| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
|
 Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:33 am Post subject: "Good Riddance Attention Whore" by Cindy Sheehan |
 |
|
|
|
| Quote: | "Good Riddance Attention Whore"
by Cindy Sheehan
Mon May 28, 2007 at 09:57:01 AM PDT
I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such "liberal blogs" as the Democratic Underground. Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes.
I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.
The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system?
However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong."
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?
I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an "attention whore" then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a "grateful" country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.
The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.
I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.
Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.
I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.
Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too...which makes the property even more valuable.
This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.
Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.
It’s up to you now. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
nekokate
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| Thanks for that, Luke. A really moving piece, and so sad that she's right about the peace movements and the in-fighting. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| Quote: | An Open Letter to the Democratic Congress
Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party
By CINDY SHEEHAN
Dublin, Ireland
Dear Democratic Congress,
Hello, my name is Cindy Sheehan and my son Casey Sheehan was killed on April 04, 2004 in Sadr City , Baghdad , Iraq . He was killed when the Republicans still were in control of Congress. Naively, I set off on my tireless campaign calling on Congress to rescind George's authority to wage his war of terror while asking him "for what noble cause" did Casey and thousands of other have to die. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress, I have lost my optimistic naiveté and have become cynically pessimistic as I see you all caving into "Mr. 28%"
There is absolutely no sane or defensible reason for you to hand Bloody King George more money to condemn more of our brave, tired, and damaged soldiers and the people of Iraq to more death and carnage. You think giving him more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.
Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said after George signed the new weak as a newborn baby funding authorization bill: "Now, I think the president's policy will begin to unravel." Begin to unravel? How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? How many more crimes will BushCo be allowed to commit while their poll numbers are crumbling before you all gain the political "courage" to hold them accountable. If Iraq hasn't unraveled in Ms. Pelosi's mind, what will it take? With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit) how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity.
Being cynically pessimistic, it seems to me that this new vote to extend the war until the end of September, (and let's face it, on October 1st, you will give him more money after some more theatrics, which you think are fooling the anti-war faction of your party) will feed right into the presidential primary season and you believe that if you just hang on until then, the Democrats will be able to re-take the White House. Didn't you see how "well" that worked for John Kerry in 2004 when he played the politics of careful fence sitting and pandering? The American electorate are getting disgusted with weaklings who blow where the wind takes them while frittering away our precious lifeblood and borrowing money from our new owners, the Chinese.
I knew having a Democratic Congress would make no difference in grassroots action. That's why we went to DC when you all were sworn in to tell you that we wanted the troops back from Iraq and BushCo held accountable while you pushed for ethics reform which is quite a hoot...don't' you think? We all know that it is affordable for you all to play this game of political mayhem because you have no children in harm's way...let me tell you what it is like:
You watch your reluctant soldier march off to a war that neither you nor he agrees with. Once your soldier leaves the country all you can do is worry. You lie awake at night staring at the moon wondering if today will be the day that you get that dreaded knock on your door. You can't concentrate, you can't eat, and your entire life becomes consumed with apprehension while you are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Then, when your worst fears are realized, you begin a life of constant pain, regret, and longing. Everyday is hard, but then you come up on "special" days...like upcoming Memorial Day. Memorial Day holds double pain for me because, not only are we supposed to honor our fallen troops, but Casey was born on Memorial Day in 1979. It used to be a day of celebration for us and now it is a day of despair. Our needlessly killed soldiers of this war and the past conflict in Vietnam have all left an unnecessary trail of sorrow and deep holes of absence that will never be filled.
So, Democratic Congress, with the current daily death toll of 3.72 troops per day, you have condemned 473 more to these early graves. 473 more lives wasted for your political greed: Thousands of broken hearts because of your cowardice and avarice. How can you even go to sleep at night or look at yourselves in a mirror? How do you put behind you the screaming mothers on both sides of the conflict? How does the agony you have created escape you? It will never escape me...I can't run far enough or hide well enough to get away from it.
By the end of September, we will be about 80 troops short of another bloody milestone: 4000, and MoveOn.org will hold nationwide candlelight vigils and you all will be busy passing legislation that will snuff the lights out of thousands more human beings.
