Suburban Guerrilla

Vacuum

Aug 28th, 2005 at 1:10 am by Susie

What continues to astonish me about the Democratsâ€™ utterly craven performance is the element I mentioned the other day. As the Bush foreign policy self-immolates and disintegrates more with every day that passes, we are witnessing a political and moral vacuum. At the moment, we are being provided with no political leadership from anyone. In this atmosphere, the politician who stepped up, demonstrating moral courage and a willingness to tackle the choices made impossibly difficult by Bushâ€™s gross incompetence, could become a national leader with an enormous following in record time.

It could make him or her the next President. Except for Feingold, no one has even tried to rise to the challengeâ€”and all the rest of them affirmatively avoid it. Donâ€™t any of these people have political ambitions of their own? What the hell is wrong with them? And among other things, donâ€™t they give a damn that many more Americans will die for absolutely nothing in the next few years if we continue to follow Bushâ€™s non-existent plan for a success that is not even possible? I would have expected at least a few Democrats to try to fill this vacuum, even if only for the worst of opportunistic reasons.

We seem to have entered an era of politicians who donâ€™t even want to be politicians, and who have no personal ambitions for power. That may be a first.

But as I observed before, moral cowardice and fear trump everything else, even concern for the lives of their fellow Americans. Setting aside the two or three exceptions, it is a profoundly contemptible performance on all sides.

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8 Responses to “Vacuum”

on 28 Aug 2005 at 2:08 am1ian

Too bad Dean peaked early. Wish he was in the game now.
on 28 Aug 2005 at 2:28 am2Bladerunner

Maybe their all just playing the same game. And if that is true, what does that mean for me and you?
on 28 Aug 2005 at 3:29 am3Ralph

Bladerunner may be right. Yet it’s still very hard to understand why we seemingly have no risk-takers at all.

As far as I can tell, right now Cindy Sheehan is my favorite candidate for the presidency. She, at least, exhibits courage.

And I’m not even saying she would necessarily make a good president — well, who knows? But she does have the qualities of courage and forthrightness which seem to be what we most need right now.
on 28 Aug 2005 at 9:27 am4Donny

See Frank Rich on this very point:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/28rich.html
on 28 Aug 2005 at 10:31 am5Antifa

Our Beltway royalty were all elected during years when the economy and war and oil prices were either manageable or were widely believed to be.

They are all becoming entirely unmanageable, through gross mismanagement at the White House.

But then, managing was never the neocon plan.

They are in office to run a classic ‘bustout’ operation — to strip assets from the nation and funnel them to the already rich, so that only the best sort of people own most everything when the place falls apart after a few years.

That’s the ownership society in a nutshell. That’s where we’re headed, unless we revolt.

Our Beltway royalty are of this wealthy class, accustomed to ‘pretend’ partisan politics where everyone goes to lunch afterwards, and do not seem to realize that the neocons are not here to manage anything except their continued hold on power, which lets them loot on behalf of the wealthy and corporate donors who got them into power.

They don’t see that the neocons are simply pirates — international raiders, under no flag or law but their own.

The political game our Beltway royals were elected to play is over. The Constitution itself means nothing to these neocons, who ‘make history’ as they see the need, and then remake it the following week into something else. The treasure chest fills faster every time they make history, and that’s all that’s important about America to them and their patrons.

They are feeding upon America, and will leave us the bones. They will leave this nation a sacked and smoking ruin, but they will leave with full bellies.

Under this Viking regime of rule by brute force and outright thieving, our Beltway royals are out of their league and impotent. They see a political machine across the aisle that will crush them if they even speak up.

If they speak up, they lose their wealthy and corporate patrons, and are out of a job.

If they speak up for we, the people, they lose their campaign war chest, and are out of a job.

So they think, hey, it’s a nice job, full of perks and great connections and a pension and insurance forever.

What do I need to worry about? Ever? No matter what becomes of America, me and my family, we’ll be just fine.

Why rock the boat?

That would be . . . nuts.
on 28 Aug 2005 at 11:59 am6Donna

Antifa hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, not many Americans know what our government and corporations do to other countries, but what they are doing here they already did over in South America and no doubt in other countries. I don’t have time to fact check every detail, but the jist of it is that when countries go to the American influenced World Bank for development loans they are told they have to open their countries up to outside investment, including things like nationalized utilities. They are told that competition will drive prices down for their people, but instead American investors come in as corporate raiders and suck all the value of the companies they buy out of those countries and prices rise until the people can no longer afford water and electricity, and the businesses that have been bought by American investors go broke, no jobs for the locals either. This is what happened in Argentina and Chile.

Since Americans don’t know about it, they can’t draw the parallels between the looting of the treasury and Enron style scandals here, or what is happening in Iraq. “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Our corporations are vikings and pirates, who have been on a dry run before raiding the US, and our government facillitates their robbery.

If you told the American “peasants” they wouldn’t believe it, I know because I have tried. I have told people the point to Iraq is corporate looting, and that billions have been stolen from those people already. Not many believe it, because they don’t hear about it in the media. I’ve also tried to explain about the looting of the treasury, where did our surplus go? The wealthy and corporations looted it and while they were counting their money by stacks of hundreds and thousands they threw us peasants a dollar here and there to keep us quiet.

The beltway royalty are between a rock and a hard place, the corporate owned media will not report what is really happening here, how many people do you know who actually hear anything Russ Feingold has to say? Ask your friends and neighbors. Take a look at Howard Dean too, he and his supporters were effectively marginalized by the media. It explains part of the reason why Democrats are inpotent cowards, they know they will be viewed as Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling, only the sky really is falling.
on 28 Aug 2005 at 3:36 pm7Izquierdo

I agree with Antifa and Donna.
But not only can’t politicians say this and be taken seriously, but ordinary people who say this are also likely to be labeled as crackpots and malcontents.
How can we turn this thing around?
on 28 Aug 2005 at 9:32 pm8rkrider

It explains part of the reason why Democrats are inpotent cowards, they know they will be viewed as Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling, only the sky really is falling.

It doesn’t matter, if the Dems make an issue of something or not, the press will turn on them as soon as Karl gives them their orders. Look what they do to war heros, grieving moms, etc.

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Vacuum

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