Three days that transformed America (UPI: GOP solidarity splintered)

[HereSince1628]

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051117-090928-6137r

Three days that transformed America
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- On Thursday, a Democratic national politician for the first time managed to do what former Vice President Al Gore, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, their running mates and more than $150 million of Democratic consulting and campaign resources signally failed to do in more than five years and two national elections: He mauled President George W. Bush.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania as he called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from that country.

<Snip>

Now, he has transformed the political dynamics of the Democratic Party. He is the first prominent Democrat since former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in his meteoric lightning rise and fall in 2003 to early 2004 to attack the president head-on on Iraq. In January 2004 in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Democratic voters overwhelmingly repudiated Dean's bold stand against the war and not a single leading Democrat since has dared to oppose it outspokenly and consistently.

<snip>

Murtha's speech was the third of three political body blows to hammer the president in this, yet another "black" week for he man who just a year ago was reelected to a second term with more votes than any American had ever received in history.


more...

[jazzjunkysue]

1. I don't know, yet, what the deal was, but this debate is good.It cracks

the veneer of the pretense we've sustained since 9/11. Ok, it wasn't an immediate success, but, taking down the power of 9/11 isn't going to be easy. "Immediately" is a really tall order, no matter which side you're on. But it moved the earth, and showed the PNAC that they're vulnerable. It showed the B*** crime family that the dems aren't backing down, and this is going to be a really long 3 years, if the chimpster actually lasts that long.

This is also good for '06. "Stay the course" is becoming "Read My Lips" and some of us with a little gray hair remember how that became a 300 pound garlic around B***1's neck. This is how solidarity crumbles.

The next resolution will be more do-able, and the vote will go better. Maybe 6 months, or some reduction formula, but it's better, already, than the unchecked spector of unending war and occupation.

[Mutley]

2. Lol, hell, I'm only 26 and I remember how "read my lips"

became a 300 pound garlic around Bush senior's neck. And you're right about "stay the course". We who are for the troops coming home and ending this war are no longer in the minority. The majority of middle America -- Bush's so-called base -- has turned its back on this war. Things are finally beginning to turn around.

[HereSince1628]

5. Clear thinkers, free from the psychosis of the sunk-cost effect

are realizing that throwing more US lives at the problem isn't making it any better, and maybe is making it worse.

If you look closely, no war supporter seems to be able to articulate exactly how a military solution can be made to work, without wrecking the economy and destroying more families in the US.

Yet, many of those supporters of the war, because of psychological correlates associated with conservatism (like having overly strong belief in rightness of their cause) are easily swept into the vortex caused by rhetoric that sounds like it worships soldiers even as it argues more should be sent to their demise.

Thankfully, representatives like Murtha, are shaking their heads clear and calling for a change.

No gaming of votes on resolutions is going to change that. Indeed it grows more and more obviously an untenable political game.

[ronatchig]

3. In the meantime

Consolidation of corporate rule of the people of the United States goes unabated. Even if Bush et.al. were driven from office today, the grip that the Super-citizens have on the necks of Americans will only tighten.
Without action to curtail the dominance of Corporations in American politics we will continue down the road of Fascism that is the rule of the land in our country. Regardless of GWB's fate.
Who in congress is fighting the spread of Multinational consolidation?
I have hope that the atrocities of the Bush administration will stain the true rulers of America with the tar brush of the evil of Fascism.

[pretzel4gore]

4. like a bloodsuckker, the mediawhore can't let go...

UPI is full of crap. Bush is doomed from the very nature of his scheme; hell humanity might wanna survive. Trying to put the bush extravaganza in the middle of the history book and saying 'that's normal politics, folks' giggle giggle ignores the role BEST REPRESENTED HERE by pigs like those behind this little bottle of snake oil...gore, kerry, the $150 million would have destroyed bush had the pigmedia paid any attention (too busy sukking the punk off!)
God i hope such items as this gets the UPI bosses and senior liar martin sieff hanged, someday, for treason committed even after the fact...
(bush lost the '04 election; it's possible that NOT ONE SINGLE HUMAN voted for the bush, that's fact, all anyone needs...)

[ThomWV]

7. Do You Always Shit On The Foot ....

Do you always shit on the foot of someone who is trying to help you?

