Safe Democracy: Up with “Eternal Vigilance” Down with “Falling in Love with a Candidate”

[McCamy Taylor]

Nixon's personal authority has suffered from Watergate, and power will return to men who better understand the nature of American politics. But it is likely that the major long-term consequence of the present confrontation between Congress and the President will be to establish executive power still more firmly…. More generally, the President's position is that if there is some objection to what he does, he can be impeached. But reverence for the Presidency is far too potent an opiate for the masses to be diminished by a credible threat of impeachment. Such an effective device for stifling dissent, class consciousness, or even critical thought will not be lightly abandoned.

Watergate: A Skeptical View
Noam Chomsky
The New York Review of Books, September 20, 1973

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19730920.htm

Today someone remarked that Baby Boomers are incapable of “falling in love” with a political candidate, in much the same way that a woman might complain that a man of her acquaintance was afraid of committing. This struck me as an odd comment. What does romance have to do with making an informed political decision? Falling in love is a process that nature invented so that we would answer the call to mate and reproduce or at least form family units that would allow us to pool labor and resources in a state of peaceful coexistence. Nature knew nothing of electoral colleges or proportional representation when it invented pheromones or HLA types. Politics came hundreds of thousands of years later. Voting for a political leader is a tiny blip at the end of the time line of human history.

Who thinks that they need to “love” the person they elect to lead them? People living under monarchs love their king or queen, because their ruler is chosen by God, and one is supposed to love God’s works. However, an elected leader is not infallible. He or she is hired on provisionally and can be fired at the whim of the people or the parliament if things don’t work out----unless you are living in a fascist state like Italy under Mussolini, in which case you are expected to love your leader. Love him so much that you surrender your power to vote and proclaim him ruler for life, simply because he is he .

Baby Boomers have seen a lot. Despite our names, we are not kids anymore. Most of us are getting on in years. Some of us are old enough for Medicare. We have seen beloved leaders like Franco and Mao and Stalin slaughter millions. We know what fascism—of the left and right—can do. We lived through Watergate, which revealed all the crimes of the American government----from the Whitehouse through the FBI through Congress. No one was innocent. Everyone was corrupt. The very act of wanting to go into politics was an indictment in itself, unless you were too rich to need anymore money and you ran as a Democrat. And the best Democratic president inevitably ran up against something they could not handle in office---their own Bay of Pigs Viet Nam or Iran crisis. Face it. There is no perfect candidate, because there is no perfect world. Shit happens and our elected leaders have to get their hands dirty dealing with it, and then the more fastidious members of our oh so idealistic party wrinkle their noses and say “Ooo, he isn’t all fresh and shiny anymore. Let’s ditch him for someone prettier. Someone we can love .”

And people wonder why Baby Boomers do not look around for some candidate with whom we can “fall in love”? You rent a prostitute. You do not look for one to fall in love with. And you keep an eye on your wallet. That is not to say that some of them do not have hearts of gold, but hell, if people had been a little more sensible back in the late sixties there would be a million more Cambodians still alive.

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all." --Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824.

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0800.htm

What is the difference between a Baby Boomer and someone from Generation X, named for the novel by Douglas Coupland? Gen Xers, born after 1965 do not remember Watergate or Vietnam or the assassinations of the 1960s. They do not remember the (successful) struggles for equal rights. They do not remember the sense of empowerment and solidarity. What they do remember is the sense of fatality that came from AIDS and the impending end of the world from nuclear holocaust which was deliberately piped into their homes 24-7 in order to make them crave Reagan's Morning in America. The entertainment world spoon fed them hopelessness and fear and the Republican government had the antidote. I wonder if Barack Obama, having spent his early years in Indonesia isn't a Gen Xer and if that is why he was able to speak admiringly of Reagan style or whatever it was that he complimented when he wasn't complimenting Reagan policy (because I heard him and he complimented something and it sure as hell wasn't the Gipper's hair).

Reagan gave Americans the warm and fuzzies, because he was a freaking actor. His administration was an eight year TV drama. He was all things for all people. You wanted daddy in the White House, you got daddy. You wanted a cowboy, you got a cowboy. You wanted an average Joe, well Reagan never pretended to be smart. He only pretended to care. Reagan was one great big cult of personality and Nancy was the high priestess tending his altar.

Today Robert Parry wrote that Bill Clinton could have taken down the Bush dynasty and the Reagan legacy by revealing the truth about the hostages for votes deal that Poppy made with Iran. I just love the way that people attribute superhuman powers to Bill Clinton. He was another president that people idolized. He was supposed to be the Great Big-Anti-Reagan who would magically wave a wand and reverse all the court appointments and mainstream media changes and income disparity that had taken place in the previous twelve years--- under the watch of an American electorate that had failed in its duty to be eternally vigilant. When I hear people bitch and moan about how Clinton could not make up for what Americans allowed Reagan-Bush to do, I just shake my head and wonder how did we all turn into such pathetic, spineless losers. Who voted in the Republican Congress in 1994? Bill and Hillary? Hell, no. It was us the American public. If the Democratic Party let it happen, it was because the Democrats fucked up.