Congratulations Congress, you have bought yourself a few more months of an illegal and immoral bloodbath. And you know you mean to continue it indefinitely so "other presidents" can solve the horrid problem BushCo forced our world into.
It used to be George Bush's war. You could have ended it honorably. Now it is yours and you all will descend into calumnious history with BushCo.
The Camp Casey Peace Institute is calling all citizens who are as disgusted as we are with you all to join us in Philadelphia on July 4th to try and figure a way out of this "two" party system that is bought and paid for by the war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives. As for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country is heading. We did not elect you to help sink our ship of state but to guide it to safe harbor.
We do not condone our government's violent meddling in sovereign countries and we condemn the continued murderous occupation of Iraq .
We gave you a chance, you betrayed us.
Sincerely,
Cindy Sheehan
Founder and President of
Gold Star Families for Peace.
Founder and Director of
The Camp Casey Peace Institute
Eternally grieving mother of Casey Sheehan |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 4:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| reminds me of the post I did a few days ago in the News section (about Bird droppings on Bush) [but got deleted for being off-thread] |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 5:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
i must admit i'm wondering how you got from that bird crapping on bush to that  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| luke wrote: | | i must admit i'm wondering how you got from that bird crapping on bush to that |
I got to it because someone said that a bird crapping on Bush is what he deserved. I then mentioned they must be a Democrat if they believed that was all that Bush deserved. i.e. Analogy is that the Democrats are letting off Bush "lightly" (or even Scott free) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
That's one sad report from that woman - I hope she can maybe move somewhere where the overwhelming hatred for anyone that steps out of line isn't as strong. All her points were heart-felt and well written - anyone hating her is admitting that they're basically scum, no matter how they wrap it up.
When her time comes, strangers will attend her funeral out of respect for her as a human being - and that's not something you could say about any of her critics. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DavidGig
Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Location: Kansas, U.S.A.
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
I'm proud to say I was with Sheehan at Crawford, TX in summer 2005. That was when she was trying to get Bush to come out of his ranch and speak with her. There were a couple thousand people down there and I think it played a role in getting the anti-war movement recongized, back when both parties were trying to ignore it.
This part of her message got to me--
| Quote: | | the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong. |
My biggest disappointment was that the anti-war movement never succeeded in bringing together the movements from the left and the right. If there was ever a cause that was going to convince people that the old left-right paradigm might not be the best way of approaching today's problems, it was Iraq (which of course was supported by both parties). But it seems people have too much invested in the old Democrat/Republican, Labor/Tory, myteam/yourteam rivalries to ever give them up. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
major.tom
Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Joined: 21 Jan 2007
Location: BC, Canada
|
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| Quote: | | "Good Riddance Attention Whore" |
Out of curiosity, Luke, where did this title come from? Obviously someone has a lot of hate to characterize her both as a whore and an attention-seeker.
I applaud her for how hard she worked and how much progress she did make despite the (let's face it) cowardice of mainstream Democrats to take a firm stand against the war. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
|
| Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
| major.tom wrote: | | Out of curiosity, Luke, where did this title come from? Obviously someone has a lot of hate to characterize her both as a whore and an attention-seeker. |
i've no idea tom, sad though isn't it she says in the article;
| Cindy Sheehan wrote: | | Being called an "attention whore" and being told "good riddance" are some of the more milder rebukes. |
whats the bet that whoever called her that hasn't lost a son in iraq ... or done a fraction of whats she's done to educate people and try and stop the war, or sacrificed as much ... C U Next TuesdayS ... 
| major.tom wrote: | | I applaud her for how hard she worked and how much progress she did make despite the (let's face it) cowardice of mainstream Democrats to take a firm stand against the war. |
yeah big time  i wish her all the best for the future  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 1:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
|
from http://wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/shee-j02.shtml
| Quote: | US antiwar protest groups silent on Cindy Sheehan’s resignation from Democratic Party
By Patrick Martin
2 June 2007
The organizations and publications that head up the antiwar protest movement in the US have sought to suppress any discussion of the political conclusion drawn by antiwar campaigner Cindy Sheehan that the time has come for opponents of the war in Iraq to break with the Democratic Party.
