In a sense, all of these essentially "meta-debates" about "meta-issues" such as defunding the troops vs. defunding the war, is it a war or an occupation, should we get out now, in a year or 10 years, should we withdraw completely or leave bases and residual forces, supplementals vs. full budgets, neocon vs. neoliberal vs. progressive, etc. (let alone phony debates about WMD, Al Qaida, how evil Saddam was, etc.) are missing the whole point.

This war and occupation and the political debates and activities surrounding it are, and always have been, about three basic things: oil, empire and the M-I complex. I.e. about securing the US's access to the world's biggest supplies of oil (not only for our future use, but from our rivals' future access to, namely China but also India, Russia, etc.), securing and extending our global military and economic empire, and enriching the M-I complex (which, of course, includes than just arms makers and military contractors).

And in this sense--which is really the only meaningful one--both parties--or, more accurately, the dominant factions in both parties--are basically in agreement. They might differ as to the extent that they wish to pursue these goals, and the means by which they pursue them (in a nutshell, the GOP prefers "hard" or neocon power, while the Dems prefer "soft" or neolib power), but when it comes to the overall goals here, there are essentially on the same page.

And that is the crux of the problem, because the party that is supposed to be against the occupation, i.e. the Democrats, is nevertheless still FOR the ultimate reasons for which this war was started and this occupation continued. And it is for it for ideological, personal, political and professional reasons, since most leading Dems are very plugged into the various institutions and organizations that would most directly profit from the successful pursuit of these goals.

E.g. the M-I complex, huge multinationals, the WTO, World Bank, IMF, etc., which many if not most Dems are plugged into one way or another. If they don't personally profit from these (e.g. DiFi, Harmon), then they certainly politically profit from them, in the form of fat donations and the support of constituents who work for these industries and organizations in their states and districts. This is precisely the point that Chalmers Johnson and others have been making. BOTH parties are largely controlled by or in the thralls of these powerful institutions. And that, more than anything else, is determining how this drama plays out.

So to everyone who claims that the Dems are not merely stupid and cowardly in not standing up to the administration and GOP, but also complicit in their goals and schemes, I have to agree. To put it inelegantly, this is not our fathers' and mothers' Democratic Party, and it hasn't been for years. This corporatist, M-I and imperialist rot has infected the party to the core, and will be years in the undoing--assuming that it's even be possible at this point.

I take heart in the fact that there is still a strong contingent within the Democratic party that has not succumbed to this--yet--and continues to be motivated by genuinely progressive goals and ideas. There is also a faction on the right--albeit much smaller and less powerful--that similarly, if for quite different reasons, opposes these militarist, imperialist and rapacious schemes (e.g. Libertarians like Ron Paul and, weirdly, paleocons like Pat Buchanan).

In fact, I think that, given the stakes here, we would do well to unite forces with them on these issues, politically, even if we disagree on so many others. I was just listening the other day to a speech by Victor Gold--no Democrat or progressive he--that was just blistering in its condemnation of the Bush administration, today GOP, and the neocon agenda. As the saying goes, sometimes the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Or at least potential ally.

I am far from being ready to give up. But let's not kid ourselves as to what's actually going on here, once you get beneath all the jockeying, framing, rhetoric, positioning, and so on. The dominant factions of both parties--albeit much more so on the right than left--represent flip sides of the same neocon/neolib coin. One may be the hard side, and one the soft, but it's still the same M-I, imperialist, corporatist coin. And all of those who are opposed to its global conquest need to unite if we are to meaningfully oppose it.

But back to the nitty gritty day to day stuff again...

My problem with "framing" is when it is expressed as a need to pick the right slogans and words for thing ("hey, just call it occupation instead of war and you'll win the debate!"). All I'm doing in this post is pointing out that something that has been accepted as true is, in fact, false. If that's an exercise in "framing," then that term is so broad as to have no meaning.

As one of the people urging that this to be called an occupation and not war, I hope that I've made it clear that I'm doing this because I actually believe that it's much more of an occupation than a war--or a war that is directly due to an occupation--and not because I view it as merely or primarily rhetorically advantageous (which, though, I believe that it also is, but that's not my primary motivation for calling it an occupation and not war). One can, of course, make both a rhetotical and substantive point at the same time (whether or not others agree with it).

I see essentially the same thing with your point about not referring to any bill that would defund the occupation (or war, if you prefer) as defunding the troops, because it is both factually wrong and rhetorically self-defeating. A point which, of course, I agree with on both counts.