Email exchange with my Rep
February 9, 2007
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Mr. Stan Goff
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Raleigh, NC 276XX
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Dear Mr. Goff:
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Thank you for contacting me about the situation in Iraq. I share your frustration with President Bush’s failed policies,
That’s not what I wrote about; but since this is a bullshit form letter, you don’t know that. I wrote to demand that the Democratic Party cut all money for the illegal war in Iraq; or many of us will work to actively defeat you in 2008.
and I have introduced legislation to terminate his authority to conduct military operations there.
Will you vote to stop funding the war? If not, I won’t vote for you, and I will work to see you defeated, even if it is by another pro-war candidate.
The money you have consistently consented to send has killed 700,000 and displaced 2 million. I have two sons in the army.
As you may know, I voted against the war,
Yes, after we camped in your offices and demonstrated.
and I have been a persistent critic of its conduct
Of its CONDUCT? What about the fact of its existence?
- without clear objectives, solid planning, or broad-based international support.
So it’s okay to kill those people who are no threat to us if we have clear objectives, “solid planning,” and an imperial consensus?
I have consistently called upon President Bush to change course in Iraq by adopting a strategy that will end the occupation and give Iraqis the responsibility for their nation’s governance and security.
…but you won’t cut the funds. You weren’t elected to “call on” people. You were elected to take action consistent with your power in Congress.
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Unfortunately, the President seems undeterred from his present course.
He is undeterred, because he is FUNDED.
On the contrary, he has recently announced an escalation of troop levels in Iraq - despite the opposition of the American people and the overwhelming evidence that a military solution is simply untenable.
Escalation is not the issue. The war is the issue. They all need to come home, now.
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Under Republican control, the Congress has been unwilling to provide strong leadership and insist on a clear plan for a responsible withdrawal from Iraq.
Get the f*** outa here! And this is what you call strong leadership… non-binding resolutions, and “calling for” things?
WILL YOU VOTE AGAINST ALL FUNDS TO CONTINUE THE WAR?
The change in leadership offers us an opportunity to fulfill our constitutionally-mandated role by conducting serious, sustained oversight of the Administration’s policies in Iraq.
OVERSIGHT? Cut the money!
Moreover, it provides us with a chance to directly affect those policies by advancing legislation offering an alternative course and/or by attaching restrictions or conditions to funding bills.
What conditions? Stop the funding. This is weasel-wording.
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With that goal in mind, I have again joined Rep. Brad Miller in introducing legislation, H.R. 645, which requires the President to bring our troops home without abandoning the critically important national security objectives that remain in Iraq.
And this is why we will work to see you defeated. There are no national security objectives in Iraq for the US. There are oil objectives. Cut the funds and the troops will come home. That’s how we left Vietnam.
I have attached a copy of our bill for your review.
I’ve seen your bill. It’s a dodge so you don’t have to face the issue head-on.
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Our legislation acknowledges what daily reports of bloodshed in Iraq have made increasingly clear: President Bush’s “stay the course” policy is a failure. Military commanders in Iraq and in the Pentagon have repeatedly told us that the solution in Iraq - if there is one - will be political and diplomatic, not military.
The solution for Iraq is to get our imperial boot off their neck… now.
H.R. 645 adopts that fundamental framework, scaling down the U.S. military presence and bolstering U.S. diplomatic and political efforts to prevent the worst outcomes in Iraq.
It is not in the Iraqi’s interest to let the US decide these things. We do not have a right ot be there, period. And Iraqis have a right to fight occupiers.
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The Price-Miller legislation would terminate the authorization for the President to use force in Iraq effective December 31, 2007, and would require an exit strategy to bring all American troops home from Iraq by that date. It would also augment political and diplomatic efforts by
An exit is not a strategy. It is a command.
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requiring the President to undertake a regional diplomacy initiative and to appoint special envoys to carry out this initiative;
Envoys!?
Providing funding for a jobs program for Iraqis, to be made available only when Iraqis reach an agreement for the equitable sharing of power and resources;
Not the duty or the right of the US. The US is an illegal occupying power in Iraq.
and Continuing U.S. support for developing democratic institutions in Iraq.
Also not the right or duty of the US.
