The Anti-Anti-War Movement Is Underway

10:08 am EST August 25th, 2005 | Politics | 22 Comments

Yesterday Bush pulled out his dog whistle and signaled to the minions that it was now time to declare open warfare on the anti-war majority. In the next few days and as Bush’s record-long vacation comes to an end, you can expect the rhetoric to get a good ratcheting up in order to shore up those poll numbers. He’s not running for re-election but there’s the supreme court fight coming up, along with the 2006 elections and general legacy building to be done.

For the first time in about 5 years, the Bush team is playing defense. It isn’t unprecedented unity amongst the progressive movement that has brought this about – in fact until Cindy Sheehan’s protest the anti-war movement has been idiotic in its attempt to persuade opinion, and with the addition of relics like Joan Baez to the proceedings the protestors are once again becoming ineffectual – but the simple fact that the facts are bad for Bush and his supporters. The daily drumbeat is U.S. troops being killed by insurgents, along with mass casualties for Iraqi civilians. It’s gotten so bad that the Republicans have not even bothered to use the draft of the Iraqi constitution as yet another sign that relief is around the corner, the same way they did with the toppling of Hussein’s statue, Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”, the Iraqi “elections”, and the result of the 2004 elections.

With 2006 on the horizon, we are at a definite turning point, one in which history chooses a path and our nation follows. But we aren’t simply slaves to the passage of time, rather, our actions define the times. That is why the Democratic party and its leaders needs to quit weighing the pros and cons and ups and downs and maybes and shouldas. They need to forcefully and stridently challenge this unpopular president directly to his face. It is smash mouth time, and its quite clear that these guys can be taken down if Democrats just present some backbone.

This isn’t just one speech where you come out and demand something then tepidly disappear, instead this needs to be a daily drumbeat firmly and patriotically demanding that there be a reasoned withdrawl from Iraq and the president present to the congress a realistic timetable for doing so. Again, I cannot stress how important it is for this mantra (whatever the actual text may be) to be repeated over and over again, not just by individual Democrats but by everyone associated with the progressive movement. Too often we see progressives stray off the reservation because they want to be seen as mavericks or because they’ve got some sort of pet issue at stake. That is a formula for failure. In today’s mediaverse, achievements are made through rapid repetition.

There are a lot of Democrats who voted for the war, either because they really believed what Bush was selling or because they wanted to protect their rears come election time. At first blush, these folks may say that challenging the war will hurt them. Wrong. It’s that sort of namby-pamby thinking that got us stuck like this in the first place. It’s a simple matter of leveling to the American people and stating that you were wrong.

“I voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, because I believed the President when he made the case that Iraq had ties to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As we know now, those reasons were deceptive, and the decision to go to war has made America less safe from the threat of terrorism. It is time for our troops to come home to defend America and their families. It is time for us to exit Iraq in a sensible fashion, and return to destroying the terrorists who threaten America.”

Why do I think saying something like the above would make sense to people? Because its largely the same decision making that the public has gone through. When the president of your nation presents a threat, it is historically in your best interests to believe him. I was always skeptical of the case made for invading Iraq, but I do understand that the authority of the office spoke to many people and convinced them to support the war. But these people haven’t just all turned off their televisions. They see that we’ve found no WMD, that Al Qaeda is alive and well and attacking London, and they see the daily increase in our casualties and the obvious lack of a coherent strategy from the president and his supporters.

It is long past due, but it is time for prominent Democrats to make some variation of this message resonate, before the GOP’s message machine springs back to life in the fall as it always does. Progressive bloggers can help create noise, but none of them has the authority of prominent Democrats (in this case, Senators, a few governors, and Clinton/Gore). If this case and this line of attack is to be made, it must be made by those who have a following within the Democratic party:

Howard Dean
John Kerry
John Edwards
Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton
Russ Feingold
Evan Bayh
Mark Warner
Al Gore
Bill Clinton

While I support Leaders Pelosi and Reid, there comments will not get the traction needed for this initiative to take hold in the press. The ’08/’04 candidates can get coverage because they are known names or making their names known. President Clinton because he is a former president and a popular elder statesman of the party, and Al Gore because he could still be president and has the added advantage of being right about Iraq all along.

If prominent national Democrats do not begin challenging the Republicans and their version of the war in Iraq, the Democrats and the progressive movement will once again damn themselves into irrelevance in our national conversation. There is only so much that can be done at the grassroots level, by morally clear protests, and by people with keyboards.

