archived: 5 - 11 Jun, 2005 Back Next
UPDATED: June 10, 2005
SAGE ADVICE
Sen. Clinton made the following comments during a speech that every Democrat should consider and take to heart:
There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the gathering.
"I know it's frustrating for many of you, it's frustrating for me. Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."
"We can't ever, ever give in to the Republican agenda," she said. "It isn't good for New York and it isn't good for America."
Mrs. Clinton described Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even "destroy" the Senate to gain political advantage, a reference to the recent fight that nearly stripped the Democratic minority of its filibuster powers to shelve judicial nominees.
She also took a shot at the House of Representatives, calling it "a dictatorship of the Republican leadership."
Referring to the Congressional leadership, she said, "Some honestly believe they are motivated by the truth, they are motivated by a higher calling, they are motivated by, I guess, a direct line to the heavens."
In some of her sharpest language, Mrs. Clinton said that abetting Republicans was a Washington press corps that has become a pale imitation of the Watergate-era reporters who are being celebrated amid the identification of the Washington Post source Deep Throat.
"It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today," Mrs. Clinton said, again to strong applause. "They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.
"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake." -- New York Times
And that is why TPJ stands for the preservation of constitutional democracy in the United States.
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IT IS "HAPPENING" HERE
[Authored by Leutisha Stills]
Sinclair Lewis is considered a very good satirical writer. But could he have been trying to warn Americans about the delicate balance of democracy, and how easily a nation can slip into a dictatorship almost without it being realized until it's too late to stop it? Was he warning us to start paying attention to the signs, and learn how to take action should it start to happen?
Consider that Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here" in 1935. Seventy years ago, Lewis warns America, through satire, about how precious democracy is, and how to not take it for granted that we would always have it. How valuable democracy is; to the point that we should always be ready to fight for and defend it. For those of you who didn't get this book as assigned reading in high school, it's an absolute necessity now (you can purchase it as a premium on Buzz Flash). It is the story of how a candidate for President of the United States, seemingly a "man of the people" was elected to the highest office in the land on the basis of slickly packaged snake oil that hoodwinked the masses, while appealing to the basest instincts of personal needs and avarice. Once elected, he proceeds to reverse every law under the Constitution, kill or imprison any dissidents and remove those who had jobs, homes and businesses and place them into mass slavery, while further facilitating mass poverty when the people didn't get the money they were promised (think "a chicken in every pot" here). There were no more states, but regional territories with Commissioners and Militia Troops; private institutions were eliminated and state schools became institutions for the dictatorship propaganda. Media was government controlled; any signs of dissent and the media outlet were shut down, and publishers either swore a loyalty oath or got thrown in jail after trial in a Kangaroo Court.
Could Sinclair Lewis really have known just how fragile democracy is? Was "It Can't Happen Here" a warning for all of us in this country to be alert and vigilant to such insidious coup d'tat?
It is easy to take for granted something or someone you always believe and trust will be around. But what happens when that person, place or thing is gone? If the person dies? If the place is decimated? If the thing is destroyed? You begin thinking "If I get it back, I will never act so foolishly or rashly ever again." If we get a second chance, some of us are wise to be ever cognizant of what was nearly lost; we remember how foolish we were and are too scared to be that foolish again. The rest of us, well, sometimes, we don't make good use of second chances and then what we value, or say we value, are completely and irrevocably taken from us, and we are totally devastated; especially when the opportunities for another chance are dried up.
We have taken democracy for granted; that the concept and practice will always be here. But with a government that stifles dissent; ignores any event or news report that paints them in an unfavorable light; creates additional hardships for those who can't take any more; promised to keep us safe while continually exposing us to the danger of terrorists - willfully dismisses what is the truth while dressing up lies and telling us that the lie is the truth - we, as Americans, have taken democracy for granted, and it totters on the brink of mass destruction. It has taken five years of the Bush Administration to wake up the rest of America to the fact that our democracy crawls on spider's legs and can be eliminated with one legislative act.
Throughout history, it has been reported how devastating fascist governments and dictatorships were to entire populations and their effects on a global scale. As we read about them in history books; Russia, China, Italy, Germany, South Africa - the rise of charismatic leaders like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini; their atrocities recorded in the evisceration of entire races of people, or dissidents being imprisoned or executed - those of us in America felt like we had bragging rights as we claimed to be the heralds of democracy and gleeful in our desire to spread what we had in America to countries abroad. We looked in fascinated horror at the atrocities committed in the name of leadership by the leaders of foreign lands. We shook our heads, while thinking, always thinking, "It Can't Happen Here".