[drduffy]

6. Ronatchig is absolutely correct, IMO

continuous war
keep the poor suppressed
reduce the middle class
eliminate personal freedom
increase fascism, control and the police state
fill the coffers of the corporations
fill the coffins with the dead

every night I do a PR (Pat Robertson) towards all the neocons and plutocrats - at least the ones I know. I wish I had a complete list. I know I'll probably suffer bad karma for the prayers of death I send out into the ether but.... just think how many innocent lives would be saved if the neocons and plutocrats, fascists et. all were suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. I would wish for the rapture to come but it wouldn't take enough of these bastards simply because the bulk of them have no religion except paranoia, avarice/greed and self-aggrandizement and a complete and utter disdain for the rest of the human race and the planet. So I view my PR as a worthy project.... ;>}

p.s. anybody got a good, comprehensive list of these sob's? Just think, if we could ID them, we could begin to picket their homes, demonstrate against them as they arrived in the turbo Bentleys to their offices, their Repuke think tanks ad nauseum. We could begin to educate the American people to their existence and raison d'tre. We could begin to shine the light upon this private, hidden evil.

[HereSince1628]

8. If it's Fascism, it's not your great grandparents Fascism by any means.

Fascism is a bundling of many into one. A basic notion to a federal system like the United States. The fasces symbols on either side of the senate podium and the back of the Mercury head dime atest to the power of this concept within the United States. Fascism is the united one made from many which in Latin is stated succinctly as: E Pluribus Unum.

The Fascist movement in Europe as it grew in the late nineteenth century and blossomed in the early twentieth century, despite various counts of 7 to 27 shared elements attributed to fascism is quite unlike where Bush and the republicans are taking the country.

Facism grew out of the middle class...The republican movement for which Bush is the ostensible leader is destroying the middleclass...
Yet it is most certainly enabling corporations as the "person" the government serves. Bush's push for an "ownership society" is nothing more than a not so lightly veiled promotion of the preemminence of corporations within his world view. In fascist ideology one unit would not have had such an elite position. All units were to serve the nation and the nation had the elite position, hence Italy's fascination with nationalism.

This is not to deny in anyway that the practical fascism of German Nazism, or Phalangism as practiced in various new world dictatorships haven't been extremely corporate friendly. But that is arguably due to corruption rather than the underlying ideal. Fascism was intended to unite government, industry and the people into one body (corpus thus corporatism in the Fascists sense) with the single purpose of edifying the nation.

The current republican movement for which Bush is the ostensible leader is intended to destroy much of the Federal government. The propaganda line is that this elevates the power of states(thus capturing the supporters of the old state's right movement) but in practice it is intended to free interstate and international corporations to operate free from federal regulations (environment, labor laws, social security responsibilities etc.) and taxes that enable the federal government to operate. It facilitates the greed and immoral practices of corporate citizens like ENRON.

I would argue that Bush and his movement are taking us backwards deep into a history that is free of strong federations. Back to a time of small states, back to a time when the power that wealt provides enabled the rich to subjugate the poor. Indeed back to a world of feudalism. The difference this time around is that feudal lords are not biological persons but corporations represented by elite Barons of Boards of Trustees and the Corporate CEO Captains.

[drduffy]

9. So I still wish I had a list

of all the.... shall we say..... feudal barrons and barronesses so's I can pray for their demise.... a heart attack here... an embolism there

[HereSince1628]

10. Yes, well generally after a time, they lose their heads as a class action

In the mean time we can wish them short lifespans and expensive illnesses to help keep their wealth in play.

Also we can hope for a few benevolent masters amid the mass of evil kulaks that are going to be created.

[jazzjunkysue]

12. I liked this little thread so much, I saved you all in my buddy list.

Thanks. This was a rather eloquent thread, HereSince1628, mutley_r_us, ronatchig, pretzel4gore, ThomWV, and drduffy. The last 5 years all make sense when you look at the big picture, the true goals of the current robberbarons. Taken one day at a time, very little of it makes sense.

If not for DU, I would have really gone insane, because nothing the GOP ever does matches what they say. The orwellian nightmare really does wear you down in isolation, and my friends and relatives can only take so much of this.

I appreciate you all. We're going to run the bastards out in '06, and then impeach this poser. It's only logical that the GOP's puppet would eventually hang himself. We'll be there to tell the world.

[Clark2008]

11. Bullshit

Other Dems have attacked the president head-on about Iraq - Wes Clark, Dennis Kucinich, Paul Hackett, to name a few - but these fuckwads in the media keep ignoring that.

:eyes: