I stepped on a lot of toes of those seeking to carry out the Democratic corporate campaign contributors' party line calling for all to go along to get along. I advocated truly non-violent civil disobedience in sit-in demonstrations designed to force a police riot against us on national TV-if we couldn't shut down of the inaugural ceremonies with non-violent civil disobedience. But the party apparatchik on the web would not hear nor let be heard anything of my subversive talk. But I could not pretend that their multitudinous marches and milque-toast gummings were anything but confirmations to the Rep-robates that they could steal the election and the people would go on with politics as usual!
The Democratic leadership has shown their true colors to be green and yellow. Their primary concern is getting the green from corporations to get elected. Their primary fear is not failing to represent the true interests of the American people. Rather, they turn yellow at the thought that they might not get enough votes to stay in power. It has nothing to do with principle. They will emulate the Rep-robates to whatever degree the "new" Democrats think necessary to stay in power, even when that empowers the wrong principles of government.
I was rightly critical of Ralph the Mouth Nader for leading the Green lemmings into political suicide by alienating all true progressives by his putting himself and his party above the need to keep Duh?bya out of the White House. He could have negotiated an appearance in the Presidential debates with Gore in exchange for endorsing Gore and withdrawing (and trashing Duh?bya in debate in the process)--or getting Duh?bya to withdraw from the debates in fear.
Nader at his nadir sought party victory at any cost, even of throwing the election to the Rep-robates. The Democrats have fallen victim to that same meanness of spirit, a concern for party power over the principles of government. Many Democrats are now willing to abandon progressive principles as far as necessary to gain conservative voters. Rather they should be persuasively converting conservative voters to progressive voters, so we can win for progressive government-unless they think they can have enough progressive babies to win ideological warfare.
Now the leadership of the Democratic Party has likewise alienated all true progressives by giving in to corporate campaign contributors' orders that they make nice with politics as usual instead of fighting Duh?bya every step of the way. For supposed political advantage, they are allowing Duh?bya to give up our rights to a fascist Attorney General. That is even worse than their willingness to give up the peoples' birthright to a safety net to make room for tax cuts.
Progressive populists need a place to create an alternative force to promote progressive candidates in any party we can get them into. We should run our own candidates as progressives only where there is no alternative --and then never to run any candidate as a spoiler who throws the progressive baby out with the bathwater, leaving the old crone Rep-robates to rub a dub duh?bya over the rights of the people. If the Democrats do not come around, eventually we may have to become a third major party in politics. But our intention is to stay in the background if and where possible, calling politicians to conscience and cautious common sense in pursuit of progressive populism.
Progressives are not violent radicals, although we may in the age of TV and other mass media, through nonviolent civil disobedience in sit-in demonstrations, elicit riotous police violence against ourselves in order to attract voter sympathy and awareness of issues and candidates. Mainly we will be word warriors arranging for speakers to appear whereever we can. We know that only by disciplined and dignified sacrifices to the pains imposed by the fascists can we attract the sympathy and empathic identification of the indifferent public with us, so we can get them listen to our persuasive presentations of our views.
We need not dismay as we fight the reprobates every inch of the way. In addition to leading citizens to disciplined, nonviolent, civilly disobedient sit-ins and other demonstrations, our journals will be for contributed studies of issues, hopefully in popularly entertaining forms as well as of scholarly, in-depth and polished discussions of issues that require extensive thought and preparation. Well, that is what we'd like to happen; if you would like to get involved as a contributor to our presentations and discussions--or, even if you are, or only know of, any computer expert who can volunteer to help us get our web site functioning adequately, please let me know at edromar@hotmail.com .
In case you think me too hard on the Democrats in being appalled at Democratic leaders being complicit in the inauguration of the Bastard President, I recall to you the example of Mr. Alex H. Stephens who served as the Vice President of Georgia upon her secession and prior to her joining of the Confederacy (when he became Vice-President under Davis). One of the more moderate voices in Georgia at the time, he was very concerned that his confederates wished to rebel against the Constitution on the grounds of expected actions by the newly elected President. But, he argued, to secede when the federal government had not yet violated the Constitution, they had no excuse, and must be forever called treasonous. He was right; and in warning against complicity, I did not call for Democrats to secede from our government. On the contrary.
In the process of arguing against withdrawal (secession) before the expected "Black Republican" baby was even in the womb, based on fears alone,Stephens noted that to do so ignored the powers of the Southerners to prevent the Black Republicans from bringing what they considered the "Black Republicans'" monstrous conceptions to birth. He pointed out that the Democrats of all stripes had a majority in the house and, even in the Senate, they had a majority of four. Stephens pointed out that Lincoln could not function as President even if he has won the office without the cooperation of the Republicans-as long as they stayed in the federal government instead of seceding and refused to be complicite in what they considered his crimes.
