http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18349197/the_chicken_doves
Above is a link to to an article on the Democrats failure to end the war in Iraq, and it's pretty interesting. It amazes me how the Democrats have portrayed themselves as opposed to the war, and the other crimes of the past few years - wiretapping, torture, etc. - while doing nothing to change or oppose these things. Yet they'll probably win the next election as the "change."
Everyone looks back at Clinton as some sort of golden boy, when in fact he slashed welfare and bombed both Iraq and Kosovo. Both parties subscribe to the same agenda of globalization and imperialism, with the Democrats simply presenting a more moderate version. If progressive Americans continue to vote for them, ignoring the possiblities other parties present, things will remain very much the same, if they don't get worse.
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Matt Taibbi, the author of this article, has said before on TV that he likes to stir things up and say things to get people thinking and talking, even if they aren't particularly accurate.
And that would describe a lot of this article. This would get an F in any political science or journalism class. It might do well in a creative writing class (might), but it ignores most of the conventions of scholarship and journalism.
The first is that he clings to the conventional popular political concept of "The Democrats" as if that means anything. It doesn't. There is no such group. There are several different groups of Democrats and, in the end, even those groups are largely meaningless. We have single-member districts and popular primaries in the U.S., which means that elected officials have no responsibility to do what the party wants them to do, they only have to respond to the voters in their district.
A second major falsehood here is that the Democrats were elected to end the war. This isn't even remotely true. Of the 218+ Democrats in the House, only 29 of them were elected in 2006, the election that Taibbi says was about the war. That means 190+ of them were already in office before that, so they obviously weren't elected on that particular issue. Other candidates, such as Tim Mahoney in Florida, won because of scandals on the Republican side. Almost every one of the Democratic victories was based almost completely on local factors and very few of the new winners were strongly anti-war during their campaign.
A third problem with this article is that it leaves out the simple fact that the Democrats don't have the power to stop the war. The only way they could do it is to withhold funding from the troops, something that would destroy the party, since over 95% of Americans support the troops. Beyond that, they have no ability to stop the war. They can't force the president to do anything because he has the veto. To override a veto, you need 2/3rds of both houses of Congress, something they don't even remotely have. In the Senate, they have 49 members, some of whom are pro-war. In addition to the veto, the Republicans have been able to effectively filibuster much of the Democratic agenda. You need 60 votes to override a filibuster. The Democrats, again, only have 49, and some of them aren't going to vote for an override.
Beyond the article, you come to a few conclusions that aren't warranted by the evidence. The probable Republican nominee has openly said he has no problem with American troops staying in Iraq for 100 years. Both of the leading Democrats say they'll have the U.S. out in less than two years. And the comparison with Bill Clinton is a little off, since both Hillary and Barack are significantly more liberal than Bill. Finally, the Democrats and Republicans clearly vote differently. They vote, on average, differently more than 50% of the time. And that's with the exceptions of people who are Democrats who are conservative and vote with the Republicans. Don't forget that the majority of House Democrats voted against the Iraq war when it started.
As for other parties, there is no chance of any significant third party emerging in the U.S. in our lifetime. The system is structured to prevent such a thing from happening and the only people that can change that are the people that would be harmed by it, so they won't do it. Beyond that, Americans, overwhelmingly, are happy with the two-party system and there isn't any kind of groundswell for a new party. The best chance in our lifetime was the Reform Party, but they only lasted a few years as anything significant and had little to show for it (a governorship).
I didn't mean to verify everything Matt Taibbi said, it simply brought the topic to mind.
I would personally support witholding funding from this war. If it forced the conflict to an end, that would, I think, be the best possible thing for the troops. If Democrats don't do that to preserve the party, well, that seems rooted in self-interest. They seem very unwilling to take chances with public opinion as a whole, and I'm sick of seeing them apologize for saying things I actually like.
I do believe the perception of Democrats as anti-war helped in their overall victory in 06. I know plenty of people who voted Democrat without much direct knowledge of the canidates, thinking it would lead to some sort of change. While there is little uniformity in the party, major public figures do try to spin the party as anti-war.