About the hostages for votes deal, no one else had been able to get anyone to act on any of the information that had been released about that scandal before. The president of Iran during 1980 had told the world about it a few years later when he went into exile in France, and I am sure that he would have testified before Congress. The story was reported on NPR. But no one (especially not Congress) batted an eyebrow. Why not? Because David Rockefeller was the bag man. That election was all about oil. Had Bill Clinton attempted to prosecute anyone for that crime, his career would have been deader than King Tut.

However, even if VIP had not been involved, America did not have the stomach for hearing that its beloved Reagan's presidency was illegitimate, anymore than it could stomach the impeachment of its beloved Bubba. America in the 1980s and 1990s was in love with being in love with its presidents.

They did not like Al Gore, because he told them things about how they would have to make changes in the way they lived to save an environment they could not see. He tried to get them to think, when what they wanted to do was feel . So, when people like Michael Moore told them "You don't like Gore, because he is the same as Bush" that felt like a good enough reason to vote for someone else.



And when the World Trade Center blew up and W. batted his eyelashes at the American people and said "Trust me. I will make you feel good about being Americans again" they signed up in droves. All except Black folks, who had never felt good in this country, and Baby Boomers, whose motto is "Do Not Trust the Government" and the new oppressed minority, Latinos who comes from countries where you are dead if you trust anyone except your friends and family.

Katrina changed the way that a lot of people felt, because it felt bad to see Americans dying in flood waters in one of this country's historic cities. Had Katrina not happened, many people would probably rate W. up there with Reagan. Then the war turned bad. And the economy turned bad. And people started looking around for someone else to make them feel good.

And the press said "Psst. Over here. I have just what you're craving."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390609/campaign_08_the_radical_roots_of_barack_obama/print

The danger here is that the public has committed the cardinal sin of political love, forcing Obama onto the national stage before knowing him well enough to gauge whether he's ready for it. The candidate they see before them is their own creation ..."Barack has become a kind of human Rorschach test," says Cassandra Butts, a friend of the senator's from law school and now a leader at the Center for American Progress. "People see in him what they want to see."
BEN WALLACE-WELLS, Destiny's Child, Rolling Stone

Posted Feb 22, 2007 12:28 PM

Oh, to be in Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5smQ-mylLKI

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. So it's Gen X's fault that the Clintons and the Baby Boomers let Reagan/Bush get away with murder?

What the fuck ever. :eyes:

I didn't vote for Ronald Reagan and I didn't vote for either Bush. It's your collective bed, McCamy, and you and your cohorts can lie in it.

[RainDog]

4. It's laughable. really. Clinton also governed as a conservative.

That was the whole issue of the DLC. They said democrats had to move farther to the right to win elections and that is what Clinton did with his attacks on "welfare queens" and his support of Nafta and his record of more convictions for marijuana possession than his predecessors. (that must have been b/c of the whole "I didn't inhale" b.s.)

I didn't vote for Reagan or Bush either. But lots of boomers did. That's who put Republicans into office. It's ridiculous to try to claim otherwise.

[McCamy Taylor]

12. "Welfare queen" is Reagan's phrase. Please post a link to Bill Clinton saying it or retract that.

As for welfare reform, I would like to refer people on this board to Studs Terkel's Hard Times a collection of oral narratives about the Great Depression. One of the recurring themes in that book is the despair of people trapped on the Hoover "dole" and the optimism and increase in sense of self worth, daily satisfaction with their lives and themselves when they were able to start working again and learning careers under FDRs WPA. People do not like being idle and being given crusts of bread by a society that then blames them for all the ills of society the way that Americans tend to do with their "If you only worked hard, you would not be poor" attitude that even the poor internalize.

The solution to poverty is not the dole. The solution to poverty is health, education and jobs . That is what the communists understood. Everyone who is able to work should be entitled to a job. Work makes us feel valuable. It stimulates the mind and makes the days seem rewarding. It makes us feel like part of the community.

[papau]

13. What's laughable is pretending Obama is not just whatever you project onto him - "just campaign talk

is used by Obama to staff - but his fan club "believes" whatever they want to believe - including every lie and smear the sleaze campaign of Obama's David puts out about Hillary - all while Obama pretends to be calling for no more lies and sleaze being thrown at Hillary.

Thank God ABC THIS WEEK blew that Obama con job out of the water by disclosing they were putting out the recent sleaze and lie filled press kit while at the same time saying they were not doing so.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. There are days I wonder if biology has more to do with this than people give it

credit for

No, elections are not that old, in historical terms

But alpha males and females are as sold as biology

How a George Bush managed to get to Alpha Male status is a damn good question... but he did

And yes, people FALL in love with candidates because it is a biological decision, that alpha male (and soon I hope, not this term) woman, will allow me to fulfill my needs under Maslow.