Fast forward to 2005 - where we have an Administration that essentially forced a national publication to retract a factual report because it painted the Administration in an unfavorable light regarding the abuse of Iraqi and Afghani war prisoners. We don't get to find out what has really happened in the prisons in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, because the sources are always discredited. We can't tell the President how we really feel about the attempts to privatize Social Security, or wrecking Medicare, because the Secret Service has orders to throw protesters in jail and deny them due process of the law. The news that anyone receives is information that is running through the spin and rinse cycles of Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. How dare you say you don't support the war in Iraq - why, "that's being un-American and unpatriotic", you are told! This, from despots who belong in what Kos refers to as the "101st Fighting Keyboardists" - and used any and all excuses to avoid going to fight in Vietnam. This, from the same group of infidels that slimed Sen. John Kerry, a man who could have used the same excuses to defer serving in Vietnam, but went and fought for his country. Thank you, Swift Boat Liars, for the trashing of Kerry's war record - talk about the truth being turned into a lie for a good sound bite and the purpose of confusing people when election time came.
Just when you think our democracy's safe, along comes Bill Frist with his "nuclear option" to eliminate the last constitutional option to facilitate debate and engage in lawful dissent, and he has the President, James Dobson and Pat Robertson as cheerleaders; egging him on to blow up the last element that keeps our fragile democracy in place...the filibuster. While the band of 14 Senators who brokered a deal to sustain the filibuster (for now) recognized that this faction of democracy needed to be protected, just how well does their brokered agreement does that? Three of the worst jurists ever, will still get consideration; one (Priscilla Owen) has actually been confirmed. The attempt to turn the Federal Courts into Kangaroo Courts didn't just happen; it's been in the making since 1984. It is being manifested 20 years later. Send the Gipper a "thank You" card, why don't you?
While all of these attacks to eliminate democracy are going on, some poor soul, working at Wal-Mart on a minimum wage job while applying for welfare to ensure his family's survival and supplement that check, still believes that the elimination of democracy can't happen in America. Corruption, in today's Congress, is the norm and not the exception - so much so that the House of Representatives passed a rule to stack the ethics committee with supporters of the Bug Man to give him a free pass. It also allowed for retaliatory investigations of House Members who have issues with the Bug Man, or punish those in the GOP who discovered they have a spine and a conscious when they vote against the shill he's pushing.
We really want to believe that the horror that is America, as described by Sinclair Lewis in 1935, couldn't possibly happen here. It is really to frightening to contemplate and it makes my head hurt, not to mention my heart. We can't continue to think that "It Can't Happen Here" when the reality is, it's already "Happening" Here as I write this.
Our democracy is valuable, and we must fight to preserve it with everything within us. Otherwise, what Sinclair Lewis perceived satirically; It Will Happen Here.
Junkie: Ms. Stills’ article would normally appear in Junkies Speak. It is running in THEM DEMS as TPJ believes that Stills’ article represents a core for the next Democratic Party Platform – preservation of Constitutional Democracy in the United States.
Stills’ wonderful analysis should also be read in conjunction with Chairman Dean’s speech immediately below.
PARTY OF CHANGE
Chairman Dean gave this address at the Take Back America conference on June 2nd. His comments are tantamount to the outline of a platform for the Democratic Party:
We need to be the party of reform -- campaign finance and election reform. I used to say during the presidential elections that if you want to have real campaign finance reform, don't wait around for a politician to do it, just go out and do it yourself. Send us $25 over the Internet. We need to train more people to do that. If middle-class and working Americans worry about their loss of control and Republican control of the House and the Senate realize that they can fix that by sending over $25 once in a while, giving to a candidate that they like, then we can take back America. We'll buy back America from the corporate interests, $25 at a time, because there are a lot more of us than there are of them.
We also need to be the party of election reform. We ought to do everything we can to make it easier for more Americans to vote. The Republicans are all about repressing votes; two voting machines if you live in a black district, and 10 voting machines if you live in a white district. I think every single American ought to be able to vote. If we're going to have a democracy, and lord knows that this administration is eroding democracy, the great genius of American democracy is that 48% of you can vote one way, and still have some say about the government. Now they're trying to eliminate that. The protection of the minority is an important principle in America. Dr. Frist of videotape diagnosis fame [wants to end that].
We need to be the party of change. This is an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats. We've suffered a couple of serious defeats, but we're energized because we know that our vision for America is much better than the dark and difficult vision of the Republican Party. We're in a war because the people who got us there weren't truthful with the American people.
In October, I met with an extraordinary evangelical group that understands the real dangers of what's going on. You know, we have a lot more friends that we think we have in the Democratic community in this country, and we ought to reach out more to evangelical Christians. Most of the evangelicals want to do the right thing for their children.
We need not be ashamed or reluctant to reach out and get votes from everywhere. We stand for all that is right in America. We stand for honest government. We will insist that the money that working people have earned will be set aside for their retirement, that it won't be used to leverage a buyout or bankruptcy. We will have a strong defense, but a strong defense is not just a strong military; it's also a balanced budget. And if you elect Democrats you can trust them with your money, while the Republicans will continue to borrow and spend, borrow and spend. Democrats can do better than that. We will change the elections laws so that they work for the American people and not the professional politicians in Washington. -- AlterNet
Junkie: Merge Leutisha Stills and Chairman Dean’s articles together and one gets a solid Democratic Party Platform.
Last Update: 03/23/2006