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In addition, I have cosponsored H. Con. Res. 23, legislation introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to oppose the troop escalation, and H. Con. Res. 46, a bill sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee to prohibit the United States from establishing permanent military bases in Iraq. You can be sure that I will work for the passage of these bills in addition to my own.
Stop the money.
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Again, I appreciate hearing your views on this situation. I will continue to work for a reversal of course in Iraq and hope you will stay in touch.
No you don’t; and that’s why I got this form letter that never responded to what I wrote inthe first place.
Sincerely,
It’s not the least bit sincere.
DAVID PRICE
Member of Congress
Not for long.
I’ll be publishing this, by the way.
required:
Nice.
9 February 2007, 9:36 pmFire Witch:
Congresswoman Diana DeGette is my Representative in Congress and also the Chief Deputy Whip. Here is her position on the escalation:
“Once again, President Bush is sending us in the wrong direction on Iraq. Instead of announcing a specific plan on how we are going to get out of the Iraq quagmire, he is escalating troop levels and deepening our commitment. A majority of the American people and military experts alike do not agree with this military escalation. Unfortunately, as we have seen time and time again, President Bush refuses to listen to anyone who disagrees with his position.”
Gee. Ya think? She continues:
“I will not support any escalation of troops in Iraq. My colleagues in Congress and I intend to ask hard questions and exercise increased oversight of the President’s Iraq policy.
“It is time to bring our brave young men and women home.”
Ooooo. She’s gonna ASK HARD QUESTIONS!! And by gum, she’s gonna EXERCISE INCREASED OVERSIGHT - like it needs to go outside for a run or something.
Think it’s time somebody wrote this DeGette person a letter? Yep, me too. I’ll keep ya’ll posted.
9 February 2007, 11:44 pmG.:
The same corporate entities who profit from this and every other war line the coffers of Democrats as well as Republicans. War is the economy; the only way to stop it is to bring the economy to a halt. Easier said than done, I suppose.
10 February 2007, 10:45 amjohn smartt:
i sent this to my rep. we will see.
sir,
i voted for you. will you vote against funding the occupation of iraq? sending messages, oversight, etc., do not address the central issue of invasion. no money no war. anything else continues the war in one way or another. after you stop funding, discussions of how to can begin. you must know that until you demonstrate your willingness and ability to “close the store down” you will get no respect and no response from the other side.
my question deserves a yes or no answer.
10 February 2007, 11:15 amsincerely,
john smartt
peggy:
Someone said that if Congress cuts off funding for the war, Bush will just find the funding from “other sources”. Could this be possible?
10 February 2007, 7:59 pmJanet W:
I want to respond to Peggy’s comment. The exact same question came up at an excellent workshop I attended on 1/28 in Bethesda by Military Families Speak Out. The answer given, by a Vietnam War vet who also visited Iraq in Dec 2003, was basically: One battle at a time. Let’s focus on cutting the funding; if we get the votes for THAT, the political weather will have changed so much that Bush wouldn’t dare. Or even if he did, we’ll deal with that IF it happens.
Sometimes folks get to thinking of all the bad things that COULD happen (I do it too) that we take our energy off our own goals.
This same outstanding speaker also said, “The only way to predict the future… is to create the future.”
I’m off to Pelosi’s office on Valentine’s Day. With a little help from my friends.
10 February 2007, 11:52 pmDjuha:
I am quite lucky that things aren’t so difficult with my representative, Keith Ellison. He’s said from the start that he’ll work for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, his campaign website says this:
I am a bit disappointed that when he was specifically asked whether he would defund the war, he sidestepped the question rather than giving a firm YES, “I want to see (the war funds request) first, I want to actually look at it, but I’m not inclined to continue to support a war or an occupation that he has no plans to get us out of, and which is so costly in terms of dollars and lives of American soldiers _ but also Iraqis.”
I’m writing him to make sure that he will indeed defund the war, but I’m expecting more trouble from our new Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar who does not support immediate withdrawal and is one of those weak “Bush fucked up but we can’t just up and leave!” Dems.
11 February 2007, 2:02 amChasM:
The Democrats are NOT WEAK. They are NOT SPINELESS. They are telling you, the people who voted for them and put them in office, to go fuck yourselves. There is nothing weak or spineless about that.
