Democrats’ conundrums… Left’s impasse
[EXCERPT]
John Nichols from the Nation points out that the latest effort to articulate a united Democratic Party line on Iraq by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid was put in a letter sent to President Bush on the first of August calling for, “’a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq [that] should begin before the end of 2006,’ but it does not propose anything akin to an exit strategy.†Nichols correctly concludes, “So where does this new letter leave the Democrats. Not far from where they were in June, before all hell broke loose in Baghdad…. [T]he Democratic Party has yet to embrace the position taken by the overwhelming majority of Americans. A July Gallup poll found that roughly 2 in 3 Americans want the U.S. to exit Iraq. Significantly, 31 percent wanted the exodus to begin immediately.â€
The Democrats are caught between the Scylla of their commitment to maintaining American control in the Middle East and the Charybdis of growing public opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Their inability to speak clearly about Iraq flows from this contradiction. They agree with Bush about the need to win in Iraq, but they can only beat him by appealing to the majority of Americans who want to withdraw the troops. This explains why thirteen Democratic Senators in June voted for a resolution put forward by Feingold and Kerry to withdraw troops from Iraq by 2007, only to turn around just one week later and vote unanimously for Bush’s $517 billion military budget. Like Odysseus, the Democrats choose to sail close to Scylla as their own “lesser-evil,†even though some of their crew are being devoured along the way.
Lest there be any doubt about the Democrats’ belief in American control of the Middle East, Israel’s war on Palestine and Lebanon is clearing that up. In mid-July, the Senate voted 100 to 0 to support Israel’s attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah and the House voted 410 to 8 to do the same. Russ Feingold’s support of Israel’s war points out how little difference there really exists among the Democratic leadership. In the House, even Barbara Lee and Dennis Kucinich, the heroes of the Progressive Democrats of America, abstained on the vote. Apparently the popular Bay Area saying, “Barbara Lee speaks for me†(coined after her lone vote against the invasion of Afghanistan) does not apply to Palestinians and Lebanese people.
When Iraqi puppet prime minister Nouri al-Maliki came to Washington in July, Democrats leapt at the chance to demonstrate their allegiance to Israeli militarism. Nancy Pelosi denounced al-Maliki for not condemning Hezbollah and Howard Dean called him an anti-Semite for not being sufficiently hostile to Iran.
Discontent in the “big tentâ€
This hard turn to the right has created a backlash of sorts. Senator Joe Lieberman is facing a primary challenge in Connecticut by wealthy businessman Ned Lamont, who is running against Lieberman’s outspoken support of President Bush and the occupation of Iraq. “President Bush rushed us into this war,†Lamont remarked in the July 7 Connecticut Democratic primary debate, “He told us it would be easy. We would be welcomed as liberators. Weapons of mass destruction. And Senator Lieberman cheered on the president every step of the way, when we should have been asking the tough questions.†Lamont proposes that a timeline be set for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
If Lamont wins, it will strengthen those in the party who believe that the key to electoral success is to criticize Bush over his war policies. It should be kept in mind, however, that primaries are not the same as elections. No doubt, the fact that Lamont looks set to beat Lieberman as the ISR goes to press is a sign of the discontent among Democratic voters. However, Lamont is not so much antiwar as he is anti-Lieberman. Count Lamont among those Democrats who criticize the war in Iraq on the grounds that it hinders the ability of the United States to pursue its imperial ambitions in the region. “The senator [Lieberman] and I are both committed to Israel’s well-being,†Lamont remarked recently during an appearance on the Colbert Report. He then criticized Lieberman for supporting the occupation in Iraq to the detriment of focusing on Iran: “A bolder Iran makes Israel even more vulnerable.â€
Nichols sees in the Lieberman-Lamont race a “signal that Democrats want their party to start making a serious appeal to the great majority of voters who want out of Iraq.†This may be true, but there are also leaders in the party that believe, along with Lieberman, that this is an irresponsible strategy that threatens to make the Democrats appear weak on “security†issues. Moreover, it ignores the fact that there have already been plenty of “signals†that the Democrats have ignored. This cannot be explained by incompetence and stupidity of individual candidates. Most of the leading Democrats are not fools. They are very good at what they do. Rather, it is a testament to the strength of the commitment of the Democratic Party to its corporate base.