Oh never mind.


After all people don't remember history either, and I may be getting too sciency, this late at night.

[RainDog]

3. Boomers were the ones who elected Reagan and Clinton by "falling in love."

You are either ignoring the reality at the time or are unaware because Clinton certainly DID woo the American public... answering the "boxers vs. briefs" on MTV and playing the sax on late night tv. Telling people "I feel your pain." Whoever made the claim about Baby Boomers not being able to "fall in love" are ignorant of Bill Clinton's presidency because he was most certainly a boomer candidate and boomers loved him.

All the lamenting you're doing about the people who voted for various office holders were the majority boomers. The ones who went from Woodstock to Wall Street. Boomers have acted just as stupidly as any other generation.

(and btw, you do not use the term fascism correctly. Fascism is identified as a right wing political manifestation. You could use communist to refer to Mao and Stalin and fascist to refer to Franco or "totalitarian" to refer to all of them. This was Hannah Arendt's way to identify totalitarians from both the left and right.)

Here you are again, mentioning Robert Parry... it appears to have made you really upset that an extremely talented investigative reporter is critical of Clinton. What Parry said was that Clinton did not pursue criminal charges when he had the power to do so in 1993 - BEFORE Newt's congressional revolution.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/052508.html

Parry also said that Clinton, by not putting republicans on the defensive, freed them up to spend Clinton's entire presidency hounding him with investigation after investigation. He didn't ascribe superhuman powers to him. Parry just noted that if Clinton had tried to oppose republicans such actions would have been better for us AND for Clinton.

But you're trying to say that, as President, Clinton had no power to direct his AG to look into Iraq-gate, for instance (in which Poppy Bush sold nuclear arms components to Pakistan via BCCI -- and in which Bush armed BOTH Iran and Iraq in their protracted war.) Or the October Surprise? Gary Sick, from the Carter administration, and Barbara Honegger, from the Reagan administration, both were on record (and later wrote books) that could have helped to expose the deal Reagan made so that the hostages were released AS HE TOOK THE OATH OF OFFICE.

This would have been a boon to democrats because it would have permanently put to rest the lie that Iran was "scared" of Reagan. No, Reagan paid them off. The public loved Clinton but it certainly didn't stop Republicans from investigating him. "The public wouldn't have it" is really a lame excuse.

If Clinton had been smart, rather than expedient, he could have informed those ignorant voters you mention via investigations that would have destroyed republicans. So whose fault is it that Clinton didn't work to undermine republican myths?

You are spinning b.s. to claim that no baby boomers fell into line after 9-11. And the voters that you are now trying to slam weren't even alive or voting when boomers put Reagan and Clinton into office.

In other words, Boomers are no different than any other sector of the American public. They "fall in love" with candidates. They didn't suffer anything worse than those who went through the great depression and fought in WWII. Do you really want to claim that the boomers' experience was so much more fundamentally traumatic? -- than witnessing a holocaust?

a little too melodramatic and self-aggrandizing for my tastes.

oh, and Chomsky has lots of bad things to say about Clinton.. which I assume you know, even tho you quote him to try to score points for Clinton.

[McCamy Taylor]

30. Anyone who thinks the American criminal justice system would convict David Rockefeller is a fool.

Read the whole article by Noam Chomsky. Nixon fell from grace only because he dared to name the rich and famous on his Enemies List.

As long as abuses of executive power are aimed at those without power, they are lauded. The minute justice is attempted against those who really run this country, the wheels are set in motion for The Coup. I don't know what Parry has been drinking, but the whole point of the right wing conspiracy against Clinton was to make sure that he and Reno were never able to do anything about the real criminals in this country, because Bill was always too busy defending himself.

I know what people like Parry secretly wanted (though they will deny it). They wanted Clinton to act like an American version of Chavez----tossing the law to the wind, disbanding courts, the press, doing whatever he felt like in the name of the "common good."

Well too fucking bad. That is the way to tyranny. The law is what keeps us strong and free.

[Raejeanowl]

5. I Can't Believe How Badly Your Post Is Being Misread n/t

[JohnnyLib2]

9. Guess I can. Sigh.

A lot of sighs, in fact. :banghead:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. If anyone is "misreading" it, it must be you.

The meaning of her post is crystal clear to me, which is unusual since McCamy's posts are typically a bunch of incomprehensible gibberish strung together with quotes from highbrow sources. But this time it's obvious that we're supposed to believe that her precious generation can do no wrong because stuff happened (on teevee) when they were young (and she's got the pictures of skulls to prove it!), such that even when they actually do stuff wrong like letting Reagan get in office and letting Clinton do nothing about Reagan/Bush crimes, it's not their fault ("the public wouldn't stand for it").

