smCOLUMN SEVENTY-TWO, JUNE 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
SECTION
SEVENTEEN
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COLUMN
SEVENTY-TWO, JUNE 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
FROM PORTSIDE
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(the left side in nautical parlance) is a
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on the Left.
* * *
ANOTHER BY MOLLY IVANS
* * *
A ONE-PARTY COUNTRY
Subject:
Where art thou, Dems?
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 19:41:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod portsidemod@yahoo.com
To: ps portside@yahoogroups.com
Where
art thou, Dems?
So
this is what it's like to live in a one-party country
By
Molly Ivins
April
12, 2002; Creators Syndicate
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=13137
AUSTIN,
Texas -- Across the length and breadth of this great land of ours, from the
mountain to the prairie, from every hill and dale comes the question,
"Where are the Democrats?" They're among the missing, along with Judge
Crater and Osama bin Laden. The venerable political organization, the party of
Jackson and Jefferson, is not to be found in action. OTAM " out to all meals.
So this is what it's like to live in a one-party country.
Is
it possible, remotely possible, that Democrats are frightened by the John
Ashcroft-Trent Lott school of "patriotism," which holds that
questioning our elected (or even not-so-elected) leaders is tantamount to
disloyalty if not treason? That expressing concern about our fundamental
liberties helps terrorists? For that line of attack to be treated with anything
but the contempt it deserves is itself un-American, not a word I use lightly.
As
if the argument is not contemptible enough, one has only to look at the
performance of these same definers of "patriotism" as blind obedience
when Bill Clinton was struggling to fight a war. When the Clinton administration
was trying to track and kill Osama bin Laden, Republicans gratuitously dismissed
the entire effort as an attempt to change the subject from the all-important
Monica Lewinsky.
And
there we do come to one real reason the Democrats are so quiet. Political
opposition in the Clinton years was so shatteringly nasty, no one wants to be
seen anywhere near it now. To be accused of being "partisan" now
stands for a level of conduct so degraded and degrading, we have forgotten what
principled opposition means.
However,
President Bush's sex life has nothing to do with the fact that his foreign
policy is so inept that all the Arab countries, including our friends and allies
the Saudis and the Egyptians, are now siding with Saddam Hussein rather than the
United States. You really have to work at it to produce a result that bad.
We
still haven't caught Bin Laden or any of the other leaders of Al-Qaeda, who are
presumably regrouping and plotting some fresh horror. We haven't even finished
the job in Afghanistan, as we are reminded daily, but the administration seems
to have dropped that like a hot rock and gone off to plan invading Iraq "
which has no known connection with Sept. 11 -- instead.
Already
we are abandoning Hamid Karzai by refusing to cooperate with the Brits to
maintain order there.
Someone
suggested the other day if the Republicans were in the opposition, they'd have
an "Osama calendar" updated daily: "It's now 254 days since
Suggestions
for how to fix things are a lot more useful than sitting around complaining
about how fouled up things are. How do we get Sharon to accept the idea that the
settlers on the West Bank have to go? How about talking the Arab countries into
co-funding a Marshall Plan for the West Bank? Why not call in Bruce Urquhart,
the U.N. diplomat who settled several wars, as a sort of senior consultant?
And
why NOT remind people that Bush was warned over and over that letting the Middle
East crisis get worse was folly? Why not point out that suggestions and
solutions offered before Sept. 11 were ignored by Bush? Why not explain that the
consequences of arrogant unilateralism are simply unacceptable? The old American
isolationist tendency is always too ready to conclude, "You just can't deal
with Those People." Of course you can. Disaster is not inevitable, but it
can sure be encouraged by inaction. And that includes inaction by Democrats.
From
Sept. 12 on, this administration ignored repeated calls for energy conservation.
At a time when all Americans were ready to do anything to help, we could have
started a "get out of the SUVs, cut the mileage, carpool, take a bus"
campaign. To help one's country in a concrete way like saving fuel, and in turn
reducing our dependence on unstable allies and freeing up our foreign policy
options, was such an obvious step. And the Bush administration should take all
the lumps it's got coming for having failed to do so.
So
what did the Democrats do? Nineteen Democratic senators recently voted with the
Republicans against requiring automakers to increase gas mileage. The Middle
East is now so volatile an oil embargo is not that unlikely. We could have
bought ourselves quite a bit of insurance by now, had we acted promptly.
Many
elected Democrats apparently think this administration is so set in its
unilateralist ways, there's no point in trying to move on the Kyoto Treaty, or
the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or the International Criminal Court (which would
have been such a useful option for dealing with Bin Laden.) Sen. William
Proxmire of Wisconsin delivered, over the years, 3,211 speeches on why we should
sign the U.N. Convention Against Genocide. It took 19 years. Let's get started.
"
2002 Creators Syndicate ##
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