As for Bill, I wanted to illustrate that he wasn't as great a guy as most liberals seem to think, as an example. I do like Obama better than him so far.
As for the chances of a third party winning anything, I think its worth taking a chance. I want my vote to reflect my true opinion as closely as possible, otherwise it isn't giving me much of a voice. I think if more Americans actually took the time to study what was going on, and declare their options instead taking only those offered, the party system would have a hard time standing up.
>I didn't mean to verify everything Matt Taibbi said, it simply brought the topic to mind.
I'm not assuming you did, just making sure that other people that read the article know what they're getting themselves into.
>I would personally support witholding funding from this war.
You are in a very small minority.
>If it forced the conflict to an end, that would, I think, be the best possible thing for the troops.
In the long run, it wouldn't. The process of removing the troops, according to a friend who knows a general, would take somewhere near a year, if not longer. Withholding funding from the troops would almost certainly lead to a Republican victory for the White House and Congress in November and the new president and Congress would, in all likelihood, reverse the withdrawal.
>If Democrats don't do that to preserve the party, well, that seems rooted in self-interest.
That is a cynical way to look at it. An alternative way to look at it is that the war isn't the only issue in America, nor the most important issue for most people, and losing the election for the sake of one issue means they have no ability to address those other issues because the Republicans would be in charge.
>They seem very unwilling to take chances with public opinion as a whole, and I'm sick of seeing them apologize for saying things I actually like.
But there is no "they." The majority of Democrats are actually voting the way you seem to want them to. The problem is that majority isn't a majority of Congress, so they lose most of these battles. And the people apologizing are rarely the ones who are voting the way you want them to. You're confusing different groups of people.
>I do believe the perception of Democrats as anti-war helped in their overall victory in 06.
But the polling data doesn't agree with you.
>I know plenty of people who voted Democrat without much direct knowledge of the canidates, thinking it would lead to some sort of change.
This is anecdotal evidence. If everyone you know voted this way, it would still be a tiny, tiny minority of overall voters and if you were in Tallahassee at that time, then you aren't even in one of the districts where anything changed. So none of these voters actually voted in one of the elections that gave the Dems the majority.
>While there is little uniformity in the party, major public figures do try to spin the party as anti-war.
I'm not sure "anti-war" is accurate. They criticize the war frequently, but that doesn't necessarily mean anti-war.
>As for the chances of a third party winning anything, I think its worth taking a chance.
Mathematically it isn't. Because of the way the process is set up, a third party candidate can't win any significant success. The rules for qualifying to run for office make it automatic for Republicans and Democrats but expensive and time consuming for anyone else. Until that changes, it just isn't possible. A better avenue would be to vote for Democrats and Republicans willing to change those rules. Until that happens, which is very unlikely, then any such vote will be pointless unless you are in a handful off places (such as Vermont) where independents can win.
>I want my vote to reflect my true opinion as closely as possible, otherwise it isn't giving me much of a voice.
But "the Democrats" don't represent you. One representative and one Senator do at the federal level. It's unrealistic to expect other people to act in a way that reflects your values.
>I think if more Americans actually took the time to study what was going on, and declare their options instead taking only those offered, the party system would have a hard time standing up.
Probably so, but that isn't going to happen. The majority of people will likely never put that much time and effort into studying politics. That being said, things can be changed in the system as it is and there are ways to do that, but you have to figure out what they are.
Matthew, I find most of the stuff in your post as increadibly far fechted. It sounds like you blame the democrats as the cause of our woes, as a country. That's sad and very untrue, they definitly did contribute but they are not to be the only blame. What happens alot in our country is that we get caught up in grid lock or beruacratic red tape so it some time make the President ineffective. Thats why it is so important to get someone in office that can some what bring America together. The question is then; which canidate do you really think can achieve this bridging of the people and the parties.
Thats kind of ironic. I see people every day blaming G.W. Bush for every single woe out there. It has become apparent that people have forgotten there are other people in government besides the president or a certain party. I love the democratic republic, checks and balances are amazing!
It would have done Bush well to pick better advisors and people to put into office, But he chose loyal party affiliates, big business tycon's and oil buddies. How do you like me now Andrew J.
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