It is Generation X, according to her, that bears the blame for everything because we stupidly "fall in love" with candidates who give us the warm fuzzies, which is why we apparently all luurve Reagan so much. Even though most of us weren't even fucking old enough to vote for him. Oh, and it's our fault everyone fell in line behind W after 9/11. I don't know how my generations is responsible for Boomers like Hillary Clinton being eager cheerleaders for *'s bullshit justification for invading Iraq but I'm sure McCamy will explain that to us. Also, it's odd how McCamy's precious Boomers voted in the majority for GWB, the white ones did anyway, but we're supposed to believe that they are too smart to fall for warm fuzzies.

In short, it was her attempt to defend the failures of the Clintons and the Boomers by blaming everyone else but the Clintons and the Boomers.

[RainDog]

11. you're missing part of the context

as far as my reply goes. McCamy doesn't really know about Robert Parry's work, it seems, and she mischaracterized him repeatedly on another thread... so she is taking that here to this thread.

I would really urge you to check out his work b/c he's one of the best investigative journalists of our time.

[McCamy Taylor]

33. I know his work, which is why I am confused by this piece of tripe.

For instance, why did he specifically say that Obama did not introduce race when we all know that the Obama campaign issued the Race Memo which had three critical distortions/lies that the press (particularly NBC, MSNBC, CBS) and people such as Donna Brazile and Rep. James Clyburne and KO and Bob Herbert seized upon in early January to paint the Clintons as race baiters before the Obama camp issued an apology for putting out the press release? I could see this kind of lie coming from someone that does not follow the news but Parry is an investigative reporter. He knows the facts---or he should. Has he been asleep? Did someone else write this? Is he being blackmailed by the RNC into writing splitter oppo for the McCain camp?

I keep wondering what kind of information has the RNC been able to glean from the NSA domestic spying room. Are they playing 1972 style dirty tricks on all the nation's journalists? Is that why Lawrence O'Donnell wrote the flamebait "John Edwards is a loser"?

Why did Koehler of Tribune Media lie and say that he was going to have a story in all the Tribune papers about e-vote fraud in New Hampshire on the night of the New Hampshire primary and set the liberal bloggo-sphere at each others' throats? Did his editor lie to him or was he blackmailed?

Blackmail is one way to explain the mass insanity. And with Eliot Spitzer being hounded out of office for crossing state lines to see a call girl (when is the last time the Mann Act was ever enforced) and Martha Stewart doing hard jail time for taking a stock tip from her broker everyone can be blackmailed by the feds now.

Think about it.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

39. Huh?

I'm sure there's supposed to be some coherent thought in that incoherent stream-of-consciousness, but I'm at a loss to figure out what it is. :shrug:

[anigbrowl]

15. Apparently you can't articulate it either.

Personally, I object to using emotional triggers like horror (Cambodia) and guilt (Abu Ghraib) to set the reader up for a final insubstantial attack on Obama.

It's an old propaganda technique: argue that the people are flawed, offer up horrific examples of past political flaws, close with the unspoken implication that the current enthusiasm of the people is setting the stage for another disaster of epic scale. Notice how when McCamy posts along these lines, only the Obama campaign is considered in a negative light.

No mention of how Clinton has gone from being a popular likely winner among Democrats 6 months ago to being widely disliked today. In McCamy Taylor world, that is entirely the fault of the Obama campaign, of course; nothing that Senator Clinton says or does is up for criticism or reappraisal, because that would involve admitting that people have formed negative opinions, and undermine the narrative of 'evil media giants run it'.

No, the candidate of 'ready on day one', 'ready to answer the phone at 3am', 'dodging sniper fire', and numerous other slogans must always be taken at face value, whereas the other candidate's slogans are wicked and deceptive. You see, the people are unable to think for themselves; they are nothing more than the emotional slaves of Barack Obama. In McCamy Taylor world, Hillary has never made an emotional or pre-rational argument in her life.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

31. Also in McCamy Taylor world:

Eternally Vigilant Baby Boomers weren't too vigilant for the past 3 decades but suddenly have had their powers of vigilance restored due to Barack Obama (chronologically a Boomer but really a Gen Xer because he lived in one of them exotic furrin lands one time) pulling the scales off their now-vigilant eyes. Or something.

:crazy:

[McCamy Taylor]

34. I have great respect for Sen. Obama. I have concerns about many voters.

Those who can not see the difference are the same ones who will be shocked and hurt when their "perfect campaign" comes up against the hard, cruel reality of presidential politics in which you can not please everyone and many of them will be denouncing President Obama within two years. They will not stand behind Obama when he is attacked. They will say---as Parry is saying now of Clinton--- "If he were the man he pretended to be in 2008 he would never have been attacked. " And they will desert him, the way that Carter was deserted in 1980.

Except that I do not see Obama pretending to be anything. I see a bunch of deluded voters gushing about what a "perfect campaign" this is and about how Democrats need to "fall in love".

