The Democrats Political Gambit

I started to write a comment in response to Armando’s excellent essay asking the question (and I’m paraphrasing), Why are the Democrats given a pass in the media about Congress’s ability to end the Iraq war by doing nothing? But as I continued to write, I decided it was probably more appropriate to be a seperate essay (my first here at Docudharma) rather than a comment, because it was this very issue back in February of this year that led me to my opinions and conclusions about what the Democrats were planning to do.

So with that in mind, my response continues below.

I believe the Democrats are cognizant of their Constitutional powers: (a) impeachment and (b) power of the purse. They are also aware of where their constituency’s opinions lay. They also know they can end the war by doing nothing, but they refuse. On the basis of these facts and assumptions, this has led me to one conclusion: they are completely complicit with the whole damn mess. They don’t really want to end the powers this president has grabbed. Instead they want to inherit them for themselves in the next election. This discovery eight months ago made me very angry and my rant followed.

Since that time, I was no longer surprised by any of their own undermining actions. Afterwards, everything the Dems did in Congress to make it look like they were trying to do something for the common good, looked staged and half-hearted to me. And everytime they allowed Bush to get his way 100%, it was just like another slap in the face to me. They understand that their much needed legislative bills will go nowhere. So even though they are pretending to be upright and for the Constitution, they use excuses we know are false. It is all part of their plan to discredit the GOP and it is their hope that we wont catch on to their political gambit. But many of us that read these blogs are too smart for that kind of nonsense. John Conyers was called out on his own blog about this very fact several months ago. All Congress had to do was let the money appropriation funding this war expire and pass legislation that only allowed for redeployment of troops back to homestation.

But as I said before and truth be told, they don’t really want to hold this president accountable. Instead they want to show the GOP as having a pattern of obstruction and incompetence. Thus, by not exposing the unconstitutional grab for power, they want to preserve these powers and inherit them come election. Take for for example the recent showdown between the White House and the House Judiciary Committee. They had the option to level inherent contempt charges at the White House. It would have been wholly appropriate given the situation. But again, they refused to use their power to enforce a subpoena and knowingly went the dead end route of filing criminal contempt charges.

We must face the fact that our government is corrupt and illegitimate. A Coup d’etat occurred in the 2000 election and they now refuse to give up their hold on our government. As long as there is a good chance of seeing a Democrat as president, Pelosi and Reid will continue to subvert any progressive efforts and preserve them for the Democratic Party. They will window dress it as democracy, making it look like something we know as democracy, but face it, we will never see meaningful oversight or anyone held accountable for wrong doing. We will never see Congress exercise their power of the purse. We will not see the impeachment of ANY official in this administration. They will not use their power to file charges for inherent contempt of Congress. And unless we put even more pressure on them, we will never see our troops leave Iraq.

I’ll even go one step further to suggest that they are making a political gambit and using the current situation to garner political capital in order to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. She will tow the party line and be complicit with her lobby groups. She has already said she will not end the war in Iraq and her voting record proves that she might even think about attacking Iran. All of this, of course. will be at the expense of more human lives.

To win back democracy, we will need a movement: a revolution. This revolution does not necessarily need to involve bloodshed, but it will certainly need to include all these milestones. We will probably also need help from foreign countries. The worst part is that we can no longer afford to allow the politicians to play their political games because time is of the essence.

We are on a great cusp of human history. One that will never ever again be repeated. There are many paths that lead to destruction and very few that lead to enlightenment. The problems are numerous, global, and unprecedented. They include: peak oil, global warming, exploding populations, political unrest and a return to cold war ideologies, a pending economic collapse, unrestrained energy consumption, environmental destruction, and the re-emergence of bigotry and torture.  If we continue to go down our current path, it is foreseeable that we could lose all of our technological advances and achievements in knowledge. It is entirely possible that we could enter a dark age ruled by hate, fear mongering, myth, and rumor.