions of Americans who are still sane - we don't have any power, do we? They beat us at every turn, don't they? Our best hope is to turn the Democratic Party into a close approximation of the Republican Party in hopes of winning like they do, right, and then after the elections when we aren't needed anymore somehow turn the Democratic Party back into something else again - something we actually like, something people would actually vote for.
Are we so helpless as all that? Aren't we the people who created the single biggest day of global protest prior to the invasion? Didn't we block the legalization of the invasion at the United Nations, making the invasion the supreme international crime? Didn't we force the Cheney-Bush gang to come up with a pile of lies to justify the invasion? Didn't we expose those lies? Didn't that help forestall an invasion of Iran, at least so far (although it's a safe bet some of that $178 billion will be misappropriated if they still decide to do it)? Didn't support for the war and the president plummet just behind awareness of the lies that we exposed? Aren't we in touch with each other and our allies around the world through the internet, informing people that Americans do not support the slaughter? Isn't global warming a top issue for Americans even though unheard of in the media? If you think we have no power, consider this. Last week, Senator Hillary Clinton gave the peace movement credit for her defeat. She hasn't conceded, but mathematically it's over. She was speaking specifically about her losses in caucuses, when she disdainfully referred to us as "the activist base of the Democratic Party." According to Clinton, these activists "turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of [my] positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them."
Any third party should consider that a ringing endorsement. A Democratic senator who wants to be president declares that the problem with the Democratic Party is that it has too many damn active supporters. You know what? Maybe it does. Maybe the third parties do too. Maybe the entire mad election disease should be contained, and citizens should put a little bit of focus on running the country in between elections. Maybe in the end, that would give us better candidates and elections too.
In 2006, we elected a new Congress to end the occupation of Iraq. Even the corporate media understood and admitted that. We gained enormous strength through that effort, which was primarily accomplished by the peace movement, not by electoral campaigning. But the so-called leadership of the new Congress immediately announced that it would never use its power, the power of the purse, to end the occupation. And huge segments of the peace movement shrieked in terror, crawled quietly into abandoned voting booths, and stood crowded in there shaking and shivering for the past year and a half. Some made their position opposition to escalating the war, after having just won a landslide demanding the de-escalation of the war. If 2008 ends, and Congress has done nothing to end the occupation of Iraq, the power we gained by electing them to do so in 2006 will be gone. If we cannot hold elected officials to their commitments, why should they bother even making them next time?
We don't know who the next president will be or who will be in the next Congress, but we do know that whatever the answers are to those questions, the occupation of Iraq will not end unless we push for it. And we know that it takes time to build momentum and awareness in a push for change. If we keep shutting down our movement for a year or more every two years, we will never win. If we keep pushing forward as citizens rather than as the pawns of one political party, we will win. We might even win right away. We might not win for a long time. But we will certainly win sooner than if we pause in our work.
I'm fond of the saying "Let's save our pessimism for better times."
I also read an important remark online recently that was attributed to I.F. Stone:
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it — to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it."
That means continuing to push Congress to listen to us even when there is an election within two years. (Guess what? There is always an election within two years.) It also means advancing the crucial work in high schools of counter-recruitment, at which activists in many school districts have been very successful. And it means recognizing but not succumbing to the triumph of what this nation's founders called Factionalism.
Our Constitution does not mention political parties, and our founders feared their influence. Most congress members today have almost no concern for what powers the Congress maintains as against the White House, but have extreme concern for whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican. This mindset facilitates the transferring of still more power from the legislature to the now misnamed executive. This means that for peace or impeachment to happen requires the approval of the Democratic leadership and of Senator Obama. And that means that we need to bird-dog Obama until he gets it right, not in order to defeat him but in order to push him to positions that will make possible a landslide. I don't know how many of you have noticed how votes have been counted in US elections in the past seven years, but I am convinced that Obama can only take the White House with a landslide. A narrow victory won't work.
One way to get a landslide would be for Obama to lead a filibuster against the occupation funding. He could still fund a withdrawal if he thought that kissing up to the media required such a superfluous gesture. But when he debated McCain, he would be able to take an opposing position and not see it easily dismissed. If the Democrats fund another year and a half of slaughter, the only people who benefit will be war profiteers and third party candidates. Republicans may benefit too, since Democrats make themselves look weak every time they refuse to stand up for what they supposedly stand for.
If the Democrats fund more slaughter, they will probably also take another step that makes them look even weaker. They will actually legalize the occupation of Iraq. While the invasion was illegal under the UN Charter, while Bush misappropriated funds to begin it in secret, while Congress never properly declared war, while the war crimes have included the illegal targeting of civilians, journalists, ambulances, etc., and the use of illegal weapons of mass destruction, etc., the United Nations has given one level of legal cover to the occupation, and that legality expires on December 31st. Congress can allow a further level of illegality to be added and leverage it into an end to the occupation, and we can really party this New Year's Eve like it's 1999 and the nightmare is over. Or Congress can allow Bush and Maliki to negotiate an unconstitutional treaty to give new cover to the occupation, something Maliki may already have killed by allowing the Iraqi Parliament to reject it. Or, and this is the worst option so you can be pretty sure they'll choose it, Congress can work to renew the UN fig leaf or provide a new one of its own. Democratic strategists will find this approach appealing and in accord with their double policy of doing everything people oppose in order to win an election in a way that allows them to avoid immediately doing anything that people want.
Of course, we can fantasize about how great Obama will be as president, and explain his lack of greatness now as necessary catering to the corporate media. Norman Solomon thinks Obama is secretly FDR and points out that FDR didn't sound good in his first campaign. I'll admit that gives me hope, but FDR's policies evolved in response to activism, strikes, and people's movements. FDR told A. Philip Randolph he'd support his requests if Randolph went out and organized a movement that made him do so. If we want Obama to be FDR, we'll need to start now organizing the required activism. We don't have time to waste volunteering for a campaign that is not yet taking winning positions. If possible, we will force Obama to take better positions prior to the election, which will help him win. If possible, and it is entirely possible, we will end the occupation funding this month, guaranteeing huge popular support or whoever in Congress helps bring the troops home alive.
But, I have to tell you, I place saving human lives ahead of any election, and I place saving our democratic republic ahead of any election. I think it's more important that future presidents and vice presidents have to obey laws than who the next president is. And I think there is an urgent need to reestablish the rule of law as soon as possible.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
