Salon: Kerry/Feingold amendment in line with American opinion

[TayTay]

An article in today's Salon talks about the two competing Democratic amendments on a withdrawal from Iraq. The article cites recent polling to say that, of the two, the Kerry/Feingold amendment is the one that is more mainstream and more in line with the current thinking of the American electorate.

From the end of the article at: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/06/20/iraq/index.html?source=newsletter (It's in the War Room section, written by Tim Grieve.)

Of course, it's "possible" to bring U.S. troops home tomorrow, if only there were the political will in Washington to do so. Would a U.S. withdrawal really make matters worse in Iraq? The Iraqi people don't seem to think so. Bush said Monday that talk of a deadline for troop withdrawal -- and again, the Levin-Reed proposal has no ultimate deadline -- "sends chills through the spines of Iraqi citizens who are wondering whether or not the United States has the capacity to keep its word." But in a poll conducted earlier this year, 70 percent of Iraqis said they want to see a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Back home, a new CNN poll shows that a majority of Americans also want a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and 47 percent of the public wants to see a deadline of a year or less -- suddenly making that "extreme" Kerry-Feingold-Boxer measure, which calls for the withdrawal by July 1, 2007, of all troops not involved in training, seem pretty darned mainstream.

The president warned Monday night that an "early withdrawal" from Iraq will "embolden" Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. But it's a little late to be talking about "early," and the terrorists are seeming pretty emboldened as it is. A day after a group linked to al-Qaida claimed to have two missing U.S. soldiers in its custody, a senior Iraqi official tells Reuters that the soldiers have been found dead, and that there are signs that they were "tortured in a barbaric fashion."

If the report is correct, the U.S. death toll in Iraq now stands at 2,506.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. We are the majority we are the mainstream

The major media has thrown in with the Republican minority for whatever reason. I am starting to think that the only plausible excuse is that they truly are part of the military-industrial complex and just think that war, any war, is good for them economically. What other reason could there be? They make DEMS be DEFENSIVE about sanity and cheerlead Republicans with their morally reprehensible and fiscally insane policies that would not stand up to the SLIGHTEST amount of scrutiny from an unbiased media.

The Republicans have waged a war of opportunism badly. NOTHING they say makes any sense whatsoever. We have marshalled our army as an occupation force to make them convenient targets. That whole "we are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" is lunacy. We're just making their ( the enemy's) commute easier. We should have put the same energy and money into REALLY strengthening the internal security of our country.

edit for clarity

[blm]

8. You make a great point - - war profiteers should NOT be in charge of any

nation's media - especially a nation who claims to be a free country.

[DaveT]

15. Absolutely!!!

The mainstream media are part of the ruling coalition, senior partners in fact. Not every company within the oligopoly of media corporations has as much of its operations tied up in "defense" as NBC (as an arm of General Electric), but all of them are allied behind the goal of ultra-right wing control of the government.

The specific list of goals includes:

1. Lowering of taxes

2. Diverting government expenditures away from individual entitlements to contracts with corporations -- especially, but not only, "defense" related

3. Reduction of government regulation over business

4. "Free" trade -- letting capital go wherever it can get the best return while discouraging other countries from taxing or regulating corporate operations



The general strategy for realizing those goals is to create a controlled politics with the narrow band of debate steadily shifting to the right. Political ideas that do not fall within the accepted boundaries are not directly suppressed, but instead are ridiculed by a phalanx of "populist" voices who are extremely well paid to laugh off as craziness any idea that might make people aware of how this system works.

The most significant element of controlled politics is how the Democratic Party's candidates are put under a spot light of withering personal scrutiny. The attacks on Gore or Kerry (or whoever is next) come from all points of the political compass -- with lies and half-truths getting as much respect and "balanced" coverage as any legitimate dope they can dig up. Meanwhile, the GOP candidate is respected and portrayed exactly as his handlers want and all "irresponsible" attacks coming from the netroots are laughed off.

And if all this doesn't work, the GOP has an active voter suppression campaign at work in every election cycle that knocks a few percentage points off the Democratic total.

Finally, millions of votes are now counted without verification -- and the above described ridicule regime buries anybody who claims that process favors the GOP.



The biggest failing of the progressive movement in 2006 is a lack of a unified acknowledgement of this state of affairs. So much of what you read here on DU involves either advice for, or condemnation of, what Democratic politicians say on Television.

Of course, our candidates must take their best shot within the main stream media -- but without opening an alternative mode of national political conversation we will see Rove's dream of permanent GOP government come true.

Until the next Great Depression.