Sheehan issued an open letter to the Democratic Congress May 26, announcing her resignation from the Democratic Party in response to last month’s vote to provide another $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two days later, she announced she was temporarily suspending her active role in antiwar protest campaigns, in part due to family and health concerns. In that letter she noted bitterly that she had come under attack from some within the antiwar protest milieu because of her public repudiation of the Democrats.
Both the corporate-controlled media and the antiwar “left” groups have focused attention on the second statement and downplayed or suppressed outright any reference to the first. (A Google news search, for instance, reveals that not a single “mainstream” publication quoted Sheehan’s declaration, “I am leaving the Democratic Party,” although there were hundreds of reports of her second statement about discontinuing her active role in the antiwar protest movement.)
The reasons for the media to suppress any reference to Sheehan’s decision to quit the Democratic Party are obvious: the major daily newspapers and television networks are controlled by the same financial aristocracy whose social interests are upheld by the two-party system. Anything that challenges the political monopoly of the Democrats and Republicans must be either ignored or ridiculed.
But what of the antiwar protest organizations and the array of left-liberal pressure groups? A survey of their responses to Sheehan’s resignation from the Democratic Party shows a revealing pattern. All of these groups, from the avowedly pro-Democratic Party MoveOn.org to ostensibly “socialist” organizations such as the International Socialist Organization and Workers World Party, shy away from, downplay or flatly reject Sheehan’s conclusion that a political alternative to the Democratic Party is needed.
The essential political orientation common to all of these organizations is reflected in the similarity of their methods. None of these groups presents Sheehan’s criticism of the Democrats fairly and honestly, and none of them directly addresses her political conclusion. They combine falsification and distortion of the most shameless kind with abject political cowardice.
The Nation
John Nichols of The Nation magazine describes Sheehan patronizingly as “an honest player who spoke her mind—sometimes intemperately, often imperfectly, always sincerely.” His commentary does not mention Sheehan’s resignation from the Democratic Party, making only this cryptic reference: “It is reasonable to argue with Sheehan about her read of politics and assessment of politicians. She’s the first to admit she’s no expert on campaign strategy or legislative tactics” (See: “Cindy Sheehan’s Farewell”).
The issue, however, is not one of political tactics and strategy, but of basic principle. Sheehan has concluded—on the basis of a deeply felt and steadfast opposition to the war and the Bush administration, and bitter personal experience with the two-faced and cynical maneuvers of the Democrats—that the Democratic Party is not an instrument through which a struggle against war and for progressive social change can be conducted, but is instead an obstacle to any such struggle.
Sheehan has, to her credit, decided to take a principled stand. That she as yet lacks a worked-out political perspective is entirely understandable in a country where historical truth is systematically suppressed and a media establishment devotes its huge resources to pumping out government propaganda and lies on a daily basis. Her great strength is that she strives to speak the truth.
She has taken the measure of the Democrats not only from their political record, but also from considerable first-hand experience. She has met or been in contact with nearly every leading Democratic politician in the two years since she first came to public attention when she established “Camp Casey” on the outskirts of Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, and began to demand an explanation from the “commander-in-chief” on why her son, killed in Iraq in April of 2004, died. Her revulsion against the double-dealing and cowardly capitulation of the congressional Democrats reflects the thinking of millions of people in the US.
As Sheehan said in an interview this week on the radio program “Democracy Now!,” “If we don’t get a viable third party—or some people say second party; you know, the Democrats and Republicans are so similar, and their pockets are lined by the same people—we are—our representative republic is doomed... we really need an opposition party in this country. But we vote out of our fear. We go and we vote for the lesser of two evils, and we always end up getting somebody evil.”
The Nation is adamantly opposed to any struggle to develop a political movement of the working class independent of the Democratic Party and opposed to the two-party system. Its entire orientation revolves around the election of a Democratic administration in 2008 and continued Democratic control of Congress—which would result, not incidentally, in hundreds if not thousands of well-paying jobs for the privileged middle-class layer whose interests it articulates.