I hear Obama asking people to talk about the issues. I do not hear him asking anyone to fall in love.

[KSinTX]

6. What I love about my politicians is that they ARE the prostitutes

I think that reality is what keeps me from "falling in love" with any of them. While Wallace-Wells may accuse me of "political love" I disagree wholeheartedly; then again, I am the only one who knows my reasons for selecting Obama as my preferred candidate over Clinton, Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Kuchinich or Gravel.

The problem with much of the rhetoric being displayed on this forum is that it, like your editorial compilation, oversimplifies the relationship of the voter with their selected candidate or even the electorate's general level of knowledge about each one. For every 50 Kirk Watsons, there is perhaps one maybe two Claire McCaskills. The major difference between the two legislators and is exemplified by this post: the former draws from a dearth of research and independent deduction, and is merely carried along; the latter has done the hard work and drawn from it, rather than following a popular mindset then seeking to find supporting evidence after-the-fact.

For me, it was important enough an endeavor that I sat down and wrote an 11-page report on just my candidate's positions for my own consumption after doing a great deal of research. This was to reassure myself that I had sufficient evidence to support my conclusion. I would suggest that everyone who is decided at this point conduct a similar exercise. I think it would elevate the discourse.

[susankh4]

7. While it's nice to see the idealism of a generation in love...

it's painful to anticipate the let down.

Good post.

K&R

[anigbrowl]

16. Again the false implication that all Obama's support comes from people under 35.

[susankh4]

24. Well, there are also those who refuse to grow up.

[anigbrowl]

25. I see - if statistics fail, resort to slander. Useful to know.

[susankh4]

26. I learned it from the...

Axelrod of Evil.

You know... any opportunity for a character assassination:
http://tominpaine.blogspot.com/2008/05/rfk-assassination-character.html

[mrreowwr_kittty]

28. There are also those who refuse to take responsibility for their own failures

They choose instead to blame people who weren't even old enough to vote when Reagan came to power. Then go on to excuse fellow Boomers' support of Bush 2's insane policies, claiming that those durn Reagan-loving Gen Xers MADE them do it.

[LWolf]

8. K & R nt

[emilyg]

14. k/r

[ProSense]

17. "You rent a prostitute...million more Cambodians still alive." What a mush of nonsensical BS

Why don't you just title your posts: Please stop criticizing the Clintons - Part X

As for money scandal, who says that Democratic leadership gives a rat's ass if the nominee is connected with the mob or dirty money or any kind of corruption in Chicago? Having powerful, corrupt, ruthless friends might make Obama seem like a stronger candidate than Clinton who is currently broke. They might figure his buddies at the top will be quicker to close ranks and send out suitcases of cash behind the scenes to take care of unexpected problems. That is the way politics really works. We all know that the new kind of politics talk is just for the rubes at home.

Like the above (recognize it?), your OP is another attempt to excuse away Bill and Hillary's behavior with the claim that they're all the same.

As for falling in love with a candidate, from Hillary Hack, Reagan Democrat and BS artist Taylor Marsh (and just listen to what Hillary has to say):

A Conversation of Heart

BY TAYLOR MARSH

It was just between Hillary Clinton and bloggers who have her back.

I taped it for all of you so you could hear it for yourself.

Peter Daou introduces the call, which included bloggers who support Clinton, especially on getting the votes counted in Michigan and Florida. But invitations had absolutely nothing to do with blog clout or traffic. It was about talking to and thanking people, because we're all in this together. Clinton's appreciation is evident in every word exchanged. It reminds me of seeing her at the women's generation event in D.C. last week. When she came over, saw me, took my hands, then said, "Thank you. Thank you." That was the tone and message of the call from Clinton.

PODCAST: http://www.taylormarsh.com/podcast/mp3/stream.2008-05-16.134204.mp3">Senator Clinton Chats with Pro Hillary Bloggers

It's doubtful that anything surprised the insiders of the Clinton campaign more than the relationship Hillary has experienced with her online supporters, but especially the bloggers who have made the case for Clinton as time has passed.

We've got your back, Hillary. We're in it all the way.

Remember the cult meme? It was projecting by the Hillary camp.

Hillary's "some people" and Bill's "they" add up to pathetic. Who will clue them in that it's over?


Please don't trivialize genocide. There are still people grieving.

May 22, 2008 - 01:58 PM

Still awaiting justice (Cambodia)
Guest Editorial, by Senator John Kerry
The Lowell Sun

Last month marked the 10-year anniversary of the death of Pol Pot, a brutal and cruel figure who died peacefully in a small wooden hut in northern Cambodia without ever being forced to answer for his role in the death of nearly 2 million Cambodians in the Killing Fields. We also recently mourned the death of Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran, whose inspiring story of surviving those bloody years was a triumph of the human spirit amid one of history’s darkest chapters.

Thirty years after these atrocities shocked the world’s collective conscience, time is running out if the perpetrators are ever to be held accountable. The survivors still yearn to see justice served.

