Saturday, October 07, 2006

The constipated body politic

Glenn Greenwald, on his Unclaimed Territory blog, had this to report on September 28th:

"Final passage of the torture/detention bill was 65-34...Twelve Democrats voted in favor, 1 Republican and 1 independent voted against (there may be one or two errors because I compiled the list while listening to the vote):

Democrats in favor (12) - Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich.).

Republicans against (1) - Chafee (R.I.).

Jeffords (I) voted against...

But it is still difficult to understand the Democrats' strategy here. They failed to try to mount a filibuster because they feared being attacked as coddlers of the terrorists. But now they voted against the bill in large numbers, thereby ensuring those exact accusations will be made anyway -- and made loudly (the White House already started today). Yet they absented themselves the whole time from the debate (until they magically appeared today), spent the last several weeks only tepidly (at most) opposing the President's position, and thus lost the opportunity to defend and advocate the position they took today in any meaningful way. As a result, the Democrats took a position today (opposition to this bill) which they have not really defended until today.

They make this same mistake over and over. Isn't this exactly what happened when they sort-of-supported-but-sort-of-opposed the Iraq war resolution in 2002 because they were afraid of being depicted as soft on terrorism, only to then be successfully depicted as soft on terrorism because they were too afraid to forcefully defend their position? It's true that fewer Democrats voted for the President's policy this time around, but it's equally true that they found their voice only on the last day of the debate -- on the day of the vote -- after disappearing for weeks while they let John McCain 'debate' for them."

One has to wonder if this is going to change any time soon, do not worry you do not have to do anything but wonder, it is still in the constitution that we can wonder, is it not? This country we live in still operates on a percentage of the democratic ideals that we were taught in school( assuming that we were all taught from an edition of a textbook that had most of the same content, that we all paid attention in class, that our teachers taught us in a way that inspired us to learn- damn, thats alot of assuming!), or am I being an idealist for thinking such unrealistic, flowery, hippy-dippy mumbo jumbo? Please, it is a rhetorical question, folks, besides, I cannot hear you! Again, one might ponder about that. Think, think, think, bother, bother, bother...Maybe we are all plugged into the matrix and are experiencing some sort of virtual reality that we perceive and then accept as reality. What was it again that exactly set Neo free? Was it his belief in having control over his limits, and realizing that his fear is real, but that his love/belief in himself gave him the ability to overcome the fear? It wasn't the nano iPOD, thats for damn sure! Yes, I believe that sounds about right! Or does that sound left? Is left, right, and am I right to write about left being right? If the right rights are left, but not the "right" rights, then are there some left rights left? If you take the left step and then take the right step does some movement occur, or is this a movement?? It is good for the posture from the head to the bowels of our body politic - helps out our constitution too!!! Its alot better that having left your rights behind...that just continues our constant anticipation, or const-ipation, which we as a political country are.

Thanks to brave folks like Glenn Greenwald for his castor oil to lube our constitution and get the body moving in the right direction, and flush out this shit, this fear(war on terror), that we have been holding onto for way too long.

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