MoveOn.org
Another major player in the antiwar protest movement is MoveOn.org, which represents a wing of the Democratic Party. Its executive director, Eli Pariser, was interviewed Wednesday on CNN about Sheehan’s suspension of activity in antiwar protests. He voiced criticism of the Senate and House Democrats who voted for the war-funding bill, but added, “Let’s not forget, it’s the Republicans who are obstructing the—you know, who are obstructing the two-thirds vote we’re going to need to override President Bush’s veto.”
At one point, CNN interviewer John Roberts asked Pariser directly about Sheehan’s criticism of MoveOn.org for acting as a political arm of the Democrats and subordinating the issue of the war in Iraq to the campaign to elect Democrats in 2008. According to the transcript, Pariser’s answer combined evasion with a slur against Sheehan, suggesting her response to the war was too emotional.
Roberts: MoveOn.org was one of Cindy Sheehan’s early supporters. She then turned against your organization as she moved further to the left, claiming that you’re not anti-war enough. Is there any validity to her charges?
Pariser: Well, you know, I think none of us can really understand what it’s like to be a mother who lost her son in this war. And I think, you know, in any war, but especially in a war that was as tragically mismanaged, as huge a blunder as this one. So, Cindy and MoveOn, you know, our members have had differences with her from time to time. I think she was a voice though at the beginning who spoke out when few other people would. And we’re very thankful for that (Partial transcript here).
The Green Party
The Green Party issued a statement May 30 hailing Sheehan for “her courage and sacrifice.” The statement declared, “Green Party leaders offered their thanks to antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan for dedicating three years of her life to ending the Iraq War, in the wake of Ms. Sheehan’s announcement that she is retiring from the movement to end the war”.
This statement continued with quotations from various state and national representatives of the party. Nowhere in any of their comments was there a single reference to the Democratic Party, or to Sheehan’s break with it, despite the fact that the very existence of the Green Party as an electoral organization is supposedly bound up with a rejection of the two-party system.
The Greens do not welcome Sheehan’s public letter of resignation from the Democratic Party, comment on its significance, or suggest that in doing so she is giving voice to the sentiments of millions of people currently trapped within the two-party framework. This silence demonstrates that the Green Party’s independence from the Democratic Party is purely nominal, a device to allow the Greens to exert a bit of pressure in an attempt to push the Democrats to the left. They do not aspire to lead a mass break with the two-party system, nor do they believe such a political eruption is possible, or even desirable.
United for Peace and Justice
A similar commentary on Sheehan’s statements came from Leslie Cagan, co-chair of United for Peace and Justice, the major liberal-left umbrella group for antiwar protest demonstrations. Cagan’s response was published as an article on the web site of Political Affairs, the magazine of the Communist Party USA. The Stalinists have perhaps the foulest record of support for the Democratic Party of any nominally left-wing political tendency, invariably denouncing any struggle by working people against the Democrats as a conspiracy by the ultra-right to divide and weaken “progressives”—in which category they place such stalwart defenders of American imperialism as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Cagan flatters Sheehan, declaring, “Her clarity and her energy helped to inspire others to activism,” but makes no mention of the Democratic Party at all. There is one coded reference to the subject: “There are differences among us and there always will be. The goal shouldn’t necessarily be to eradicate those differences but rather to find new, constructive ways to deal with them. We’re going to need every ally and every tool in the toolbox ... to end this war” (See article here).
These words will be clearly understood by the Stalinist milieu for which Cagan is writing in Political Affairs, but perhaps not by less experienced readers. Translated into plain language, it means that the struggle against the war in Iraq must be subordinated to the overriding goal of electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress in 2008. Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi and Reid must be included in the category of “every ally and every tool in the toolbox.”
The International Socialist Organization
Finally, there are the responses to Sheehan from the nominally socialist organizations. Socialist Worker, the publication of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), a split-off from the state capitalist tendency founded by the British ex-Trotskyist Tony Cliff, refers to Sheehan’s statements in its lead article on the passage of the war-spending bill by Congress .
Again, there is no reference to the antiwar activist’s resignation from the Democratic Party. Instead, Socialist Worker writes, “A few days later, an emotional Sheehan announced that she was retreating from political activity,” as though this was simply the expression of political demoralization after the congressional vote.
