Letters to the Editor
cabdriver
Published Letters: 496 Editor's Choice: 8
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Something I'd like to see...
[Read the article: Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When are the Democrats ever going to attempt to "go over the heads of the politicians" and "take their case to the American people" on an controversial political issue?
They're supposed to be "the party of the people", after all.
Ironically, I seem to recall that it's the Republicans who have employed that tactic- and employed it successfully, most notably as part of the array of tactics they deployed againsy Bill Clinton's health plan, chiefly through the use of the "Harry and Louise" ads. More than anything else, it was the apprehesion of grassroots opposition that got the Clintons stuttering on their plans for health care- and once they began stuttering, it was all over.
In fact, the Republicans even managed to run with that momentum, to win control of the House in 1994.
In the years since, it seems that they haven't even had to actually make the attempt to "go over the heads of the opposition in Congress" to get what they want on a given controversy- all they have to do is threaten and bluff to do that, and the Democrats back down.
They've been known to use that tactic in election campaigns, too- most notably, with the Swift Boat ad campaign against John Kerry.
Could Clinton or Kerry have counterattacked against those campaigns and turned them to their advantage by using the media focus to mount forceful defenses? We'll never know. Neither of them did.
(Incidentally, lately I've been reading a smattering of rumors concerning John McCain's alleged mental instability that sound to me like like an imitative attempt to "swift-boat" McCain. Strictly as practical advice: unless they can put together a video featuring testimonials to that effect from people who were in a miltary unit or POW camp with him, that effort is bound to be counterproductive. Absent that, all it will do is encourage even more showings of Return With Honor, the 1998 PBS Vietnam POW documentary featuring McCain, excerpts of which are likely to be seeded into heavy rotation this September and October by his campaign.)
You don't have to worry about counterattacking- or of mounting grassroots appeals of your own- if you're sure of your points and your principles.
I think that there are serious flaws and unexamined assumptions buttressing the case made to support many of the Bush administration's "counterterrorism" initiatives, which could have easily been challenged if the Democrats had the fortitude to call Republican bluffs and bring their case directly to the people. Instead, it's been the Republicans who have been the ones to threaten to do that.
Why not force the the Bush Republicans into the spotlight to explain in explicit logical detail why and how various provisions for a surveillance state, summary detention, and torture are such urgent imperatives? So far, all they have had to do in Congress is threaten and insinuate, and the Dems back down.
But the Republicans supporting those measures didn't come off as all that credible, commendable or appealing in the Republican debates, when Ron Paul sometimes took all of the rest of the candidates on at once. Sure, Paul didn't get the Republican nomination- there were more issues on the table than simply Iraq and civil liberties, and this is George W. Bush's Republican Party we're talking about here, more than it ever has been Ron Paul's. But Paul gave a good account of himself, and would have given an even better one if the debates had been confined to those issues. He provided a good example of how someone can take on opposition, even when outnumbered, without backing down.
That said, Ron Paul didn't get very far into challenging the assumption that it was the lack of increased encroachment on Constitutional protections that led to the success of the 9-11 attacks- which is the foundational premise for every surveillance, detention, and torture policy that's been proposed or enacted since Sept 12, 2001, and one of the contentions most in need of a thorough, and skeptical, examination.
But somehow the Democratic leadership seems to have neither the confidence in their ability to make a case, or in the ability of the American people to understand it- even when it comes to mounting a challenge to Bush's ongoing campaign of executive power hoarding and eroding of Constitution protections.
To me, it sounds like a sure winner- make them explain themselves! Skeptics like Glenn Greenwald have an ample supply of cogent questions and objections at the ready.
But it appears that the Beltway Democrats consider skeptical civil libertarians to be more of an adversary than they do Bush and the Republican Party.
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@JTK
[Read the article: The FBI's plan to "profile" Muslims]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What about you Dr. Cole? Do you LOOK Muslim?
That statement carries the unstated implication that Dr. Cole actually is a Muslim: strictly in the interest of accuracy, I have to note that my Internet search indicates that Cole follows the Ba'hai religion, although he separated himself from its official institutional framework in 1996.
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@GC
[Read the article: Today's coverup of surveillance crimes and Barack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, that G-8 meeting luncheon menu was something else.
There are eerie resonances to a scene found in the pages of Ishmael Reed's book, The Terrible Twos.
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@berlet98
[Read the article: Suing George W. Bush: A bizarre and troubling tale]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Any--I repeat--ANY surveillance, whether it be wiretapping, inspecting mail, or going though the garbage and inspecting the discarded dirty underwear of suspected terrorists, is fine by me
all of the above is fine with me, too- as long as the law enforcement authorities perform the necessary preliminary act of getting a warrant.
That's what determines the difference between " tap suspected terrorists" and "tap first, put together a case later."
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@Jonathan
[Read the article: Democrats' strategy: Strength through bowing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"...Look, I know its you're job. And the issue is a total hits/revenue generator..."
Three proverbs:
A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
When a con man gets a chance to converse with a sage, what he most wants to learn from the meeting is how much cash the man has on hand.
Confucius say: man who pay too much heed to commercial FM radio morning DJ routines go stupid in head.