Don’t Let Us Down, Georgia

4:04 pm EST August 4th, 2006 | Democrats | 13 Comments

Hopefully Cynthia McKinney will lose so badly she never returns to politics.

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13 Responses to “Don’t Let Us Down, Georgia”

Church Secretary says:

August 4, 2006 at 8:38 pm

Yes, it is far better to have a candidate approved and supported by the Republican Party.

OW, do you still wonder why the Dems have such trouble gaining ground, even in the wake of monumental Republican failure and corruption?

Instead of supporting a Dem who has refused to bite her tongue speaking out against the corruption of the Rethugs, we’re supposed to root for a black Joe Lieberman (“I won’t offend the Republican base!”)?

If this is centrism, then let’s start practicing our goosestepping now.
Oliver Willis says:

August 5, 2006 at 4:47 am

Please stop being so stupid. Dems have trouble gaining ground because they won’t stand on principle, not because they don’t act like lunatics. McKinney is an embarrasment and a stain on the House.
Church Secretary says:

August 5, 2006 at 10:02 am

I’m reading your characterization of McKinney, but you’ve backed it up with nothing more than a link to a right-wing hatchet job from USA Today. McKinney stands on principle, even if she is a bit rough around the edges. Her greatest sin is her unwillingness to polish her image for the corporate cameras. Instead of forgiving her that sin, the ‘centrist’ Dem crowd taps into the Zell Miller vibe and out-smears the Rethugs.

The problem with ‘centrist’ Dems is that they hope to win with little more than the tentative appearance of standing on principle. I believe if they saw anything of value worth standing for– beside their corporate campaign contributions– they would be more like McKinney and less like Bobby Rush and Barack Obama. They are sitting back hoping that the Rethugs will drive desperate voters into their arms, meanwhile making sure to take care of their wealthy and corporate donors (whether it’s Obama selling out to the financial district by voting for the ‘bankruptcy reform’ bill, or it’s Rush selling out to corporate media conglomerates with the fascistic C.O.P.E. Act).

In the heat of post-9/11 chickensh-t, jingoistic frenzy, McKinney had the gumption to stand up and question the Bush administration’s motivations for the bogus “war on terror.” She was vilified for that, and Dems kept their distance. She opposes our govt’s blind support of Israel, and for that she gets tarred as an ‘anti-Semite.’ In the face of constant harassment and opposition from Rethugs and ‘centrist’ Dems, she keeps fighting.

If McKinney’s a lunatic, then we need more lunatics. God knows we’ve got more than enough ‘centrists’ around to rubber-stamp phony wars, war profiteer pork, and the erosion of our civil liberties.

Tell ya what, OW: I’ll keep being “stupid,” and you keep following the ‘centrist’ path. I’m pretty sure most Dems will be walking with you, unfortunately, and we’ll see if that path gets us out of the muck we’re currently digging ourselves into. When it doesn’t, count on me (and the other “stupid” people) to remind you that there were elected officials like Cynthia McKinney who were willing to put a stop to it.
Duros62 says:

August 5, 2006 at 11:18 am

I don’t understand your issue with McKinney. On the one you bitch because the Democrats don’t have any balls, but you don’t like the ones who do.
Maybe I’m missing something. McKinney may have her failings, but she is a tough, proud black woman who isn’t afraid to be a tough, proud black woman.
Again, I’m missing somehting here, Oliver. You castigate black politicians for being too, what’s the word I’m looking for? Perhpas just not “black” enough for your taste, but you dislike McKinney because…. why?
That whole thing with the security guard was unfortunate and a misunderstanding. She should not have thrown the “race card” so quickly. She needs a makeover and an image consultant. But you can’t say she doesn’t stand by her principles.
If we could cut through whatever isues you might have with her and look at the strength of her convictions, I think we would benefit from MORE Democrats in Congress like her, rather than less. Better to keep democrats like Leiberman and Miller?
Church Secretary says:

August 5, 2006 at 4:04 pm

Perhaps the USA Today story contains something useful after all, Duros. Look at the second sentence of the last paragraph:

“Newcomers to [McKinney's] district, he says, are younger, middle-class blacks interested in education, jobs and taxes: They are not necessarily influenced by the old civil rights leadership.”

Perhaps many of these bourgeois young blacks are so unwilling to upset the gravy train that they’re embarrassed to be identified with a ‘throwback’ like McKinney, whose championing of underdog causes makes her more from the mold of a MLK or a Fannie Lou Hamer than a Barack Obama or a Denise Majette.

I suppose that’s the sad irony of it all: if it weren’t for loudmouthed troublemakers like King and Hamer, there wouldn’t be any corporate-friendly, stay-within-the-lines poseurs like Obama or Majette. I guess the Civil Rights era really is over.
buma says:

August 5, 2006 at 5:57 pm

If GA Democrats who vote in the runoff prefer the other candidate over McKinney, that’s OK. A similar situation is occurring in CT on Tuesday. Let ‘em vote.
By the way, the Republicans in Sugarland, TX voted for the man they wanted most in their primary.
Indy says:

August 5, 2006 at 9:30 pm

I’m guessing if OW were grabbed roughly from behind in a crowded hallway, he’d just blush and giggle and tell the man to please be gentle.
Oliver Willis says:

August 6, 2006 at 12:02 am

McKinney is the poster woman for the sort of sound and fury signifying nothing Democrat that hurts Dems as much as Joe Lieberman does. McKinney is all about McKinney and what she can get for Cynthia. I do, however, find it funny that outside people want to lecture black Americans of the current generation how they should act.

