Mini-action: Send to Congress… “changing direction”
Watching C-SPAN’s re-run of an interview with Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair and Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen…
When asked about the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq, and what 2006 voters expected the Democrats to do about it, he used the term “changing direction” about 50 times in succession. Maybe Karl Rove is running their campaign, too. Repeat a line of malarkey over and over and over, in the hopes that you can bang it into the psyches of the American public as an irreducible premise.
Send this little note along to every national Democratic elected official you can find: The direction is West, all the way to the United States.
Democrats!!! You will not get away with reformulating what we want with this weasel-wording. We don’t want a “change of direction” in Iraq. We want United States armed forces OUT of Iraq… NOW… every single one of them.
Since this “changing direction” is the manipulation mantra of the campaign, and since it is a cynical attempt to stay in Iraq indefinitely, while pumping sunshine up our collective posterior (until you Democrats can get elected), every time this furtive phrase is uttered we need to call them out.
Call and response…
CALL: “…changing direction”
RESPONSE: “Bullshit!”
The problem with the war is not that it has been misdirected. It was never “winnable” under any circumstances. But more importantly, you lying, self-serving, Democratic manipulators, the bloody military occupation of Iraq is an illegal, immoral, and imperial enterprise. It cannot be transformed into something good.
You cannot make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
I repeat again, and will recruit all I can to do the same: I will not vote for a single Democrat who votes a penny more for war, nor will I vote for anyone who does not call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. An exit is not a “strategy,” it is a command.
You cannot reformulate our righteous hatred of this war into “changing direction.” You will pay the price for taking us for granted. Bloody-handed, ambitious little skulkers. The death and horror mount each day while you pursue your creepy careers. You are not fighting Republicans for principles, but scheming after their jobs. You are now the main obstacle blocking the cessation of this criminality; and your goal is to contain us.
To hell with you!
We’ll sink you in the elections, and fight Republicans with rocks and bottles.
Send this to as many members of Congress as possible.
Jerry Bone:
The president, speaking as the supreme third grade teacher, once again lectured the benighted citizens about how important it is for our troops to be in Iraq. In a speech where the shadowy enemy al Qaeda was named dozens of times, he once again warned us,his children, of the dangers of leaving too soon, of the wisdom of staying the course, of catastrophe to follow a pull-out.
25 July 2007, 9:17 amNo doubt the thirty percent or so who still support this president’s imperial delusions were buoyed by this speech. Some of the starry-eyed religious fanatics may even be emboldened to send their sons and daughters to die in this latest crusade. Some of the hard-eyed realists of the secular right might be cheering this latest defense of our right to protect our national interests in someone else’s country. Some might even have felt moved to send money to one of the chest thumping morons running for president on the “no cut and run” ticket. Who knows? Maybe some of them even prefer the phased withdrawal proffered by some of the Democratic candidates.
Let’s face it, none of this will work. The only course open to us is to get out–now. It is time to welcome our troops home with an invitation to help us rebuild our country. It is time to bind their wounds, and ours, and set this nation on a course where we can become self-sufficient, peace-loving and worthy of the esteem which a great democracy deserves.
Call it isolationism if you like, but it seems to me that we are better served by digging a little deeper in Texas for oil than by wasting blood and treasure trying to control the supply in the Arab world.
Tinoire:
Great Stan. Reposted here with full support
http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=71624#2
Stan are you going to St Louis for the conference? If so, will see you there.
Also, comment to Jerry Bone… Totally agree.
27 July 2007, 1:16 pmJanet W:
While Stan was writing this on July 23, I was in DC, lobbying and going to hearings and… oh, yeah, waiting for my “status hearing” to determine whether I could be let off for cheering my senator’s speech about getting out of Iraq (CA Senator Boxer, 7/10/07) after being arrested, or would have to go to a jury trial. So much for having a moment of enthusiasm and emotional truth in the Senate Gallery!
In July I met a few members of Congress and lots more staffers. The absolute worst was the defensive sad man-boy in Arizona Senator Kyl’s office. But a close second was the chief of staff for democratic whiz-lady Nancy Pelosi of ultraliberal San Francisco. No, Madame Speaker can’t see you, can’t meet, can’t talk, can’t make time, can’t, can’t, can’t, won’t, will never, too busy, forever and ever, amen. This to a group that included a Marine Mom, veterans, students, experienced activists and definitely her constituents. Never mind if you’ve lost a son or friend or daughter, never mind if you’re a constituent, never mind if you’ve been walking the cold halls of Congress and the hot streets of DC for months on end… just fuck off and die, or words to that effect, and certainly body language to that effect.
Not all the Republicans are bad. Not all the Democrats are even close to good. And certainly the Democratic “leadership” in Congress is scared and clueless and accepting Bush and Co’s framing of the Iraq issues and leading us down to even deeper circles of the Iraq war/occupation hell.
So call and fax and go to DC if you can, not on a useless weekend protest of yelling at empty buildings, but during business hours of the workweek, and let the Dems know that if mama (of the dead son or daughter, or the deployed son or daughter) ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, and their bullshit doesn’t smell any sweeter than the Republicans’. In fact, it’s even a bit more noxious and foul, because they won elections last November on a promise to make things better.
On a rant tonight because I just met a woman whose grandson was murdered in Iraq in late July. I will never forget the bleak look in her eyes, or her saying, “So many things are new to me.” Very, very angry tonight, not for the first time, and not for the last.
29 August 2007, 1:45 am