Jane, I know we've had our problems. I remember our fight when you said you were the`best Republican in the Democratic Party'. (How your words still sting) But I forgave you, and let you into my Mar Vista home in 2000. Since then, I never hear from you. Unreturned calls, letters, and you never come around my neighborhood.
Sorry Jane Harman, but I've finally moved on.
Her name is Marcy Winograd, and anyone who might have seen my posts this week (and were pretty kind to a first time diarist) learned that her campaign sucked me in like my dog used to eat spaghetti: engulf quickly, completely, and with much gusto.
How'd she do that? Her positions are mine too, for a change. A really big change, big enough to drive me off my rear and volunteer for the first time in my life.
Hackett, Rodriguez, and Cegelis, and the amazing campaigns they waged had me checking blogs 47 times an hour. The Young Turks Alito filibuster had me chatting with Cenk at 3am about Oaxacan food in Mar Vista.
Winograd finally pushed me out the front door.
We do have real choices. Unless you want kids on skateboards that fly still paying for this war, de facto corporate government, and Big Brother moving his whole family in, you're a Democrat. So what kind of Democrat do you want to be?
How about one like Marcy Winograd. Her impressive credentials, her no nonsense positions on issues, and her deep commitment...her humanity, for crissake, all resonate with me deeply. If she didn't walk the walk and talk the talk I wouldn't be wasting your time. But today it's about Jane.
I've seen quite a bit of "Why do you oppose Harman? Overall she's not so bad."
Well, here we go:
-Her D.C. staffer actually told me she voted for the draconian bankruptcy bill because she favors `reform'. I still laugh and cry when I think of that.
-On national security, she helped to defeat an amendment in 2002 which would have prohibited nuclear earth penetrator (bunker buster) weapons. (H.AMDT.474 to H.R.4546) On June 2, there will be a conventional mushroom cloud over the Shoshone reservation in the Nevada desert, simulating such a weapon.
When did the concept of deploying tactical nukes become acceptable? And Jane, given your vote, if the Union of Concerned Scientists can generate doubt over the weapon's efficacy with a flash animation where is your voice on this?
-She opposed the Kucinich amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 2601) that would have started work on banning space based weapons, too. Jane, the U.S. is 43rd in the world when it comes to infant motality. We have higher prioities at home than militarizing space! The defense industry is there to protect us, not the other way around. Where's IKE's ghost when we need him. He'd be shaking a golf club at us saying, "You're all freakin' insane!"
-And of course, Jane's support of Bush's war. Exactly her support Bush's war. Even the biggest lunkhead of a Kossack (and I'm in the running) figured out that W.'s march to Iraq was utter fiction, the second he started talking about it.
Where was her voice? Shouldn't the highest levels of scrutiny been applied to decisions involving the potential loss of American lives? Especially in light of Bush officials advocating Iraqi regime change prior to 9/11? How can she continue to support this debacle?
-Her response to domestic NSA spying, the `unsure of the law' comments. In her March 13th 2006 speech to the Foreign Relations Council entitled The Fog of Law,she states(emphasis hers):
FISA is the exclusive way to conduct foreign intelligence electronic surveillance in the United States
Why is that foggy, Jane? Sounds like that was the law already, and sounds like the President didn't follow it. Criminy,in my opinion
Lindsey Graham has come out stronger against domestic spying. and based upon his
histrionics during the censure hearings, he doesn't even understand Watergate. Jane, the admin. is spying on
Quakers. How seriously do you think they regard the law of this land?
And
Jane today, on FOX:
I'm not comfortable that even if we knew more (about Iran)that the White House would be listening clearly to the intelligence case. They apparently did not in Iraq. It was not a very strong case. But those who tried to speak truth to power were shut out
And
to whom, exactly, are you referring? Isn't truth-speaking to power
your job?
-And finally, my bud Lance from CO-04, who can say what I want to with a thousand less words: `They say she's only 10% bad?
Well now isn't the time to be 90% Democrat.
And then I've heard, `Why stir it up? We have more important battles.'
Primaries like this one are a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. That phrase may be hackneyed, but I believe it true. And that's pretty damn important. I just can't choose a soul that not only allows for this war, but continues to support it. That favors weapon systems over universal health care. That supports corporate interests over Americans' needs. This is only about what's right, not what's politically expedient. And I thought that's what we were all fighting for.
This is a safe blue seat, and we have a chance to elect someone who actually believes in progressive causes, and has spent her lifetime working for them. No watered-down, side-stepping double speak, and no good wars! Not one. I had forgotten how strongly I believed that, until Marcy reminded me.
(Have to say there is some small comfort in knowing that we're having a real debate about the natrure of the Democratic soul. I'm pretty sure the similar battle in the other party is over price.)
And regarding that tired old `circular firing squad' metaphor, I defer to one Dr. MLK, from a Birmingham jail:
Why direct action?... Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. ... I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
Well I'm tense, and nervous and I can't relax. With the emergence of strong progressive candidates during the last year, Jane's become an anachronism.
Matt Stoller goes the dinosaur route. All the tireless work in the trenches by the thousands of people who devote their lives to progressive Democratic causes has produced real choices. And Marcy is the latest.
I'm humbled by that as I staple lawn signs.
So adieu, ciao, adios Jane. I'll always remember our time together, no matter how hard I try to forget.
Marcy Winograd site:
[http://www.winogradforcongress.com/]
Ozzie's ActBlue
[http://www.actblue.com/...]