John Kerry wrote an impressive piece for Huffington Post against torture. Some conservatives criticized what he had to say, but the most scathing retorts came from -- you guessed it -- the Kerry-hating left.Stop whining and act, or get out of the way and retire already.
Or will we hear Rep Kucinich calling out "Don't tase me bro" while Kerry stands senatorially at the podium.
"OK, enough double-talk and obfuscations from the Republicans."
Yeah, it's OUR turn for double-talk and obfuscations.
Isn't this a little like responding to the Swift Boaters AFTER the election?
Would someone please tell me what good it does to elect Democrats and then watch them cave to Bush and the Republicans at every turn.And on and on and on. This, in response to Kerry decrying the Bush administration's use of torture. There is virtually nothing that any Democrat can say or do without engendering "progressive" Dem-Hate.
Will the purists turn even against Kucinich? Yes. I know that those words may seem unbelievable now, but mark them well: It will happen.
6 comments:
It does seem that when a mainstream Democrat comes out in support of a progressive goal, progressives should thank him and give him the benefit of the doubt. My political views are probably slightly left of Kucinich, but I applaud Kerry for this like I applaud Dodd for his stance as well.
It is a great deal more difficult to understand the position of people like Schumer and Feinstein. Confirming a man who is pro-torture and who believes in the unitary executive theory (aka fascism) to the nation's highest law enforcement post is nothing short of bizarre.
Let me get this out of the way first, but it's not unrelated. On 9/11/01 I was living in Pittsburgh, and in the early afternoon I watched live TV reportage from Shanksville, where United Airlines Flight 93 went down. The PA State Police were in control of the site; the FBI hadn't got there yet. Several eye witnesses independently reported similar events: they heard an explosion before the airliner hit the ground, they saw a white unmarked quiet jet fly over and disappear. Several persons said a plane by law must have markings. Everyone who saw that white plane said it had no ID markings anywhere. After the FBI showed up, none of those witnesses' statements were shown/heard again, except for references to what they claimed. A day or two later on ABC (Peter Jennings), a senior reporter (I don't know these guys' names, but he's familiar) told ABC's audience that ABC has the official word: the US military did not shoot down Flight 93 (doh!). It had also been widely reported that no planes were scrambled during or after the first reports of hijackings, or after the attacks in NYC and DC. Of course, those reports about not scrambling were early lies, but understandable. Because of the reports of a small white jet without any ID markings, I assumed it was a subcontracted or CIA or whatever plane, and it shot Flight 93 out of the sky. I assume it because (1) Flight 93 had to be destroyed, and (2) you can't rely on a US-trained pilot to carry out an order to shoot down a US civilian passenger plane over Pennsylvania because the pilot might refuse, and you don't get a second chance. As we know, the reports of that white plane have been written about, and tossed off with distractions and other feats of dissembling bullshit. Yet none of the 'official' or MSM explanations refer to the absence of ID markings (to my knowledge).
It doesn't matter what laws against 'torture' get passed because 'torture' can be cut-out, subcontracted, and outsourced, and probably is.
Why doesn't someone like George Soros, or better yet, why don't all Democrats, including the PeePees, raise something like $10 million and offer it to Lewis the Scooter to talk on camera?
The far left is becoming nearly as troublesome as the far right. The fallacy of America is that middle ground can be met on any issue.
the middle ground is what got all this mess started in the first place.
you do no what the term purist means don't you?
It is a profound mistake to consider progressives all of this alleged intolerant stripe, and indeed, another profound mistake to find their oft-times well warranted distrust and distaste for a mainstream politician's trimming and spinning as some kind of 5th columnist internal treason to Democratic Party ideals.
Progressives include such politicians as Kucinich, the late Paul Wellstone, maybe a Feingold, and maybe 60-70% of the House Democratic Party caucus, and many in the rank and file who are like them in their positions. Even when they take fiery positions, and they have and do take them, which in their implications are entirely damning of their opponents, it was rarely personally framed, nor any kind of scorched earth policy against their ideological opponents.
Plenty of progressives take exactly this kind of tactic, opposing in their primary races the kinds of mainstream politicians who trim and spin their various apostacies from progressive positions, while returning to the (D) mark in the general election.
So, this kind of progressive voter makes up part of the party base. If a small part of the so-called progressives 'purists' are arguably harming the party's chances by an over-insistence on pure positions, how much more damage would be wrought by attacking the core constituency of the Democrats in their progressive wing, when they have the temerity to complain that the party is straying over to the dark side?
There are many ways to be counterproductive, and while I think the PPs so-called do some damage, condemning mainstream progressives for their entirely reasonable critiques of the party's direction and tactics is likely worse, IMO.
....sofla
NOT HOMELAND BUT HOME
To criticize one´s country does not make one communist,
Though we look back and laugh at Joe McCarthy,
Yet lives were shattered as appeared upon his famed blacklist,
As calumnies made many people swarthy.
Despite a brief remission if we call it a disease
This terror of "the Other" is in flare-up,
Because the fits of prejudice and condemnation seize
As new breeds of accusers get their hair up.
Today instead of "communist" the moniker is changed,
One is but vaguely called unpatriotic,
"Terrorist sympathizer," so the charges are arranged
To make minds independent feel neurotic.
One is denounced, by slanders trounced, as even dares to question
The wisdom of a course of action chosen,
Whilst lungs fill with accusatory globules of congestion
Spewed forth in spite, discrimination frozen.
It was a "vast conspiracy" that very few denied,
As happened in the early Nineteen-Fifties,
When communists appeared to be ensconced on every side,
As sympathizers, Red-lovers and softies.
"Appeared to be" and "seems to me" reflect the unabated
Thrust of the argument, as often charges
Pursued their stopless course although as unsubstantiated
Means set whereby hysteria enlarges.
Good lives were ruined while praises crooned of persons more unworthy,
Collaborationists as now reveal
The transcripts of proceedings part occult and part unearthly,
As we by hindsight label them unreal.
Collaborators with hysteria never serve the truth--
Yet in these days we find so many joiners,
Demanding never proof but innuendoes as uncouth,
Of false descriptive phrases are the coiners.
The names are vast and varied but what difference is a name
When no criteria as underlying
Corroborates the charges--to my brethren´s lasting shame,
Wherefore it feels "democracy is dying."
As liberals, leftists, softies, or the new phrase socialists
(Which means but "communist" transformed in garb),
So men are slandered as to queers imputed limper wrists,
Varied and multifarious each barb.
Yet, in this nation´s history--believe--there was a time
When criticism was classed as a duty
Borne of the citizen and not a furtive sneaky crime,
Nor in this can a slanderer refute me.
It bothers me to think that my misguided thoughtless brothers
So easily align them with the chorus,
When we who criticize are rather lovers, not self-loathers,
Of home despite her faults and flaws before us.
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