[blm]

22. I agree with every point - media machines and voting machines are already

rigged against us.

To not face this fact means certain defeat for democracy itself.

[saltpoint]

2. I think the Kerry-Feingold alliance is powerful. That's a lot of

brain power concentrated together on an imperative moral question.

The more you are in line with the Salon piece, the less the Bush administration's management of this war persuades, and the more ground Bush loses for advancing his "We can't leave 'til we win" agenda.

The Executive Branch is not under attack from leftists in this scenario. It is under attack from its own self-inflicted mismanagement and abuse by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Bolton, etc. The whole bunch.

In the very next week after Bush's so-called upturn in momentum on the war, the Senate is telling him, in effect, that it will assert more influence over foreign policy. Part of that may be that Bush is increasingly viewed as a lame duck, and the other part -- I think the larger part -- is that he's perceived as being an idiot puppeteered in ways that are not in the country's best interests.

[wisteria]

3. It is good to have reinforced what I believe to be a certainty.

The American public wants out and an end to the war with as positive outcome as possible. The Repubs have their own agenda and are playing up the war once again for political reasons, but I can not forgive the Democratic leadership for their silence and lack of leadership on this issue. For gosh sake, take a real genuine stand. The consensus amendment throws a bone to those who want soldiers home, but lacks any meat. It is a weak amendment that will be ridiculed by the Republicans for its lack of conviction and strength. Yes, they will viciously attack the Kerry/Feingold amendment, but that is because it really packs a punch. It says what the Republicans don't want the public to hear,that it is time to leave the Iraq's lead their own country. Yet, our party is so afraid of three little words-"cut and run", that they refuse to fight for what they know is the correct path. The end result

[The Stranger]

4. If the people are for it, then what hideous force is preventing it?

[flpoljunkie]

5. That "hideous force" would be Rove's "cut and run" mantra for the mid-term

election in November--repeated ad nauseum by the Rethugs and willingly amplified by the complicit M$M.

[blm]

6. Rove supplies the hideous "cut and run" and corpmedia supplies the force

to spread his lies.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Well said, blm!

[bigtree]

7. Damn right it is

so was his position on the war throughout.

[TayTay]

9. The Rethugs are bluffing on this

They are the ones who are in the minority and the ones who are refusing to acknowledge that the American people want a real change in policy and direction in Iraq.

Cong. Murtha said that the American people are way ahead of the Congress on Iraq and what needs to be done. The poll cited in the Salon article agrees with Murtha on this.

[LittleClarkie]

11. But according to the "consensus" being in line with the American people

will not help them in 2006.

Will SOMEONE explain that to me, because I just... don't... get it.

[blm]

21. That sounds like nervous pols afraid to TRUST the American people over

Bill Clinton's strategists.

[BeFree]

12. What war?

Is Iraq really a part of the 'war on terror'? Is Iraq the keystone of the wot, and if it is, hasn't bush messed it up beyond belief?

I would think if a poll about the 'war on terror' were taken, 2/3 of the people would say go to war. They are scared.

If we can peel Iraq away from its keystone status in the wot, the ties that bind would be broken and even more folks would know that getting out of Iraq, asap, is the right course.

---------------------

We need an open discussion of the war on terror. Many of our people have the wrong idea about what that 'war' entails and how it might be pursued.

Me? I am against war. Alas, I am in the minority. So I see ending war as a matter of education flowing from conversations between the two sides. I fear not the outcome, I know peace would win.

The fear rooted in most Americans must be overcome. How else can we do that if we don't try to understand its roots? How else do we do that if not with an open discussion? The media BIG$ won't allow it, so we need to be the media.

[ray of light]

13. IN LINE WITH mainstream America! That's the point we need to make

[dogday]

14. Not just the mainstream, over 70% of the soldiers

polled by Zogby want this war to end as well.... That should count for something....

[blm]

19. Another aspect of the story that corpmedia refuses to discuss.

,

[ProSense]

16. "pretty darned mainstream"

Did the MSM take note that Barbara Boxer got the third most votes of any candidate (only the two presidential candidates got more) in 2004? Liberal it's just as mainstream as anything thing else, and definitely more mainstream than the crap the MSM and GOP are pushing.

[sutz12]

17. Not to mention their VP and Pres asked us to leave...

But that didn't get any play in the MSM.

Of course, Bush said we'd leave when they asked us to. I guess he never thought they'd have the balls to do so.

[blm]

18. That was the most under-reported story of last week. Corpmedia REFUSED

to touch it.

[w4rma]

20. Looks good. (nt)