Every election is like a coup attempt. Every election is about power. Who will control the resources of the community? Who will hold the purse strings, who will write the laws, what kind of judges will interpret those laws?
When we start thinking about the Federal government, the amount of power involved is staggering. There can be no bigger coup than one which wrests control of the Pentagon away from the incumbent party.
:::flip:::
It’s not just the F-16’s and B-2 bombers, and it’s not just the Intercontinental ballistic missiles. It’s the contract with Boeing to build 50 new warplanes for Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. It’s all the subcontracts. It’s control of the intelligence agencies.
Or how about control of the Justice Department and the IRS?
We’d like to think that our elections are decided on the up and up, with fair voting, and fair campaigning. But there is too much on the line for people to sit back and let such a pastoral process take place.
There is no question that we would be discussing impeachment hearings if the Democrats held the committee chairs in even one house of Congress. But that’s the point. By holding the committee chairs the GOP has the power to change what is legal, what is permissible. Many Bush policies are legal only so long as they have complete control, and they will become illegal if we take some of that power away.
That’s a hell of a situation for the GOP to be in, don’t you think? They must keep winning elections or risk going to jail. Doesn’t leave one with a lot of faith in their willingness to conduct free and fair elections, does it?
What would they go to jail for? We could make a list: deliberately deceiving Congress about Iraq’s intentions and capabilities, using bribery to pass the Medicare bill, signing unconstitutional executive orders on interrogation techniques…and so much more.
What the DLC doesn’t understand is that we cannot defeat the Republicans without a brawl. We have to come at them with all guns blazing. We have to call them crooks and criminals because they are crooks and criminals. They lost 9 billion dollars in Iraq! They have been stealing and redirecting our national resources at an unprecedented rate.
Forget GOP-lite, the DLC is recommending Looting-Lite. Paul Hackett came after the GOP with everything he had. He called the President a chickenhawk, and said he intensely disliked him. Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman will undoubtedly say that Hackett doesn’t speak for them. But he speaks for us. Hackett improved on the 2004 Democratic performance by 20%. John Kerry’s careful poll-tested approach lost ground to Al Gore.
If we want to win we need to be realistic about what we are trying to do. We are trying to seize control over the largest military and largest budget in the world. We are trying to take power away from an entrenched foe. Our foe feels no compunction about bending the rules. They will smear their critics, ruin their careers. They will set their attack dogs upon those of us that speak out. They will use blatant voter suppression, and quite possibly voter fraud, to get their way.
The only way to deal with these people is to be forceful, relentless, and unmerciful. So enough with denigrating ‘protest politics’…to the barricades!