If its centrist to want Democrats to be smart and effective while advocating progressive ideals, then call me that. If it’s liberal to be loud and advancing nothing, then go ahead and support McKinney.
Church Secretary says:

August 6, 2006 at 1:29 am

If the rest of the Dems had any sound or fury, then McKinney might signify more than the rest of the Dems’ kowtowing obsolescence.

Unfortunately, McKinney isn’t the only one who’s getting hung out to dry by the craven Clintonians of the DLC. Look at what is happening to Ned Lamont: how many Dems have come to stand with him in his bid to oust the Connecticut Zell Miller? How many have come to CT to support Joementum?

The Rethugs have been successful for two major reasons: first, they fight hard and dirty, and they don’t worry about how it looks to their opposition. This is something you’ve pointed out yourself, OW.
Second, the bulk of the Democratic Party is afraid of pissing off their corporate johns by standing up for the working people and the poor; this forces a large segment of the country to choose between embracing the angry Rethug politics of scapegoating or consciously accepting that they’re screwed either way.

“McKinney is all about McKinney and what she can get for Cynthia.”

This is beneath hilarious. The Clinton years were all about putting a smiley face on the same old Reagan-era me-first greed. Instead of the S & L scandals, we got the dot-com bubble. Instead of trickle-down, we got NAFTA. Instead of Willie Horton, we got the Crime Bill. That’s the “centrist” Dem pedigree, and it paved the way for the Bush disaster.

And I must reiterate: if you’re lining up to vote for a candidate who is getting heavy support from both the RNC and the lunatic Zionists at AIPAC, what does that say about your “progressive ideals”?

Let’s see where this ‘centrism’ gets you in ’06 and ’08.
Zython says:

August 6, 2006 at 2:15 am

Oliver, before the site when kaplooie, you called McKinney an anti-semite. People asked you where you got that from and you never answered. Care to answer here? Because it’s now or never.
Church Secretary says:

August 6, 2006 at 5:55 am

If you look at the USA Today article, Zython, you can see the kind of guilt-by-association argument that is regularly hurled at McKinney. Her father said some strange things about Jews contributing to his daughter’s earlier primary loss (an accusation which carried a great deal of weight, since pro-Israel lobbies heavily backed her opponent) to Republican favorite Denise Majette. More importantly, though (and the right-wing article doesn’t mention this), McKinney has made her position clear regarding her support for the Palestinian people. Her refusal to ignore the Palestinian Arabs’ humanity and toe the line of rabid Zionism gets her labeled an ‘anti-Semite.’

So if OW, or anyone else for that matter, labels McKinney an ‘anti-Semite,’ they are parroting a boilerplate right-wing smear. More of the ‘progressive ideals’ of ‘centrism’ at work, you see. I’ll say it a million times: if you insist on following a script written by the RNC and AIPAC, you might as well just grab a Republican ballot next time you hit the polling place.
Oliver Willis says:

August 6, 2006 at 2:40 pm

If I’m a pol, and my dad says something anti-semitic and I just let it pass, well let’s just say its not much of a condemnation.

As far as President Clinton goes, if you think the most progressive presidency in a generation with double digit economic growth, record low unemployment, record employment, increased access to health care and defense against terrorism is just Reagan lite I wonder what the hell could ever actually please you.
Church Secretary says:

August 7, 2006 at 9:07 am

In a climate where any criticism of Israeli policy– and domestic support for Israeli policy– is equated with drunken frothings of the Mel Gibson variety, the “anti-Semitic” accusation is so watered down as to be almost meaningless. If you’re busy worrying about whether or not to ‘condemn’ the free speech of others, especially that of your parents, do you really have the backbone to stand up to the Republican machine?

If the Clinton administration is to be congratulated for anything regarding its economic policy, then it can be praised for good husbandry of a paper tiger. Much of the Clintonian ‘growth’ was illusory (i.e. the dot-com bubble), and much of their ‘progressive’ policy only seemed so in contrast to a dozen years of the Reaganites’ gilded fascism. In the end, it was far too easy for the cornpone Nazis of Bush II to scuttle Clinton’s ‘gains.’ That’s because those ‘gains’ weren’t really spread evenly among the classes. This is another reason why the Rethugs had such an easy time turning poor and working white people against the Dems; a healthy plurality were being told how much better things were getting, at the same time their wages and benefits were evaporating as the traditional manufacturing job market departed for foreign pastures and they were left with low-paying, service sector McJobs. So we got a few Mark Cubans and all the minorities got to feel like they weren’t getting openly scorned by their government for eight years. It was no accident that it only took six years for things to get as bad as they have.

Maybe the cure for this is eight more years of centrism? I double-dog-dare the DLC to throw Hillary Clinton up for pres in ’08. The Rethugs won’t need to cheat this time.