Farewell, Democratic Party

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Mon, 26 Sep 2005 01:18:16 EDT

Farewell, Democratic Party

 

I'm sending this to my senators and asking them to pass it around to

other democratic senators...to tell them it is being passed around the

entire internet, even to other countries -- of how the Americans are

waking up finally and our own democrats are betraying us and not

standing with us. Their role is to represent us. That is why they were

elected and we trusted them to do so. What I'd like to know is why?

Are they afraid? Do they think it is too partisan for their image to

stand with the very people that elected them? They want to seem

" " " " fair? " " " " The question begs, fair to whom?

 

Farewell to the Democratic Party

by Mike Whitney

http://www.opednews.com

 

The leadership of the Democratic Party never tires of their role as

doormat to their Republican overlords. Fresh off their stunning defeat

in the John Roberts appointment to the Supreme Court, the main

players, Clinton, Dodd, Kennedy, Biden, Kerry and Feingold announced

they won’t attend the massive antiwar rallies in New York or

Washington. Even now, when the public perception of Iraq has shifted

as dramatically as two plates in the San Andreas Fault; the foremost

sentinels of the party are too timid to budge.

 

What a useless collection of stuffed shirts and pompous windbags. Even

the moniker “Democratic leadership†is an oxymoron. Their solitary

interest is perpetuating their own miserable careers and reveling in

the childish vanity of their office. They’d rather see the nation

bullied and plundered by autocrats and sadists than jeopardize their

precious tenure in Congress and their lofty aspirations for

higher-office. After all, standing on principle might torpedo their

chances for a lucrative job as lobbyist with the defense industry when

retirement rolls around.

 

Where’s Hillary Clinton when her loyal supporters need her?

 

Working on a strategy to send even more young Americans into the Iraqi

meat-grinder or currying favor with the pro-settlement crowd for

another 37 years of occupation?

 

Clinton is the face of the Democratic Party; the standard-bearer for

compromise and capitulation; another free-market, neoliberal,

war-mongering sock-puppet for big industry and finance. She’s

pro-war, pro-NAFTA, pro-Patriot Act, pro-Israel and pro-anything else

that greases the path to the swivel chair in the Oval Office. She has

never once railed against the horrors at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib,

never criticized the abusive round-up of aliens in the war on terror,

never challenged a system that starves its enemies and sluices

billions into the pockets of corrupt corporations. Perhaps, she thinks

she can grovel her way into the White House, but that’s doubtful.

The present occupants seized that piece of real estate by force and

won’t be surrendering it anytime soon.

 

And where’s horse-face Kerry and the mad-doctor Dean; champion of

the antiwar throngs?

 

Kerry was more than eager to lead the charge in Iraq. He even claimed

he had a “winning strategy†for the conflict. Now that the

Massachusetts Senator is safely ensconced in the bastions of the

ruling-elite, he is only too pleased to send other mother’s sons

“to be the last man to die for a mistakeâ€.

 

As for Dean, his role as party chairman has further divorced him from

the grass-roots movement that bolstered his candidacy. His failure to

show up at the antiwar marches is a public disgrace. He owes his whole

putrid career to the antiwar movement and now he spits in their face.

 

I know the Democratic Party; I worked in the party for 3 years as

program chairman. The people at the grassroots level are as fine as

anyone you’ll ever meet. They are overwhelmingly against the Patriot

Act, the Iraq war, the unlimited incarceration of terror suspects,

NAFTA, and the abuse of detainees. But the goals and aspirations of

these people will not be realized through the vehicle of the

Democratic Party.

 

The party system is as clogged, arthritic and unresponsive to change

as their mirror-image, the Republicans. The party has been co-opted by

elites who set the agenda and subvert any effort to upset the status

quo. They endorse the same imperial mayhem as their rivals, albeit

with greater eloquence and diplomacy.

 

The conventional channels for transforming the political organism have

all shut down; the system is broken. No amount of effort will alter

the outcome within the present paradigm.

 

The only avenue for political change is massive popular movements that

disrupt “business as usual†and send tremors into the corporate

towers. Democracy won’t reappear in the form of Hillary Clinton or

Howard Dean. Forget-about-it. We’re looking at a decades-long

struggle to reestablish fundamental human rights and stop the

incessant whirring of the war-machine.

 

We need foot-soldiers not politicians.

 

------------

Mike lives in Washington State with his charming wife Joan and two

spoiled and overfed dogs, Cocoa and Pat-Fergie.

 

Contact Author

 

OpEdNews.Com

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_whi_050925_farewell_to_the_demo.htm