What they ARE doing is working for the enemy. They do not work for us, even though you voted for them. They work for the capitalist class. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about me. They probably don’t care about their capitalist masters, either, but they know which side of their bread is buttered.
They have no intention of leaving Iraq. They don’t care how many Americans die. Iraqi lives don’t even enter the picture. They will do or say whatever they have to to distract, confuse, and/or mollify their “constituencies,” but they will NOT leave Iraq. And threats to boot them out of office are some sort of sick joke.
As long as they own the media and their capitalist masters provide them with enough money, they will buy their way back into office. Come election day, MORE than enough voters will pull those levers to put them back into office. What percentage of incumbents are re-elected? Ninety-something?
So get real, folks. You are wasting your time. Stan has an amazing analysis of the situation in his new book, Energy War, but he’s fooling himself with this email exchange.
You want real change, you need nationwide strikes. You need massive unrest. You need for ordinary Americans to be scared enough, mad enough, and frustrated enough to shut the system down. For that to happen, they have to understand what is really going on, understand that they have the power to stop it, and then motivate themselves to go do it.
I’m not holding my breath. I will say this: preaching to the choir ain’t gonna do a thing. And threats to “work against” incumbent officials will do even less.
STAN: It is just not that simple. The left can be as guilty of abhorring complexity as the right sometimes. Posing this question as EITHER-OR, that is, either complete capitulation or general strike, is just another way of saying (given that there is an absolute zero possibility of the latter under current conditions) that we should all just quit. It is a non sequitur to state (correctly) that elected officials are beholden to capitalist interests (also white and male, for that matter, even many of the officials who are neither), and that they therefore are immunized against everything except outright rebellion. That’s just nonsense, and anyone who has ever done practical politics, especially at the local level, knows that it’s nonsense. The Civil Rights momvement succeeded on many fronts without overthrowing the capitalist system, as did a lot of other reforms… which are important reforms.
When the war took off, there was an overwhelming majority support for it. Now we are around 70% opposed. Looks to me like the choir got bigger; so maybe we ought to keep preaching, and keep singing.
Politics of resistance happens with its eye on the realm of the improbable and its actions in the realm of the immediately possible. If you don’t aim your efforts to stop the war at incumbent officials, and there is no possibility of the Grand General Strike, then how does this war end? Barring The Revolution (TM) in the next few months, what human being(s) exactly oblige some other human beings to sign the redeployment orders and start drafting the passenger manifests?
If you don’t have an answer to that, then you really ought not to be standing on the sidelines hollering at people who are busting their asses to get the war ended — often as stakeholders — that they are wasting their time.
11 February 2007, 6:09 pmskol:
It’s not like the Democrats in office have made any promises. There isn’t much we expect from our representatives and senators. And as they say: “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain”, and even if it’s a stupid simplification of Democracy In Action, it applies to our representatives as well, don’t you think? “If you aren’t making them represent you, you have no right to complain when they don’t”. We only think they’re spineless because they’re not wearing ours…
If enough pressure is placed on them to change their politics (or face the consequences), and they get themselves reelected based on our politics, we’ll have a reason to be mad and frustrated if and when they don’t follow through. It only takes an e-mail, a fax, a letter, or a phone call. I wrote to my rep: “My family will not vote for you if you continue funding the war” …which doesn’t account for much until you consider that 2/3 of all families basically agree on some level, and the margin that fundamentally agrees keep the Dems in office.
…And if pressure isn’t placed upon them, who is spineless here? The officials? Or the voters who put them in office and then feel disappointed when their party doesn’t do the things they were never asked to do? We have absolutely no reason to remain tacit (i.e., silent) about this.
ChasM, just write a letter. It can take up a sentence
11 February 2007, 9:30 pmVivian:
At least Stan got a response (we have the same rep.); he quit answering to me years ago.
Mr. Price will have some visitors this Friday afternoon.
12 February 2007, 2:17 pmLinda J.:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2751.html
House Democrats’ New Strategy: Force Slow End to War
Yeah, vote Dem. They’re real speed bumps to the war and occupation.
14 February 2007, 5:32 pm