September 24, 2005

The leadership of the Democratic Party never tires of their role as doormat to their Republican overlords. Fresh off their stunning defeat in the John Roberts appointment to the Supreme Court, the main players, Clinton, Dodd, Kennedy, Biden, Kerry and Feingold have announced they will forgo attending the massive antiwar rallies in New York, Washington and across the nation. Even now, when the "anti-Iraq" mood of the nation has shifted as dramatically as two plates in the San Andreas Fault; the foremost sentinels of the party are too timid to budge.

What a useless collection of stuffed shirts and pompous windbags. Even the moniker "Democratic leadership" is a contradiction in terms. Their solitary interest is perpetuating their own miserable careers and reveling in the incipient narcissi of their office. They'd rather see the nation bullied and plundered by autocrats and sadists then jeopardize their precious tenure in Congress and their lofty aspirations for higher-office. After all, standing on principle might torpedo that lucrative deal as lobbyist with the defense industry when retirement roles around.

Where's Hillary Clinton when her loyal supporters need her?
Working on a strategy to send even more young Americans into the Iraqi meat-grinder or currying favor with the pro-settlement crowd for another 37 years of occupation?

Clinton is the face of the Democratic Party; the standard-bearer for compromise and capitulation; another free-market, neoliberal, war-mongering sock-puppet for big industry and finance. She's pro-war, pro-NAFTA, pro-Patriot Act, pro-Israel and pro-anything else that greases the path to the swivel chair in the Oval Office. She has never once railed against the horrors of Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, never criticized the abusive round-up of aliens in the war on terror, never challenged a system that starves its enemies and sluices billions into the pockets of corrupt corporations. Perhaps, she thinks she can grovel her way into the White House, but that's doubtful. The present occupants seized that piece of real estate by force and won't be surrendering it anytime soon.

And where's horse-face Kerry and the mad-doctor Dean; champion of the antiwar throngs?
Kerry was more than eager to lead the charge in Iraq. He even claimed he had a "winning strategy" for the conflict. Now that the Massachusetts Senator is safely ensconced in the bastions of the ruling-elite, he is only too pleased to send other mother's sons "to be the last man to die for a mistake".

As for Dean, his role as party chairman has further divorced him from the grass-roots movement that bolstered his candidacy. His failure to show up at the antiwar marches is a public disgrace. He owes his whole putrid career to the antiwar movement and now he spits in their face.

I know the Democratic Party; I worked in the party for 3 years as program chairman. The people at the grassroots are as fine as anyone you will ever meet. They are overwhelmingly against the Patriot Act, the Iraq war, the unlimited incarceration of terror suspects, NAFTA, and the abuse of detainees. But the goals and aspirations of these people will not be realized through the vehicle of the Democratic Party. The party system is as clogged, arthritic and unresponsive to change as their mirror-image the Republicans. The party has been co-opted by elites who set the agenda and subvert any effort to upset the status quo. They endorse the same imperial horrors as their rivals, albeit with greater eloquence and diplomacy.

The conventional channels for transforming the political organism have all shut down; the system is broken. As soothsayer Chris Floyd said, "We are alone".

The only avenue for political change is massive popular movements that disrupt "business as usual" and send tremors into the corporate towers. Democracy won't reappear in the form of Hilary Clinton or Howard Dean. Forget-about-it. We're looking at a decades-long struggle to reestablish fundamental human rights and stop the incessant whirring of the war-machine.

We need foot-soldiers not politicians.

Courtesy & Copyright © Mike Whitney