We were given control of both houses, though just barely in the Senate, for a reason. The people did not want the status quo to continue.
Yet that is what we are doing....letting the ones who lost the election control the message and the agenda.
The most shocking was the vote in both houses of Congress to condemn an ad by MoveOn. It is as though the right wing called for it, and our party feared not doing it. Blunt, but pretty accurate.
It was a complete putdown to the activists of our party. It fit in with the rest of the votes taken recently. That condemnation just conveniently forgot all the lies that led to war, and squashed the hopes of "The Left" that our party stood with us.
Condemning anti-war activists while allowing lies to go unquestioned.MoveOn's "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.
MoveOn hit a nerve. In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject -- away from the administration's betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad! To take the focus off maiming and death and the breaking of our military, they talk about etiquette.The truth has reduced them to whining: MoveOn was impolite. Rather than face the truth, they use character assassination against an organization whose three million members stand for the highest patriotic principles of this country, the first of which is a commitment to truth.
Whose BetrayalI do not think we should have gone along with decreeing that Iraq be partitioned. It was never our right to do that in the first place. But most agreed anyway.
It was made clear that the Iraq war would continue to be funded even though we are losing and the crisis is intensifying.
But to me the most dangerous vote taken this week was the one meant to provoke Iran and make it easier for Bush to start a unilateral act of aggression.
Resolution about IranDespite the removal of the most directly threatening rhetoric, the resolution still endorses the position of the Bush administration--mainly that Iran is engaged in a proxy war against the United States in Iraq. The resolution urges the Bush administration to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization and urges the administration to impose strict economic sanctions on Iraq. The resolution--despite being non-binding--is a significant escalation in the rhetoric towards Iran in that it makes the claim that the Iranian military is a terrorist organization. The resolution also relies heavily on the recent testimony of General Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.
Apparently this was done without the administration having to provide proof.
1. The administration has not come forward with a single piece of concrete evidence to support the claim that the Iranian government has been involved in the training, arming or advising of Iraqi Shiite militias.
2. The U.S. intelligence community has not endorsed the argument being made by some in the Bush administration that the Iranian government was responsible for the rise in Shiite military activity in Iraq.
They voted for it without saying "where's the proof?"
The three top Democratic presidential contenders stood at the recent debate and refused to say they would bring the troops home from Iraq within 5 or 6 years.
Read between the lines. They as much as made it clear that all of them support continuing the occupation of that country.No explanations to the base are possible in campaigns like this. Again we are left to read between the lines. What I am reading is that in everything they voted on recently...they voted to continue Bush's policies on national security issues.
That is the legacy of the centrist Democrats who have controlled our party's message for over a decade. They say we must out-play the other side to look tough on national security. What they really mean is continue the policies.
They are now appealing to Bush's base in the run-up to the primaries. That is usually a time when they want to sound good to their own base. But they are not doing that at all. The right wing is playing strongly to their own base, and so are our Democrats..playing to the right wing base.
They have marginalized "the left" in their zeal to please the right.
Keeping "the left" in their place...may not work this time.It's a risky policy, but it's a planned one. It is not appealing to the center as some here say. When you vote to condemn your own, then vote to keep funding a war we are losing, then vote to make it easier for Bush to attack Iran....that is NOT appealing to the center. That is playing to the right.