2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum"Bernie, Paul Wellstone & An Immoral Vote for War ...... " Sen. Wellstone died 13 years ago today ..
I will never forget the tragic day when we learned of the small plane crash that killed Wellstone, his wife, daughter and five other people:
Bernie, Paul Wellstone And An Immoral Vote For War That Disqualifies One Democrat From Being President
And, today, it's worth joining Paul and Bernie together to highlight a key similarity: their opposition to the Iraq War contrasted with Hillary Clinton's embrace of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld illegal and immoral war--and why that vote should disqualify her from being chosen as the Democratic nominee for presidency.
'Wellstone, an astonishly great Senator' ~ I could not agree more! There were so few back then that we could count on to try to stop the lying, warmongering, traitors who started us down a path that THEY said would last 'months, weeks' which some of us, including Wellstone and Bernie did NOT believe and turned out to be tragically correct.
``There are people who will not vote for Paul Wellstone because he's too nutty left,'' Lilly Goren, chairwoman of the political science department at the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota, said recently. ``At the same time, there are people who will vote for Paul Wellstone even if they don't agree with his politics because he's willing to speak out on stuff.''
I commend to you both Paul's speech and Bernie's speech, and how remarkably similar they are in touching on important issues--like valuing the lives of people who would be sent to war including the thousands of people who would be killed in Iraq.
Stand up please: is there any Democrat among you who believed those three people, all of who should have been impeached and removed from office for lying to Congress and the American public and/or indicted later for war crimes?
There was at least one: Hillary Clinton. This was the most consequential vote she cast, as a U.S. Senator, when she had the power of a vote.
This wasn't just one vote--as people argue who want to cover up the devastation this vote caused for political gain.
At the cost of tens of thousands of lives, American and Iraqi, and at a financial cost of $2-$3 trillion dollars (and counting--based on the analysis by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz), Hillary Clinton voted for the war.
At the feet of Hillary Clinton, and all those who voted for the war, lies this reality: the war spawned ISIS. But for the war, ISIS, and the fracturing of the entire region into a landscape of carnage, would not have occurred. And because of that carnage, thousands of more people die in the region, and we pour billions of dollars more into more war and more war.
Today, she lamely, and disingenuously, says, oh, it was a mistake to vote for the war--but she never quite explains what the mistake was...
Was it that she believed Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld--which would, at the very least, disqualify her as being entirely incompetent to judge such a momentous policy decision of war and peace, a moment when it was her vote to cast, as distinguished from serving the policy of someone else in her role of Secretary of State (a role that remains, in my opinion, pretty hazy beyond the campaign hagiography about what she actually accomplished).
Was that she didn't bother to read the National Intelligence Estimate, which was available to Senators to view in a secure room, before voting? Former Sen. Bob Graham has publicly stated that he urged her to read the Estimate because he said it demonstrated the falseness of the Administrations stated rationale for the war. He specifically urged Clinton to do soand she did not bother to do so.
Hillary Clinton's war vote was entirely about one thing, and no matter how much fog and fraudulent weak papering over the sycophants want to do today, tens of thousands of people lost their lives and we lost trillions of dollars we could have used for schools, health care and a whole host of things for a simple reason: Clinton's future political career and the need for her "to look tough" if she wanted to stake a claim to what the Clintons view is their right to the presidency. If she wasn't incompetent in her believing the Bush Administration, then, there is no other explanation. You see the bind, the obvious conclusion that no one wants to say repeatedly until we get a straight answer?
Look, the traditional media seems to not dig very deeply into this and Anderson Cooper was more interested in red-baiting Bernie Sanders than pressing Clinton about her vote for the war.
And you can live in a fantasy world and believe all the other promises, and you can believe the flip-flops on TPP and Keystone are real (I'm looking for a bookie to place a bet that, if god forbid, Clinton is sworn in on January 2017, within a year, there will be all the moaning and whining about the "new" positions on trade, Keystone) and you can turn a blind eye to what the phrase "I get things done" and a pledge to working with Republicans means (uh, you think Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of the Catfood Commission, who held a one percent fundraiser for HRC, with the candidate in attendance, won't be trying to dust off that immoral Commission document and convince her to make a deal to implement that shit, which is effectively a cut in Social Security and Medicare) and on and on.
But the Iraq War consequences are fact, not debate.
Thousands of people wake up every day in this country still devastated by the loss of a father, son, mother, daughter or friend who was killed in that illegal war. They were sacrificed for politics. Their lives tossed away for political gain in the status quo global machinations of power and leverage and influence.
Tens of thousands of others will live to the end of their lives with horrendous wounds that will never heal. Personally, when I hear HRC and others utter that completely empty phrase "I support the troops and honor their sacrifice," I feel deep revulsion, almost to the point of wanting to puke, because it's a political phrase with not an ounce of authenticity.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed and wounded in the war. The lives of those who survived remind me of that phrase "The living will envy the dead."
This is what a political revolution is about. It's the integrity inherent in the memory of people like Paul Wellstone, and in the integrity in what Bernie Sanders represents.
People who will not let people die for political gain.
The rest of them: it's all the status quo. And a status quo built on bloodshed and violence.
