I just ran across a piece by Niranjan Ramakrishnan titled,
Missing the bus: When conscience bows to calculation that was very powerful and provacative. Ramakrishnan discusses the tributes to Rosa Parks, noting
Bill Clinton recalled that after hearing of Rosa Parks, he and a couple of his friends, all around 9 years of age, decided that they would sit in the back of the bus as a measure of support for Rosa Parks!
That was the boy Clinton. The politician and president would have done things differently, waiting to see how it all shook out, probably taking the additional safeguard of having Dick Morris run a poll first.
Additional excerpts:
It is often said that politicians have no shame, but it is their general stupidity, borne of endless fear and calculation, that is more distinct.
Hillary Clinton spoke of how all of us can have our "Rosa Parks Moment".
John Kerry said: "the bus still comes by, again and again, and each time we have to decide whether to go quietly to the back, or by simple acts of courage and conviction, change the direction of our own country's journey...The life of Rosa Parks demands deeds, not epitaphs."
Beautiful words. Though not applicable, evidently, to the Iraq War Resolution...
...Hillary Clinton 's Rosa Parks moment came and went last summer, when she could have have gone to Crawford to show support for Cindy Sheehan. John Kerry 's entire campaign last year was one long saga of missed buses.
As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan exulted at the memorial, two full planeloads of the US Congress had come to Detroit to pay tribute to Rosa Parks. Buses were missed, but planes were caught.
Imagine if two planeloads of the US Congress, containing the same worthies who descended on Detroit with such alacrity, had gone to Texas this summer and camped out in the ditch outside Bush's Ranch...
But Cindy Sheehan is alive and troublesome. Rosa Parks is dead and safe. Therein lies the difference.
The essay should remind all of us that the civil rights movement was not led by members of Congress, but by the grassroots. Gutless politicians who gave speeches to choirs of supporters were afraid to actually DO something until people took to the streets. It was only when politicians became aware that their inaction would cause them to be defeated that they took a stand.
Maybe I'm negative by nature, but I believe that fear is a more powerful motivator than praise. Sure, political contributions are great, but fear of loss will make a politician flip more readily than cash. Just look at Kerry and Edwards in 2004 - they raised more money than they spent, in a party in which 85% of the members were against the Iraq war, but "fear" of looking weak on Iraq caused them to toe the line on the war rather than take a stand.
While I see much glee among Kossacks about the tanking ratings of the Republicans, the Democrats are not faring much better. As today's Washington Post reports:
The public sees the Democrats as disorganized, lacking in clear ideas or a positive alternative to the GOP agenda, and bereft of appealing leaders.
In the Post-ABC News poll, voters gave Washington low grades without favor: Just 35 percent said they approved of the job Republicans in Congress were doing, while only 41 percent gave a positive rating to the Democrats.
The Post-ABC poll found that 68 percent of Americans say the country is off track, with only 30 percent saying things are going in the right direction...
...Pat Swensen, 61, stood on a chilly night with more than a dozen others at a busy intersection in Coon Rapids, Minn., and held a candle in honor and sorrow over the 2,000th American casualty in Iraq. Her niece's husband, an Army soldier, is preparing for a third deployment to Iraq.
"What's so difficult is there is no plan," said Swensen, an assistant registrar at a school in Ham Lake. "Nothing concrete that you can start measuring and say, 'We've done this, we've done that, the troops can start coming home.' How many times will my niece's husband have to go back?"
Swensen's question echoes across the country, among those who backed the war from the beginning and among those who opposed it...
...The president's Supreme Court nominations, for all the intensity they generate in Washington, do not appear to be significant issues with most voters. Nor did the controversy over the CIA leak case, including the recent indictment of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, register significantly in voter interviews...
...Democrats see hopeful signs in an uneasy public mood. In the Post-ABC poll, Americans prefer the opposition party to congressional Republicans on every issue measured but one, including Iraq. The only exception was on terrorism; there the two parties are tied.
But those strengths are offset by two glaring weaknesses. A majority of Americans say the Democrats are not offering the country a clear direction that is different from the Republicans, and on the question of which party has stronger leaders, Republicans thump the Democrats by 51 percent to 35 percent.
"I just think they're sitting back waiting for something to happen," said Diane Mashman, a retired high school teacher who lives in the Denver suburbs and generally votes Democratic. "I don't know if they have anybody ready to run for president. They need to get their act together."
Kudos to Reid for dipping his toe in the water of active opposition last week by forcing the "closed session" - it is a start, but nowhere near what needs to be done. Let's not act like the Libby indictment is some sort of "divine revelation," however. For three years, there have been many in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic communities ranting about Bush's plans for Iraq - they were raising Hell before the invasion began. There was, and is, ample "political cover" for the more timid Dems in the writings of many of these experts, many of whom are conservative republicans.
It's time for us to take our country back - and if the Democratic leaders aren't going to "drive the bus," we must step up and do so...and we should not wring our hands over cowardly Dems who get run over in the process.
The party is supposed to represent and serve us. We are their only hope for survival. Let's make sure that they know this, and that they draw clearly defined lines of battle for the 2006 election - accountability for and ending the occupation of Iraq is the mother of all battles.