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CounterPunch
September
14 / 15, 2002
Lacking Tenacity
The Telling
Signs of Timid Democrats
by Josh Frank
With a backwards administration gutting social
services, butchering the environment, and unashamedly scrambling
to war; the gates of liberal dissent are left shuttering in their
wake. But who holds the essential keys to stop the parody? Our
cheerful Democrats do. From day one of the Bush administration's
tenure, Democrats possessed the moral high ground to protect
those that can't protect themselves, and save the environment
from the fools that have sought to destroy it. But with an ever-increasing
persistence to please corporate donors, the Democratic Party
has been stupifyingly reluctant to do what is right.
A thorough critique could date back to
the Carter administration or the list of Clinton debacles. But
why go back 10 or 20 years when the last year's worth of ruin
has the world in an uproar? September of 2001 marked a change
that many didn't see coming. The United States fell victim to
perhaps the single worst crime against humanity in the history
of modern civilization. Terrorism and war have become common
household parlance, and our shrub president an American icon.
Behind the scenes the Bush administration was busy dismantling
our civil liberties with congress's approval of John Ashcroft's
Patriot Act, giving authorities the right to enter a person's
home without the person ever having been informed. So where were
the Dem's on this one? Far from the scene of the crime. The only
dissident vote coming from Senator Russ Feingold, who just happened
to be one of the few Dem's to help Attorney General Ashcroft
achieve his royal fervor.
At about the same time the Patriot Act
was formulating and the cronies pushed their homeland agenda,
bombing in Afghanistan began, Bin Laden the target. The oppressive
Taliban regime was taken out, but not until after millions of
hungry refugees fled their villages in fear. With their country
left in disarray, a representative government is still not in
place, pockets of guerrillas lurk throughout the country side.
Terrorism still as large a threat as ever, so where were the
prominent Dem voices? Still at cocktail parties in Washington
I suppose, with only a few opposing Dubya's plight. One prominent
figure being Ohio representative Dennis Kucinich, who made quite
a dandy of a speech in California acknowledging the toll of innocents
that our bombs have piled up. Thousands of Americans rallied
behind him, Kucinich's office flooded with emails and phone calls.
Oh how progressives cry for leadership. Funny how political breezes
silent our elected voices. Senate leadership sailed idly by,
while an island of progressives organized and pled for justice.
Next came the scandals. No not the cigar,
but the multi-million dollar CEOs escorted from their penthouse
suites in pin stripe suits, while thousands of their own workers
were laid off and saw their pensions digitally evaporate. A cigar
must have felt pleasant compared to what Enron's ex-employee's
received. Bush and Cheney should have been nervous. Their good
buddy Kenny Lay was the front runner for questioning. Hell, even
their own business dealings with Arbusto and Haliburton mirrored
Enron with spooking similarity. Where were the Dem's? Wouldn't
they want to ask some questions? Kenny Boy helped develop the
Cheney Energy Plan from crying out loud! The Republican's were
in frenzy over the intern, but the Lieberman/Daschle team only
half-heartedly tried to get Cheney to answer up. But Enron contributed
hundreds of thousands to ol' Joe and the other Enron Democrats,
funny they didn't have many questions to ask. Bombs still fell,
and Iraq was looking better and better as the next oily target.
Where was our collective voice of reason in DC?
Then in late August the Bush administration
proposed a deranged forest plan imitated after legislation Democratic
Majority Leader Tom Daschle slipped into a bill a month earlier.
Daschle's language allowed logging on First American's holy land
in the Black Hills of South Dakota, without having to abide by
environmental restraints. Not only did compromising "green"
organizations turn their heads, dirty Republicans then pondered
to see what they could now get away with. Any dissention this
time around from the ol' demmies? Nope. How could they? Hypocrisy
is the worst ailment a political party could have, and the Democrats
are ill. A good front of House Democrats did try to stop Fast
Track from passing, but failed with a couple dozen of the team
Demers deciding to swing from the right. The senate was worse,
with Montana Democrat Max Baucus leading the anti-worker-anti-environmental
fast track bill through. Lofty high-rise reasoning democrats
have little reservations when it comes to qualms of free trade,
with their voting patterns as glaring mementos.
So back to Iraq. Here we are, facing
a deadly war, with perhaps 100,000 American troops needed for
the proposed "regime change." Where are the dissident
voices in congress? The streets are shouting, a thousand in Portland
alone, hundreds of Peace Rallies on the September 11th anniversary.
But did the Dems show up at these gatherings? Are they asking
tough questions to the Bush Administration? The Democratic Leadership
Council won't rock the boat on this one, they are "waiting
for evidence." To hell with the evidence, why won't they
look at the facts that we already hold? Millions of lives will
be ruined, billions of dollars spent, the United Nations opposes
it, key ranking Republican's oppose it, a large majority of Americans
oppose it. Our elected hogs wallop in their lack of tenacity.
Some House Democrats are finally speaking out, but it will take
more than a few to change the hawkish high tides to protest.
The blinding reality that our "liberal
leaders" consistently push aside progressive ideals, will
only prove to discourage more voters in the United States. When
grass root candidates take aim at the centrist Democrat party,
don't think that they, like their present elected officials,
will stand lethargically by, pissing their convictions into the
political winds of Washington.
Josh Frank
lives in Portland, Oregon.
He can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com
Today's Features
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary
of Occupation
James C. Faris
Riefenstahl
at 100:
The Fascist Aesthetic
Gary Leupp
Presidential
Honesty on Iraq
Tarif Abboushi
A Conversation
with My Arab-American Self
Ron Jacobs
Shelter
from the Storm
Rick Giombetti
Paxil
and Addiction
Krystal Kyer
From NAFTA
to CAFTA
Another Rotten Trade Deal
John Jonik
Overcome
in Philly
New
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to Subscribers:
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Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
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Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
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Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
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September
12, 2002
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary
of Occupation
James C.
Faris
Riefenstahl
at 100:
The Fascist Aesthetic
Gary Leupp
Presidential
Honesty on Iraq
Tarif Abboushi
A Conversation
with My Arab-American Self
Ron Jacobs
Shelter
from the Storm
Rick Giombetti
Paxil
and Addiction
Krystal Kyer
From NAFTA
to CAFTA
Another Rotten Trade Deal
John Jonik
Overcome
in Philly
September
11, 2002
Anis Shivani
How to
Survive in Ashcroft's America
Pierre Tristam
Abusing
the Sorrows of 9/11
David Krieger
Resisting
Bush's
"Relentless War"
Jerre Skog
9/11 One
Year Later:
Remember the Others, Too
Dave Marsh
Illegal
Music?
A Sampler's Delight
Norm Dixon
How the
Warmongers Have Exploited 9/11
September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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