We cannot--CANNOT--let that status quote have the reins of power. ever again.
RIP Senator Wellstone! Our nation suffered a great loss that day!
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Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Kicked and Rec'd.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)'woke up thinking about him every day'.
I still remember the moment when I heard about that plane crash. It was simply devastating.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)The way he spoke of Wellstone was very moving and inspiring, a great leader.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)principles which at that time, were not 'acceptable'. It took courage to stand up against the Bush/Cheney cabal.
I'm glad he had people around him, like the young man you speak of, who appreciated him.
kenfrequed
(7,865 posts)He had the courage to stand against the war that Hillary and company were happy to back.
I have frequently found it irritating how the left seems to get it correct the first time and how frequently we are dismissed by corporatists and moderates who seem to get it wrong the first two or three times. I dunno, I would like to think that if I saw a bunch of people that were correct as often as the progressive left I would feel inclined to listen to them.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Hydra
(14,459 posts)The support was just not there- nobody on the Dem side of the voting block was buying it. They needed someone to shore up the support and make it look legitimate, and she stepped in to make that happen.
Since then she and Bill have been adopted into the 1%, and even into the Bush family. They both paid in the blood of others to gain that. That alone provides MAJOR problems for us- do we REALLY want 4-8 more years of Poppy Bush policies?
Can our world even endure that?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)hoping that Congress would stop the madness, or at least that EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT would repudiate the lies.
I listened to Sen. Byrd's speech and felt hopeful, and then Hillary, who I fully expected to vote 'no' stood up.
The fact that I was so shocked at the time, tells me now how little I knew her.
And they want us to forget this? All those lives lost, all the horror, the torture, the lies, the human suffering, the troops lost.
I listen to Wellstone and Sanders and Byrd and they were so right.
I will never, ever forget those who allowed the horrors, still ongoing, to happen. Never.
madfloridian
(88,117 posts)Lots of tears around here. Right wing sites gloated.
So tragic.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)people who were thinking only of politics.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)(Posthumous) Democratic Senator from Missouri, who died in a plane crash almost exactly 2 years before, and just before he was elected, posthumously, to the Senate. If both Carnahan and Wellstone had lived, the make-up of the Senate in the early Bush years would have been different, since Wellstone and Carnahan's wife (who had been appointed to fill her late husband's position for 2 years) were both replaced with Republicans after the 2002 elections.
pacalo
(24,721 posts)RIP, Paul Wellstone. I admired him so much.
bluestateboomer
(505 posts)Paul Wellstone spoke to, my union, the CWA's convention in Minneapolis. I remember being very impressed and hoping he would be running for president. I was very saddened by news of his death. I try not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it does seem that the good ones leave us so much sooner than the evil ones. I miss you Mr. Wellstone.
MasonDreams
(756 posts)Scruffy1
(3,256 posts)Seems like we've been going backwards every since. Just more middle of the road sameness. I will never vote for Hillary for anything The very thought of 8 more years of business as ussal depresses me.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)Bernblu
(441 posts)in_cog_ni_to
(41,600 posts)He's one of my favorite people. He was always someone you just knew would do the right thing. He always said what he meant and never shied away from speaking truth to power. He was a rare politician who actually understood why he was in Washington - to work for the people.
People loved him for his frankness and honesty. And because of that, had he been able to run for President, he would have won and our world would be a better place today.
I will always miss him and always think about 'what could have been' had he lived.
The day he died was a tragic, tragic loss for this country. It still makes me sad to think about it - 13 years later.
Thank you for this tribute post Sabrina. He deserves to be remembered and honored.
PEACE
LOVE
PAUL
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)He was a mixed bag, sad that he died but DOMA voters and Patriot act voters are not really my idea of great progressives.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)To oppose that war took some courage and conviction. People like Bernie and Paul had it, Hillary either lacked the courage, or actually bought what the Bushies were shoveling. Neither reflects well on her.
Not totally convinced that Wellstone's death was just an innocent accident either.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)so outspoken against the War Mongers who were occupying the WH at the time.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)While Wellstone was at this Campaign HQ on University Ave in St Paul the day before his vote,
he relayed this story to the staff that was thee.
He said that Dick Cheney had confronted him with a direct threat to Wellstone and his family .
"If you oppose this war, I will get YOU and your family."
I was not there that night, but trust the other campaign workers who were there. All the stories were consistent.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)'woke up every day thinking about him'. So this story that Cheney threatened him, doesn't surprise me at all.
They were desperate to get that war going. What they did to Valerie Plame tells us how ruthless they were.
I have no trouble believing that Cheney threatened Wellstone. He seems to have a temper, remember his 'fuck you' to Leahy eg?
Why that man is still unindicted is beyond me. But he can't control what his legacy will be. History willl write that and when you are as despised as Cheney is, I doubt history will be kind to him.
Uncle Joe
(58,366 posts)Thanks for the thread, sabrina.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)I know I am A day late, but thank you for your service.
cpompilo
(323 posts)R.I.P. Paul Wellstone
&
WIN, Bernie, WIN!
Kip of
Kip Humphrey
&
Carol Pompilo
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Died to save us from our corrupt so-called leaders. Stay restless and uncoopted, Paul.