America and the international community must act now to support Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal.

Coming to grips with the past is necessary to building a better future for the Cambodian people—but after so many years of impunity, much work remains to restore the rule of law. Even today, human-rights abuses plague the country. Holding the worst offenders from the Khmer Rouge to account for their crimes will lay to rest a legacy of lawlessness and brutality. It will also send an important message to leaders of genocidal regimes like the one in Sudan, and brutal dictatorships like those in Burma and Zimbabwe, that the worst crimes will not go unpunished.

It was for these reasons that America helped the Cambodian government form a special court to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders. Of all Advertisement the work I’ve been a part of on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am especially proud to have played a key role in the tribunals’ creation—traveling to Cambodia time and again to help find a compromise structure that was acceptable to both the United Nations and the Cambodian government.

In the end, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), was set up less than two years ago in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh. Today, this hybrid court, where Cambodian and international judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and court staff work side by side with the Cambodian government, is finally prepared to begin its first trials of five of the most senior Khmer Rouge leaders who - next to Pol Pot himself - were most responsible for the killing fields.

Unfortunately, after several stops and starts, the court faces a looming financial crisis—indeed, there is a real danger that the ECCC will collapse before it even gets off the ground. Direct American support is needed. Unfortunately, since we helped to broker the agreement between the U.N. and the Cambodian government to establish the tribunal, the United States has declined to support the court politically or financially.

Make no mistake, our reticence has stemmed in part from reasonable concerns about the independence of the process and apparent financial improprieties. However, today most of these issues have been addressed, and the best way to ensure a legitimate process going forward is to get our country more involved in the court.

With American backing, we can use our financial leverage to improve the process. Specifically, our involvement could effect higher standards of transparency, independence, integrity, more effective witness protection, meaningful victim participation, and adequate anti-corruption measures. We can also assist ongoing U.N. efforts to ensure that the trials proceed fairly. That’s why I have proposed a modest contribution of about $2 million, dedicated to support the victims’ rights and witness protection programs run by the United Nations.

Recent history in places like Rwanda and Yugoslavia has shown that U.S. leadership can make the crucial difference in the search for post-conflict justice. Other international donors have been carrying the burden without us for years—and many are now beginning to suffer from “tribunal fatigue.” Even a minimal U.S. contribution of $2 million would help mobilize others to increase their support, while sending a message to the people of Cambodia and the world that America stands strongly behind our principles.

Cambodians have already waited too long for justice. Many children today have no recollection of their country’s torturous past—and some even doubt that the atrocities ever happened. Day by day, survivors die without seeing any accountability for the horrors that were committed, and without lending their voices to the record of history. A successful tribunal for Cambodia will continue the essential process that began with the Nuremberg trials of setting a standard for accountability and sending a message that the world will never forget.

Time is running out for Cambodia to make peace with its history. They need our help. As Dith Pran said, “The dead are crying out for justice.” We must do our part to make sure that these cries are finally heard.


Sen. John Kerry has represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 1984.

History Repeating Itself: Kerry-Brokered Cambodia Tribunal Set To Begin



edited for clarity

[AtomicKitten]

19. K&R this post.

:thumbsup:

[iamahaingttta]

18. Mmm... human skulls!

You just have no idea what you are talking about, do you Ms. Taylor?
Another barely comprehensible, and well... just plain wrong-headed post.

You might baffle a few here with bullshit, but you'll never dazzle us with brilliance.
That's for damn sure!

[cali]

23. amen. An endless stream of pretentious hogwash that reads

almost unbelievably badly due to prose that's a turgid mess.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

29. I love how she tried to turn Obama into a Gen Xer because he lived in Indonesia for a few years.

:crazy:

[grantcart]

32. I was debating reading this because she threw in Noam Chomsky.

[cali]

40. not worth it.

What's the payback for plowing through such hideously bad prose, filled with humongous errors and specious comparisons?

[Straight Shooter]

20. 2-22-07 (how prescient) Cassandra: "People see in him what they want to see."

I wonder if those who are "in love" with the Obama persona are also more likely to have "crushes" on movie stars and other entertainers. That would make an interesting study.

[SeaLyons]

21. -REC-

[scarletwoman]

22. Yes, we the American electorate are indeed a sorry lot. I couldn't agree more.

But I don't think age has much to do with it. We are all of us, young and old, swimming in the same sea of simulcra and continuous lizard-brain stimulation. Some few break their minds free, many more never do.

I was born in 1949, I've witnessed all this history, too. We have apparently come to some divurgent conclusions about what we witnessed. A common enough occurance among human beings who will always perceive the world through varying numbers and shades of veils.

One of the biggest problems I see with the American electorate is the whole longing for a savior thing. Presumably due to the Christian religion in which our culture is steeped.

