As are Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, `08 hopeful, John McCain, Grover Norquist, Donald Wildmon, a vast sea of corporate interests, and others too numerous to mention.
They're counting on me to give up.
One has to admire the subversive, cunning incrementalism of the Rovian and neocon rightists.
But the suprise is, that it is not just the neocons, radical religious zealots or simply Republicans who are counting on me to give up.
Read on...
Like many Americans, I was shocked, angered and saddened by initial reports and images from Abu Ghraib.
But when I read this report in today's New York Times I was not shocked, not surprised, but, rather, numbed.
"More torture done in the name of my country. Just another day under Bush."
And when I read the account from U.S. News & World Report on the administration's justifications for illegal, warrantless searches, on top of the NSA warrantless spying allegations, I was not shocked, not surpised, but numbed... and saddened.
"Further decay of our society and our civil liberties with nary a whimper from all but a few of our elected leaders."
And, of course, I'm more "tuned in" than most Americans. I read Daily Kos everyday. I read newspapers and books and periodicals.
So, turning the often asked question on its head... "Where is my outrage?" If I am numbed to this incrementalism, what about the rest of America?
They are, I fear, even beyond numb. They are unaware, disinterested, and, therefore, uncaring.
Iraq has gone so haywire that even the most happy-go-lucky, reality-show-addicted, People Magazine-reading American knows that the war is lost.
So we have that going for us.
But what of the rest of the incrementalism? The increasing erosion of our civil liberties? The ravaging and raping of our environment? The bankrupting of our national wealth in favor of tax breaks for the rich and no-bid contracts for the well-connected? Nevermind healthcare...
The Bushies are counting on me (and you) to go completely numb. And counting on the vast swath of unaware, disinterested America to allow the creep to proceed, unnoticed, unimpeded, unabated. For three more years. Where will we be by then?
But here's the real kicker...
Not only are the Bushies counting on you and me to throw in the towel, and our fellow disinterested citizens to keep their heads buried in the sand of what passes for culture in America, but there are voices and powers within our own party who encourage us to remain silent, to submit to our numbness, to stop demanding that these criminals be called to account for their actions.
Voices and powers like the DLC and Marshall Wittman.
Apologists like Joe Lieberman. Even leaders such as `08 hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Mark Warner who claim that the war in Iraq is a good war, just not a war that has been properly executed by an incompetent administration.
So when I find myself being relatively unmoved by the Times' story or the U.S. News piece, I realize that the neocons, the Bushies -- and the incrementalist abettors in my own party -- are winning. They are damping down resistance. Actually, not just damping it down, but stomping on it. Smashinig it. Crushing it.
But, goddamn it, why is my own party aiding and abetting these criminals by bashing those who speak up and encouraging others who may speak up to remain silent?
As mcjoan pointed out in her front page post highlighting Wittman's comments on Feingold's censure measure, the DLC and its acolytes in Congress have been wrong right down the line.
They had nothing but disdain for Murtha and advised the DLC faithful to run like hell from the man. Only of late, has America's disinterested populace come to discover that, "I'll be damned! Murtha was right!"
I can be angry at the Bushies for their truly evil incrementalism.
But I am furious at those in my own party who beat down any attempt to call these criminals to account.
And since these (supposedly) Democratic naysayers are closest to home and the most likely first place I can affect change, I will begin with them, internicine or not.
I have stayed out of nearly all discussions of the `08 race. Too early. I have no favorite.
But I have finally decided that I do, indeed, have some unfavorites. And those are any and all possible candidates affiliated with the DLC. And the list is long:
- Clinton
- Biden
- Bayh
- Warner
- Richardson
- Vilsack
I am sending each a letter stating that not only will I NOT support their candidacies if they remain attached to the DLC, I will
actively work against each and every one of them in the early primaries.
I'm not telling anyone else here what to do, but as the preacher always says, "Change begins at home."
That's where I'm starting... before I become so numb that I think marching into Iran and Syria are inevitable.
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