By Sunsara Taylor, Revolution #57, August 20, 2006
Many people see Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut Democratic
Senate primary as a statement of massive disgust at Bush, and at the
Democrats for kissing his ass. It is. But Lamont’s victory over Joe
Lieberman in the primary is not something that will impact
the current intolerable direction things are heading. Instead, there is
a whole other way to go that has the potential to really put
a halt to the crimes of the Bush regime. And the system- the media and
the people who really run things-are telling you this themselves if you
listen to them.
MSNBC put out the following analysis and spin right after the election result was announced: “Though
polls show U.S. opinion has turned against the Iraq war, Ned Lamont’s
victory will heighten Democrats” vulnerability to charges of
unreliability in the war on terror.”
Stop and think
about that: polls show opinion has turned against the war, but being
against the war heightens the Democrats” vulnerability! How can this
be? Wouldn’t the “logic of democracy” dictate that adopting a popular
position would be a plus instead of a “vulnerability”?
No. It
has already been decided that the terms of things are going to be over
who can most aggressively prosecute the so-called “war on terror.” Of course, nobody asked you if those should be the terms – you just got told that. But if you don’t like those terms, self-delusion won’t help. You need to put your energies and resources into something else!
In
line with what MSNBC told you was going to happen, the right-wing noise
machine flooded the airwaves with messages from the most powerful
people in the country practically accusing Lamont of aiding al-Qaeda.
Am I exaggerating? Vice President Cheney said that the election of
Lamont could encourage “the al-Qaeda types” who want to “break the will
of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and
complete the task.”
And then there is the fact that
defeating Lieberman in the primary didn’t even push him out of the
race-he just registered as an independent and already garnered support
from many around Bush. Rather than repent his support for the war, and
his slavish association with Bush, Lieberman went on the offensive,
saying Lamont’s position on the war “will be taken as a tremendous
victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this
plot hatched in England.”
As a backdrop to all this, the
Bush regime-with the unanimous, and one might say rabid, support of the
leaders of the Democratic Party-was continuing to green-light Israel’s
demolition of Lebanon; to press ahead in their bloody occupation of
Iraq that is spiraling into civil war; and to jockey and position for
an even wider war against Iran and possibly Syria.
Delusion and Self-Delusion” Or Confronting Reality
Across
the blogosphere, liberal radio, and progressive people were abuzz with
self-delusional boasts that the Lamont victory is the opening salvo of
a “takeover” of the Democratic Party and a sign that the country is
finally bending to the will of the majority who oppose George Bush and
his wars.
First, Ned Lamont is not that antiwar.
His web site features his position on the war, starting with a
statement from him that: “Our troops are making their country proud
with their service.”
No, they are not. Those troops were
ordered to invade Iraq in the service of empire. Abu Ghraib”Haditha”the
emerging exposures of rapes and massacres that may well be revealed to
have been ordered or at least encouraged by commanding officers” This
war is not something to be proud of. This war on the world, and the
occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan) are not wrong because they are
“not working.” They are wrong because they are illegitimate, unjust,
and immoral.
Lamont does have differences with Bush. He says
that “[T]his war is not making us any safer. It’s time for U.S. troops
to move to the background and let the Iraqi people step forward and
take responsibility for their own destiny.” But Lamont’s starting point
is wrong. Bush launched this war to expand the U.S. empire, not to make
“us safer.” And Lamont’s position on withdrawal is awfully vague.
Recent news accounts report that he favors a one-year withdrawal
timeline for U.S. troops.
Time again for a reality check.
What do you think things will be like if the Bush juggernaut is not
halted a year from now? As Larry Everest wrote in Revolution #56:
“There
is a murderous and potentially explosive logic at work here. On one
hand, the Bush regime is compelled to stay on the offensive to realize
its goals: any slowing down could stall and/or derail the whole
juggernaut. What they”re doing on a world scale requires an unrelenting
offensive, a dynamic in which any hesitation or retreat works against
their aims and could potentially unravel the whole thing. This means
that they are not going to easily pull back in the face of obstacles
and difficulties, for example in Iraq, but instead envision battling
through years of turmoil and upheaval to create their new world order”
They are driven to push on through-even “escape forward” from the
contradictions they face and create by widening the war, to both
maintain its momentum and because they feel they can only deal with the
difficulties they are facing on a larger stage.”
Shortly
after the primary results, Lamont appeared on Bill O”Reilly’s show.
There, Lamont said that in a “worst case scenario,” which was defined
as a wider regional war, the U.S. could not withdraw from Iraq.
What
if Lamont defies the odds, sucks up the energy and resources of people
who are outraged about the Bush regime, and gets elected to the U.S.
Senate? Maybe he wages a lonely fight for a pullout of US troops from
Iraq, sometime, maybe. Meantime, Bush and the crew of Christian fascist
crusaders and neo-con McWorld-by-force fanatics push on and on, and the
situation becomes more horrific, and more dangerous. And most tragic,
as I”ll come back to, is the part about sucking up all the energy and
resources of people who want to put a halt to the crimes of the Bush
regime.