I don't see any difference whatsoever in the degree to which this phenomena obtains in either camp. What is this urgency that so many women apparently feel about having a human in their own image attain the seat of power?

I only started giving grudging support to Obama in the last few weeks. He looks to me like a smart man, a good jui-jitsu politician, and he appears to have a genuine spirit. I've liked what I've seen in terms of executive ability and organizational skills, as well as his obvious intelligence.

It has nothing to do with "love". There's no call for denigrating each others' perceptions. Everyone is looking at things from myriads of angles, no one angle contains the whole reality.

For example, I have no idea why any leftist would ever want to return the Clintons and their whole DLC neoliberal coterie back into the White House. It baffles me simply as a matter of pure logic. Obviously, there is something else in the calculation. Could I not also justifiably ask if it's "love"?

I won't ask, however, because it really doesn't matter to me. I will simply assume that you came by your decision through the same sort of exercise of thoughtful consideration that I came by mine.

We are not enemies. Our enemies are the Owner Class and their Republican AND Democratic courtiers and servants. Neither Obama or Clinton are really on our side -- we will be betrayed no matter what, that's how it works. You just have to work with what you've got. It's silly for the proles to keep beating each other up over who has chosen the better Master.

Vote for the Dem, and then get down to the REAL work at hand of being eternally vigilant.

sw

[McCamy Taylor]

35. FDR and the Great Depression-->1960s. The people who saw first hand that the American

Dream was a lie and that the Socialists were on to something and that working class solidarity might be the key to our survival as a nation---people like Brother Malcolm and Dr. King and Walter Cronkite and LBJ came into their power in the 1960s and they used the lessons they had learned battling the Great Depression to battle the injustices of racism, sexism, anti-immigrant policies, anti-Native policies. They looked at the human face of America because that was what the WPA and Steinbeck and Eleanor Roosevelt did to bring America out of the Depression.

So, there really was a different breed of people with a different vision of American at work in the 1960s. They were the people who were young adults during the 1930s working within the FDR administration and they were the kids who grew up during that time. No one can ever overestimate the effect that seeing such a large portion of Americans out of work and out on the streets had on people. It changed the way that everyone thought about fairness and about hope and the future.

The 50s were the business class's reaction. They tried to put it all back in the bottle and cork it back up, but they failed in many ways. Oh, they had their cold war and their "duck and cover" and their red scare. They had people trying so hard to conform that they all looked like Barbie and Ken. But the people who were kids and young adults in that earlier times were not fooled and as soon as they came into their power, things shifted.

And then, when the kids from the 1950s came into their power, they shifted again, and we got the cold war and "duck and cover" all over again. We got Reagan instead of Eisenhower and we got the Federalists with their plan to roll the country back to the days before FDR.

The only problem was that all those kids who came of age watching the kids who came of age during the Depression were about to come of age soon---the Baby Boomers. The Baby Boomers never had to live through a Great Depression. They never knew want. They had great expectations and great self esteem. However, they knew how to question the system. They knew how to tear things down. And Lord help the system if they ever do experience a Second Great Depression. Because during the first Great Depression, the people were mostly lost and confused and ashamed. They wandered around on trains from city to city, looking for jobs.

If there is a Second Great Depression, the kids who grew up watching organized marching in Birmingham and LA and watching college kids burn their draft cards and women demanding abortion rights are going to tear the system down. They are not kids anymore. They are mostly even older than me. But they will be ruthless in their demands. This has got the elite class shaking in its boots. So they are looking for something that will placate the Baby Boomers. Something that will make them go "The government is on our side. It will take care of us."

Only you can tell from the way that the Boomers are divided that it isn't working. Boomer are a scary bunch. They do not love their politicians. They demand things from them.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

38. Bush beat Kerry among 45 to 59 year olds 51% to 48% in 2004.

Among white voters in that age group it was about 61/39.

Real demanding bunch, those Boomers. :eyes:

[ClassWarrior]

27. Good job reading too much into the "falling in love" formulation I used.

In the thread in question, which I posted yesterday, I quoted a friend who used it in the same sense that Bill Clinton used it in 2004, "Fall in love, then fall in line." She never meant it in the sense that people should join a cult of personality.

Way to fail.

NGU.

[DonCoquixote]

36. Gen X

Ms. Taylor, normally, because you have good intentions, I do not try to get angry at you, even though we are on opposite side of the issue of Obama/Clinton. I firmly believe that come October, we will both be trying our best to keep McCain away from the White House, which is much more than I can say about a lot of fake Democrats that pollute this site. However, you just slammed my generation, and I do believe that deserves a retort.

Let me start off with this:
" What is the difference between a Baby Boomer and someone from Generation X, named for the novel by Douglas Coupland? Gen Xers, born after 1965 do not remember Watergate or Vietnam or the assassinations of the 1960s. They do not remember the (successful) struggles for equal rights. They do not remember the sense of empowerment and solidarity. What they do remember is the sense of fatality that came from AIDS and the impending end of the world from nuclear holocaust which was deliberately piped into their homes 24-7 in order to make them crave Reagan's Morning in America. The entertainment world spoon fed them hopelessness and fear and the Republican government had the antidote.