At some point people need to be led.

J-Learning: your how-to site for community journalism

1:08 am EST August 25th, 2005 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

J-Learning: your how-to site for community journalism

Topic: Links

Boing Boing: Hollywood trailer voices

1:08 am EST August 25th, 2005 | Uncategorized | Comments Off

Boing Boing: Hollywood trailer voices

Topic: Links

How Could They Go Wrong?

12:08 am EST August 25th, 2005 | News | 17 Comments

CNSNews claims to have video evidence of protesters somehow taunting wounded soldiers, and if that’s true – it would be quite horrible. But you would think something like that would have made the real news and not just Brent Bozell’s news propaganda organization, right? These are the guys who promised us those documents proving Iraq had WMDs that seemed to never have materialized, and the story is being pimped by Matt Drudge whose truthfulness is about on par with Rush Limbaugh’s.

UPDATE: And of course it’s another exercise in lies from CNSNews and the RNC. In fact, the protestors are quite clearly demonstrating their support of the troops and their disdain for what the Iraq war has done to the soldiers. This won’t matter to the cons who trumpet this sort of thing, they don’t care about the facts as long as they can smear and move on to the next thing.

Topic: Iraq

McCain Goes Flat Earth

12:08 am EST August 25th, 2005 | Politics | 3 Comments

The auctioning of John McCain’s soul continues as he endorses teaching “intelligent design” in schools.

Here’s my stake in the ground: I will not support a Democrat who endorses teaching “intelligent design” in our schools. It’s perfectly reasonable and American for someone to believe in religion, and that their religion is what has created our world, but “intelligent design” is pseudo-science hokum that has no place in our houses of learning.

Origin of Species

The Height Of Offense

7:08 pm EST August 24th, 2005 | Politics | 5 Comments

Portraying women opposed to John Roberts as crazed vikings who want to use vacuums to suck out babies. Nice work from Brian Fairrington, idiot.

Desperate

6:08 pm EST August 24th, 2005 | Republicans | 12 Comments

The American Legion is prepping a crackdown on protests, while Bush has searched around and found someone to “counter” Cindy Sheehan’s powerful story.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen when a conflict enjoys popular support. Up until now the administration has made do by screaming “support the troops” and having everyone whimper and go away. But the old tricks aren’t working, you can see that when they rolled out hatchet man Dan Bartlett to the morning news shows a couple days ago. I’m just wondering now when Karen Hughes will pop up, or if Cheney will make another one of his Vaderesque speeches that are designed to scare us half to death.

It’s not working, and they’ve got no way out. Prepare for more disaster.

We need an opposition party in times like this. Where are the Democrats? Come out of your caves.

Robertson’s Ties To The White House

5:08 pm EST August 24th, 2005 | Politics | 1 Comment

The conservative movement is working hard to deny that Pat Robertson wields any influence or has any ties to the Bush White House or the GOP in general, but this is a lie.

Or do all of us get personal audiences with the President on the eve of war?

Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, told CNN in an interview Tuesday night that he urged the president to prepare the American people for the prospect of casualties before launching the war in March 2003.

Robertson said Bush told him, ” ‘Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.’ ”

More than 1,100 American troops have been killed in Iraq since the invasion, most of them battling an insurgency that followed the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Why Is The Media Censoring The War

10:08 am EST August 24th, 2005 | News | 5 Comments

Salon has some pictures that should be seen. The Iraq War is now a 2 year old conflict, ostensibly there are thousands of photos like this and beyond. Why do we see nothing of them in our “free” press?

Topic: Liberal Media

Gaggle: “This Is No Laughing Matter”

10:08 am EST August 24th, 2005 | News | 6 Comments

Appropriately that’s the “punchline” for today’s edition of Gaggle, Media Research Center’s failed attempt at humor. Evidently they’ve now turned off the comments for “Gaggle” so that they can no longer get feedback about how spectacularly unfunny the whole enterprise is. This isn’t a right-left thing. Here’s a comment from one of the readers to the previous strip:

Politically speaking, I’m sympathetic, but outside the artwork, these strips are rather boring. There’s no “funny” here, nor irony, nor satire. At best, they’re slightly snotty, but not enough to be interesting. Sorry.

Sorry, indeed.

Previously:
Three Weeks
Gaggle Funny Watch: Still Waiting
Where s The Make It Funny Button?

How to Win Friends & Influence People