Likewise, I urged all Democrats to remain engaged in our representative government, but by waging guerrilla politics. The Rep-robates can not rule without the complicity of the Democrats. The Reprobates could not have gotten a right wing cabinet. They could not pass a tax cut bill. They can not appoint a Judge. Although the Southerners were in a more powerful position to wreak havoc with Lincoln's administration (through legal means) than are we to wreak havoc upon Duh?bya's administration, the lesson of history is the same: Don't despairingly secede but don't be complicite in the crimes of the Thief Executive!
We note of Duh?bya, more or less as Stephens said of Lincoln, without the complicity of, or secession by his opponents:
"[He] is bound by the Constitutional checks and balances which are thrown around him, which at this time, render him powerless to do any great mischief....-he is clothed with no absolute power. He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in the majority against him. In the Senate he will also be powerless. There will be a majority of four against him:...Mr. Lincoln can not appoint an officer without the consent of Congress-he cannot form a Cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the condition of George III...who had to ask the Whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a Cabinet utterly opposed to his views; and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate to choose for him a Cabinet, if the Democracy of that body choose to put him on such terms. He will be compelled to do this, or let the government stop--if the National Democratic men...in the Senate should so determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a Cabinet which would aid him, or allow him, to violate the Constitution?"
Unfortunately for them, the Democrats then did not have the sense to interfere in the formation of Lincoln's administration. Rather, being set on secession, they seceded against the reasonable advice of their most astute leader. Likewise, the Democrats once again did not have the sense to interfere in the formation of Duh?bya's administration. Rather they seceded from their responsibility to interfere with the formation of Duh?bya's administration by entering into complicity with the traitors who stole the election, men whose actions should be punished by hanging after they are impeached, tried, removed from office, and tried and convicted of the ultimate crime against the state punishable by death.
Once again, the Democrats had an opportunity to force a Republican (who did not even win this election--whereas no one had doubted Lincoln's legitimacy) who had no mandate to do a damn thing, to form a government that does not threaten the vital interests of the people they represent. True, the House of Representatives by a slim majority that might even change at any time, can not be counted on to stop Duh?bya's programs. However, although the Senate is tied and the VP can break any ties, nothing can get by the Senate if the men of the Democracy choose not to allow a vote on it. They could use the fillibuster as effectively to force a compromise from Duh?bya on the grounds that he is illegitimate as the Democratic Senators could have forced Lincoln to allow them to appoint his Cabinet.
Had the Democratic Party just said no-just told the Republicans they can not get away with stealing an election and enter into government, any more than politics, as usual, they could have forced Duhbya to compromise on a moderate cabinet more to the liking of the American people, and more in accord with the moderate tenor of the votes in the election than are the right wing zealots who should have never gotten into a government without a compelling mandate to change a government that may be imperfect but which is reasonably incompetent. In the process, the Democrats could have kept before the faces of the American people the horrors of Bush having stolen the election-so that if he refused to be ruled by the middle, the people would have blamed him for not letting government get on with the peoples' business independent of Duh?bya's reactionary appointments.
Why did the Democrats give up such a perfect position from which to stifle Duh?bya and instead allowed Duh?bya to have his way? Not only did half the Democrat Senators sell out on Norton, ten of them gave into Ashcroft, in spite of the fact that polls showed that less than a third of the people could identify with Ashcroft's positions. So no one succumbed to voter's pressure. (And had there been such pressure, the Democrats should have realized that that meant that they must work harder to educate their publics.) So why would the Democrats have folded like a pillsbury doughboy twisted into a croissant?
What the Democrats feared is that their corporate contributors would not continue to support them. But when the price of support is complicity and collapsing in the face of traitorous enemy, it is time to bite the bullet and realize that the Corporations have to be resisted and attacked, and that true campaign finance reform which starts with denying corporations the right to try to influence elections or politics in any way must be fought for. So what if the Democrats had to develop new forms of cybernet electioneering reflecting the personal contact networks of the Minute Men and early colonials? We now have the internet to create such webs at little or no cost. We have to be ready, willing and able to win elections without corporate funding and against their siding with the enemy. For when the cost of contributionsis collusion with the enemy, it is time to declare our independence. The American people are perfectly capable of recognizing when that has become necessary and of assuring individual victories for freedom fighters.
Our problem in American politics is that we forget so quickly, and are consigned to making the same mistakes over and over. If the leaders of the South had listened to Stephens a million ruined lives would have been saved. The South needed time to grow up away from the states' rights, strict constructionist myths on which it had become fixated in its infancy. But by acting out those myths and being punished for them, the South just became more fixated on the lies that led them to rebel, lies that still impel them to their false senses of state sovereignty, states' rights, and strict constructionism. They never grew up, continually rebelling against the truth of responsible government and clinging to their myths and illusions. So we had to watch and live with their flailing men with Jim Crow laws, denying civil rights to blacks, and finally opposing affirmative action and sensible welfare laws in their recurrent attempts to fight more battles in their civil war to keep blacks and the Federal Government in their own places!
But the Democrats seem to have learned nothing about how to deal with the problems involved in providing the honorable opposition to dishonerable traitors.