On the contrary, while we did not experience these events personally, we were VERY aware of them. If we did get a sense of Fatality, it was not just because the Reagans hoped to program us, it was also because our world WAS a lot harsher than the postwar boom you grew up in. We did not need an assassination here or there to shatter our illusions; we simply slipped them off as soon a lot quicker than many boomers did. We knew that the world was fragile, and that rock and roll was just another swindle. We did not fall in love with anyone, much less Reagan. We watched specials where we saw artists like Kurt Cobain blow his head off, quoting 60's lyrics in his suicide note, and shouted "ASSHOLE!" at his funeral, because he thought we actually wanted him to follow the whole tried rock-star gag. We watched Rap grow, and then rot into another mass marketed wreck, but we did not feel bad, because we knew it would, especially since we knew the artists were the pawns of those old ex-hippie record club execs that gladly enjoyed profit margins soar, especially as CDS made an album twice the price to buy. We helped launch the internet, and then saw it decay into a mess. The point is, you painted us as people who could fall in love with ideas out of a desire to escape the hard facts of life. Au Contraire, we actually tend to be a pretty skeptical lot. We get called "slackers" because we realized that the American Dream was very much a rigged game, and that "empowerment" and "solidarity" are very often marketing ploys for those who stand behind the two way mirror.

That did not stop us from "rocking the Vote" in the 90's. When Bill Clinton played the sax on OUR show, Arsenio Hall, on OUR network, MTV, he was not doing it for the Boomers, he was courting a group of young people that was SICK OF REAGAN, that wanted Bush out because we were SICK OF RONNIE RAY GUN, because we knew we would have to pay the bill that stupid cowboy had run up for us. We made our voice heard, despite the voices of many baby boomers that hurled the same insults at us as many clinton supporters do now.

Which brings us to the talk of Boomers. Generation X has NEVER been, and will NEVER BE, a majority voice. The Milennials are much greater in numbers than us, which is why our demographic is banished to VH1. We were you young to vote for Reagan, and even if you could have gotten every barely 18yr old voter en masse, they would not have had the deciding vote. That honor belonged in part the the ex World War 2 types, aka "the greatest generation", but the largest generational voice is that of the Pepsi Generation. Hang on readers, I know many of you gagged at the thought of Reagan in office, but Ms. Taylor is trying to say we gen Xers loved Reagan, despite the fact we cast our votes for Hillary's Husband.)

Now, I am not going to lie; some of the best anti Reagan voices come from Boomers that have not forgotten what it means to want true change. For that matter, many of the real clear voices comes from the "greatest generation" that remembers how FDR saved America from the GOP. However, I will not stand by and let someone say "OH, the reason the young people do not support Hillary is because they lack a generational understanding."

Oh no, we DO understand, we understand that experience does not always equal wisdom. Experienced people got us into this fine mess the country and world are in. Experience does not always stop people from doing stupid things, or following a pattern of self-destructive behavior. For example, as far as her recent RFK gaffe, I do not think for one moment that Hillary really meant to encourage someone to shoot Obama, or to profit off the specter assassination still has, but someone with her experience should have known that was a STUPID thing to say. Her knowing it was a stupid thing did not stop her from doing it, any more than her knowing that lying about sniper fire was stupid stopped her, or knowing that offering the chance to "obliterate" Iran. Experience can offer someone wisdom, but when someone just decides they will do what they wish anyway, experience is useless! My experience, as a gen Xer, says that I will not fall in love with a candidate. I do not love Obama, and indeed, plan to put his feet to the fire to make sure he does what needs to be done, but I cannot support a candidate that had shown a willingness to pander to the worst instincts of people, and then attack anyone who calls her out on it as being "sexist."

Anyway, Ms. Taylor, unlike many Clintonistas, I do NOT plan to vote GOP if my candidates loses, and I do look forward to focusing my venom on that much easier target, McCain. But if you make blanket statements about why Generation X is such and such, expect a reply.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

37. Wow. Great post.

Welcome to DU and thank you for putting into words what I, a fellow Gen Xer, lack the eloquence to do. :hi:

BTW, I recently was hanging out with some young Dems of the so-called "Millenial" generation and one of them, a very impressive young man and a recently returned Iraq vet, confessed to me that many people his age (early 20s) resented us Gen Xers. Resented us?? I quipped facetiously, "Whatever for? It's not like we did anything momentous. We were slackers!" He replied that was exactly the problem. Ouch. But I still think our generation is making a profound mark on the planet, though we may not get (or demand) a lot of credit for it. It is our skepticism and self-deprecation that has led to the development of phenomena like blogging and The Daily Show. We may end up saving the world because of our mistrust in its institutions.