Robert B. Livingston:
Todd Chretien is a gentleman who goes about analyzing the entire field of politics, and doesn’t bother to toot his own horn.
He is running against Dianne Feinstein whose political war chest has all but assured her victory. She has never spoken for me– Todd does; and he will have my vote here in California.
Anyone who follows Stan’s blog here– I hope you will support Todd Chretien’s run against Feinstein.http://www.todd4senate.org/?q=front_page
What have the Democrats to offer?
The best they have can probably be summed up by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed’s The Plan: Big Ideas for America.
The best ideas the Democrats offer are nothing more than well-intentioned incrementalism of a sort as likely powerless to protect us from corporate and donor class greed as the levees protected New Orleans from Katrina.
This country needs to cut a new path–
11 September 2006, 11:35 pmMarilyn Farhat:
American politics is all about appearances as opposed to action and what is right. There is a perception among many in the “center†and “left†that people do not vote for candidates who are “too radical.†Logically speaking, this negates all ideas and action for change. What many fail to see is that change is usually initiated by the non-conformists and not the “fence-sitters.â€
There are many on the left who really do not mind us being in Iraq (as long as it does not get too dirty and as long as “public opinion†can still stomach the price for such a war. Public opinion sensitivities have not been breached yet).
We are so far removed from the concerns of the world. We are even very removed from the concerns of our soldiers in the battlefield. The U.S. is unique in the sense that it has not seen a war on its soil since the Civil War. As a result, the civilians (and politicians) do not have a full grasp on what it is like to live in war and the impact of such a war on society and across generations.
Lieberman is a racist. Anyone who supports an all-out war on any entity or group because of who they are is a racist. Lieberman is a staunch advocate of the state of Israel without question. He, and others like him, would not bat an eyelid at the suffering of Arabs, as long as public opinion does not put Israel in the spotlight. What I find disturbing about the Democratic/Republican, Right/Left debate is that both are different manifestations of the same problem: self-absorption, lack of empathy for other nations, over-affluence, over-consumption, entitlement, and the long-held notion that somehow this country possesses some higher moral (and therefore imperialistic and colonial) imperative.
Let’s face it, to many people here Arabs are there to be made fun of in Rambo, Delta Force, Navy Seal, Chuck Norris, and other sappy violent soap operas. They are there to make us “look good.†We need a bad guy and they are there to oblige, courtesy of Zionist propaganda (with a little bit of help from the over-libidoed (I made that word up) Saudi clans. Propaganda and Hollywood have succeeded in promoting that image which, in turn, has contributed to the political alienation of entities who do have a legitimate desire to advocate for the rights of the abused in the Middle East. We are a culture influenced by “bigness†and the surreal. We place more credence in what we see in the movies and TV than what we experience and feel. We wait for the news to come to us instead of seeking it out because we love to learn and understand. We drink, do drugs, make and spend money, think about sex constantly but lack the capacity for intimacy, and we toot our own horn. We love guns and how they work, and we can recite the different versions of them, but we really have a hard time talking about why those guns are there, how we use them (as opposed to why we should have them), and the impact they have. We protest when people lose their jobs at a missile producing plant but we do not give a thought about the civilians who will one day be killed by those missiles. We adore politicians who make us feel good with their verbal crumbs and handouts, but we hate them after we elect them because they “deceived†us. We take it out on them because we fail to acknowledge that we are part of the problem that put them in power in the first place when the signs of trouble were in plain sight but were too painful for us not to deny. We are disconnected from our history and we cannot plan for the future. We do not understand those who are different from us because we do not need to. We are IT, the ONE and only, so others had better keep up.
I keep thinking of a play I read years ago in high school, “Animal Farm;†it is pretty accurate where individual and group behavior is concerned. It is not the party that matters, but the ability of those who are not in power to remain vigilant over those who do have the power.
Even if we get a leftist or democratic administration at the helm, we will remain in Iraq and we will still find excuses why we cannot leave because there are too many Americans benefiting from the spoils of war, including the NGOs and the individual contractors. We have tasted victory and we are hooked.
What is needed is a revolution; not the metallic one, but one of ideas and morals. Short of that, we are blowing in the wind and god help us all.
19 September 2006, 9:35 pm