The Democrats Are Lashed to the Mast of the Ship of State” But Why Should We Be?
As
much as there are Democrats who at times criticize how the war on Iraq
was initiated, or even how it is being handled today, now that the U.S.
has invaded they are concerned first and foremost with preserving the
strength, unchallenged power, and overall interests of the U.S. as an
imperialist empire, including in Iraq and the wider Middle East. If you
listen, it is from this perspective of preserving America’s strength
that Lamont criticizes aspects of how the war has been waged: “We are a
much stronger country”when it comes to the war on terror when we”re
true to what we stand for, and we”ve compromised a lot of that over the
last few years” That weakens our country.” It’s not that the Democrats
haven’t noticed how many people in “their base” hate this war, it is
that the particular role the Democratic Party plays is to pursue imperialist interests while at the same time leading “their base” to believe that it is their will that is being expressed.
In a recent article in Rolling Stone,
Al Gore was quoted as saying, “We”re all, in some ways, lashed to the
mast of our ship of state here. Because the little group at the helm
should resign. You know, Rumsfeld and that whole gang have made
horrible mistake after horrible mistake””
This metaphor, of
madmen at the helm (steering a boat), and the Democrats lashed to the
mast of the ship, is revealing about the role the Democrats play. They
may not like the crew at the helm, but they are “on board” for the
bigger agenda of imperialist world domination, and from that
perspective, getting out of Iraq would endanger the whole ship.
You
do not take over the Democratic Party; it takes over you. And the more
you try to take it over, the deeper you are inserted into its pocket.
The effort you put into it is like thrashing about in quicksand-the
harder you thrash, the more immobilized you become until finally you
are suffocated to death. Lamont is a perfect example-happy to take your
money and your energies into channels that will just piss them away,
while the Democrats on top continue to pursue what they perceive to be
in the overall interests of the SYSTEM they serve.
Recall
what happened several months ago, when the progressive world was abuzz
with confidence about impeaching the President. At that time a poll
executive admitted that among the population the most requested poll
was one about impeachment, but stated that his firm wouldn’t conduct it
because it was not being discussed by leading Democrats and therefore
wasn’t legitimate. Then, recall how when Wisconsin Democrat Russ
Fiengold made a motion for censuring the President and, despite
overwhelming support from the people, was only supported by two of his fellow Democrats.
There Is a Way, There Is a Day!
If
you feel like you have to vote, that’s one thing. But if you are giving
your time, energy or resources to Lamont or the Democrats, that is not
just a waste, it is counter-productive. Instead, you have to
be part of rupturing out of the whole set of terms shaping the
elections and be part of setting new terms through political struggle
independent of those official channels.
The buzz among
progressive people needs to very quickly change from false hopes of
“retaking” the Democratic Party, to an active debate over the fact that
relying on the Democrats and the midterm elections can only lead
to disaster. October 5th, day of nationwide protests called by The
World Can’t Wait and others, not November 7th, must increasingly been
seen by millions for what it is: the only way that the crimes of the
Bush regime can be brought to a halt.
Let me quote from an important statement issued recently by World Can’t Wait, “October 5: There is a Way! There is a Day!“:
Think
of all the people who are deeply distressed over the direction in which
the Bush regime is dragging the country-and the world” All the people
who are outraged over the way in which this regime is arrogantly
seeking to bludgeon into submission people in the Middle East, and
throughout the world, while trampling on the rights of the people in
the U.S. itself” All the people who care about the future of humanity
and the planet we live on, and who recognize the many ways in which the
Bush regime is increasingly posing a dire threat to this” All the
people who are stirred with a profound restlessness by these feelings
but are held back by the fear that they are alone and powerless; or who
say that they wish something could be done to stop and reverse this
whole disastrous course, but nothing will make a difference; or who
hope that somehow the Democrats will do something to change this, when
everyday it becomes more clear that they will not” All these people,
who make up a very large part of the population of this country and
whose basic sentiments are shared by the majority of people throughout
the world”
Imagine if, from out of this huge reservoir of
people, a great wave were unleashed, moving together on the same
occasion, making, through their firm stand and their massive numbers, a
powerful political statement that could not be ignored: refusing that
day to work, or walking out from work, taking off from school or
walking out of school-joining together, rallying and marching, drawing
forward many more with them, and in many and varied forms of creative
and meaningful political protest throughout the day, letting it be
known that they are determined to bring this whole disastrous course to
a halt by driving out the Bush Regime through the mobilization of
massive political opposition.
If that were done, then the
possibility of turning things around and onto a much more favorable
direction would take on a whole new dimension of reality.
It
would go from something only vaguely hoped for, by millions of isolated
individuals, and acted on by thousands so far, to something that had
undeniable moral force and unprecedented political impact.
That is the vision that can set new terms for all of society and can send a shock of reality-based hope across the world!