Thursday, September 16, 2010

I Hate The War

Today's snapshot mentions Libbyliberal's post a Corrente but does't include a link. My apologies. In the post, she argues that those who would normally vote Democrat withhold their vote this November for the various crimes and ongoing wars. As noted in the snapshot, the likely outcome of the midterms is that Dems lose seats. That's historically the outcome and it's been the most likely outcome since at least February if not before.

So that's probably what's going to happen. Forget Libbyliberal's post for a moment. Pretend it wasn't written. Here's what happens in the weeks after the election:

*Dems lost.

*Dems lost because they were too liberal.

*Dems were out of touch and too liberal.

*The country doesn't like liberal.

*If Dems want to win, they're going to have to get more conservative.

If you find the above steps unlikely, you haven't been following elections for very many years. This is exactly what'll happen if the Dems lose the House. Instead of recognizing that ObamaCare is a poison pill for consumers and a gift to Big Insurance and the PharmaLobby, the claim will be, "See people don't want universal health care." Universal health care was not offered by Barack. There was and is nothing left about ObamaCare.

Barack has spat on the left forever and a day. He trashed the peace movement when running in the primaries. And sometimes we wrongly attacked the reporters. In some cases, the reporters took a statement and used it to attack the left. And they were doing that because the campaign told them to. What am I talking about?

I'm talking about the Barack campaign having it both ways. They encouraged reporters to read Barack's attack on protestors at funerals as protestors against the war. And we then (myself included) attacked the reporters. Which they deserved because the peace movement does not protest funerals. But what was left out of the story we all saw was that the campaign (and Barack) privately encouraged the reporters to read it that way, to read it that way and to run with it in the press that way to send a message on Barack's behalf.

Barack is a Corporatist War Hawk. That's all he is, that's all he'll ever be. And you can be damn sure that DLC Barack (the self-billed "New Democrat" -- which is DLC) and his pow-wow group will use a mid-term loss as their argument that they can't do anything and must move (even further) to the right.

Want to blow that (predictable) narrative? Make it clear that you don't support this crap before the election. Then there's a chance that the narrative after the election, should the Dems lose, has to compete with the reality that when Democrats sell out their voters, it will cost them votes.

But the only way that reality stands a chance of getting into the post-election analysis is if people right now start explaining why they're not voting Democratic and why their votes cannot and should not ever be taken for granted.


It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4422. Tonight it's 4424 -- we've switched to the DoD count and are done with ICCC. You can [PDF format warning] click here and add 1 for today's reported death (from yesterday).



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.