The ISO reassures its readers that things are not so bad: “For antiwar activists, it is equally important to recognize how much the ground has shifted in mainstream politics—in spite of Bush’s victory on war spending. The Democrats’ surrender was greeted by an outpouring of anger, not least from liberal individuals and organizations that were quickest to defend the Democrats in the past. There is a rebellion brewing in the base of the Democratic Party—even if its political outline and future direction is still vague.”
As evidence of this “outpouring,” the ISO cites, not Sheehan’s public attack on the Democrats, but the verbal scolding of Reid, Pelosi & Co. by MoveOn.org and liberal MSNBC journalist Keith Olbermann. According to their analysis, such criticism “has created the potential for much larger numbers of people to take an active stand against the war. Antiwar protest and organization has lagged behind the overwhelming sentiment against the war ... The key to ending the occupation of Iraq and building an opposition to the US empire lies outside Washington—in building up antiwar groups, organizing protests and turning the vast sentiment against the war into active opposition.”
For all the radical rhetoric, the ISO does not pose the central task confronting working people in the United States, the building of a new, mass independent political party directed against the Democrats, the Republicans, and the corporate financial oligarchy. The perspective presented here is one of continued impotent protests which leave the two-party political monopoly undisturbed.
Workers World Party
Even more heated rhetoric appears in Workers World, the publication of the Workers World Party (WWP). A lead article on the passage of the war-funding bill, posted May 31, carries the headline, “Democrats Bait and Switch: Betray Voters, Okay War Funds.” It denounces the Democrats for “stunning ... cynicism,” “total capitulation,” “grandstanding as war opponents,” and “defending imperialist interests”.
Lest the Democratic leadership take too much offense, however, this is followed by effusive praise for two House Democrats, Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee, who voted against the funding bill, and extended quotations of their remarks in the congressional debate.
The article then turns to Sheehan, quoting her May 26 letter of resignation from the Democratic Party, which Workers World concedes expressed “the deep frustration of millions of people who are opposed to the war and had faith in the Democratic Party.”
The Workers World article, however, draws no political conclusions from this event, other than the need to “move the struggle into the streets,” i.e., into protests directed to the same Democratic politicians who have just demonstrated their complicity in Bush’s imperialist war in Iraq. Despite their verbal attacks on the Democrats, they have only tactical differences with openly pro-Democratic outfits like MoveOn.org. They believe it more effective to lobby Congress with marchers on the Mall than with e-mail blasts on the Internet.
The article points to a planned “encampment” outside the US Capitol in late September, and a march on September 29, timed to coincide with the Democrats’ own plans for another series of phony antiwar proposals—after which Congress will dutifully rubberstamp another year of bloodshed in Iraq in the name of “supporting our troops.”
According to Workers World, the call for these demonstrations “opens an opportunity for an independent intervention representing millions of workers and oppressed people.” This is to turn language on its head: an “independent intervention” on the legislative timetable of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi!
The Workers World Party is perfectly prepared to make verbal denunciations of the two-party system, declaring, “Both the Democratic and Republican parties are committed and loyal to the same imperialist system of corporate rule, based on private ownership of the resources and labor of all of society on a global scale.” But in limiting the alternative to “militant action [emphasis mine] independent from both capitalist parties,” the WWP effectively rules out political action: the struggle to build a socialist, mass political party of working people as the alternative to the parties of big business.
That is because the WWP, for all its occasional paeans to “socialism” (whose highest expression, according to them, is the grisly Stalinist dictatorship in North Korea), has quite definite and practical relationships with leading Democratic Party politicians which it wishes to maintain—including not only Kucinich and Lee, but also Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and author of legislation to reestablish a military draft in the United States.
The tendencies discussed above cover the full range of the liberal and radical “left” in the United States—that is, they occupy the intermediate position between outright capitalist reaction and the revolutionary socialist perspective advocated by the World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Equality Party. But they all have one characteristic in common: they reinforce, in one way or another, the political monopoly of the two-party system, through which the American ruling elite purposes its policies of imperialist war abroad and social reaction at home. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
Couchtripper - 2005-2015
|
