JOSHUA FRANK: MoveOn.org Surrenders -- Silence Is Complicity

[Tace]

By Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

It’s a good thing for MoveOn.org that George W. Bush was reelected. If he hadn’t been, the liberal troupe would have nothing to contest. Even if the bloody occupation had continued under a John Kerry presidency (it most certainly would have), the cowering office-chair activists would have ducked behind their computer screens awaiting the return of another brutal Republican administration. Activism should never be partisan, but Moveon.org isn’t about to hold the Democrats’ accountable for supporting Bush’s war agenda.

I’m not even all that sure MoveOn opposes the Iraq war. Sure they rallied opposition during the lead up to the invasion a few years back, but since then they’ve done little if anything that should garner the respect of the antiwar movement. Despite Kerry’s grotesque position on the Iraq war in 2004, MoveOn implored their members to donate cash to his campaign, but said nary a word about his pro-war posturing. You can’t support a candidate without putting demands on their candidacy, and MoveOn’s breakdown has made them all but irrelevant as an antiwar club.

Case in point. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York has continued to support Bush’s war in Iraq as well as his greater war on terror, yet MoveOn refuses to voice frustration. Instead, they support the war-hungry Senator and admit they won’t stand up to her during an election year.

"The case I would make is that 2006 needs to be a year of reckoning for Republicans on Iraq," Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn recently told the New York Times. "If the antiwar candidate is creamed by Hillary Clinton, it's a distraction."

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[Caution]

1. Has this idiot even been to their website recently?

They are right now attempting to raise $250,000 to air an ad that urges the US to leave Iraq.

[blm]

4. Think David Horowitz - Frank's an operative working against the Dem party.

Divide and conquer. Mislead as many lefties as you can into denouncing any effective movement or Dem lawmaker on the left.

Franks doesn't stop to even mention the reality of Kerry's Iraq position - it was GET WEAPONS INSPECTORS IN and do NOT rush to war unless the inspectors give reason to go to war.

Once Bush went in, Kerry's position was to admonish him for going in, and if we were going to have any success at all, we needed to secure the cities so there would be less chance of collapse and insurgency.

By securing all the basic services, the people's lives wiould have been less disrupted and easier to transition to their own rule.

[Voltaire99]

7. Sorry, not even close.

Joshua Frank's a leftist.

The Democratic Party is a pro-corporate, pro-war party of the center-right. Only a few Democratic office holders defy this categorization. While honorable leaders like Cynthia McKinney and Maxine Waters speak to left constituencies, they're largely powerless. In some cases--think Kucinich--the chief purpose is a pied-piper act to lead left-of-center voters back to the fold, where center-right decisions ultimately rule. That accurately describes MoveOn.org, in my view, too.

Frank--a minor figure on the left, but hardly a bad one--speaks to those who are tired of where Kerryism has taken the party. You may not like that, but there's nothing "misleading" in Frank's attack on the puppets at MoveOn.org. It's a difference of opinion. He's arguing that your politics are banal and fruitless, a palimpsest of Bushism. When the left doesn't vote for your pro-war corporate muffins next election, either, you may be ready to start negotiating. We can wait; it hardly matters whether imperial invasions are led by a Bush or a Hillary.

More Frank here: www.counterpunch.com

[blm]

8. Sure - that's what Horowitz made people on the left believe, too.

Kerry was never pro-war. Frank claims his position was completely pro-war when it never was.

And I have been a Kucinich supporter since 1972 - I know Kucinich very well and never stopped believing in who he was and the way he came to his decions, even when I disagreed. John Kerry even bested Kucinich's with his lifetime voting record for the left.

Did Franks ever acknowledge Kerry's ACTUAL record in the senate? Kerry investigated and exposed more government corruption than lawmaker in modern history, yet somehow Franks never noticed - why should his analysis be worth anything when he doesn't know much about REAL HISTORY? Instead he spends his energy attacking a cartoon image of Kerry based on disinformation generated over 3 decades against Kerry by GOP operatives working since Nixon's WH.

[MrModerate]

2. This guy's got a few issues working . . .

Gee whiz, I sure wish dems were perfect in every way -- heck, I voted for Kerry even knowing that I disagreed with his Iraq war stand.

Maybe it's because 1) I'm a democrat and 2) I can tell the difference between a politician and a psychopath.

[InsultComicDog]

3. Nice rant

I am personally annoyed with MoveOn for deciding to back Bob Casey in PA so far in advance.

And, I do think that Kerry and Hillary have already demonstrated that they are not leaders by their wishy-washiness.

(But I would vote for either one of them if they were our candidate.)

[MrModerate]

9. Even though I was always virulently opposed . . .

to the Iraq invasion (and Afghanistan too, for that matter -- I always thought we should have gone after Bin Laden rather than trying to overthrown the Taliban), I don't characterize Kerry and Sen. Clinton's positions on the war as wishy-washy.

At the time of the Iraq War Resolution, many dems were trying to triangulate a reasonable position given 1) America's unvented fury over 9/11, 2) The fact that Bush was a warmongerin' fool, and 3) The very real danger of political destruction if opposition to Bush's bloodlust wasn't presented to the voter properly. Remember, this was when the attack machine was at its most savage and effective.

Both John and Hill tried to finesse their positions, Kerry apparently believing that the Iraq War Resolution would act as a brake on Bush's bloodthirsty idiocy. (And in a tiny way it was -- it kicked Rumsfeld's timetable out about 3 months).

Since that time they (and other dems) have been caught in the "we've got troops in harm's way" trap, and have decided that they can't oppose the war in toto without losing (in Kerry's case) more credibility or (in Clinton's) the momentum toward the center that she considers essential to get her back to that little white house she likes so much come January 2009.

Politicians, nuance, compromised principles, etc., etc. But not, in my book, wishy-washy.

Now you may think them wishy-washy on a whole load of other issues, but that's a different discussion.

[Catrina]

10. We know without a doubt now, (some of us knew then as did half the

Democrats in Congress and in the Senate) that this president was determined to go to war in Iraq, and that that war was WRONG!



Why are they not getting behind Conyers and those who are struggling to be heard, and who are telling the truth, and have been, from the beginning? If their careers are more important than their country, if they continue to enable the most criminal administration in living memory, I for one will not support another apologist no matter what party they say they belong to.

My conclusion is, and I cannot come to any other, that Hillary is not opposed to the war. She has done nothing, nor has she said anything to make me believe otherwise.

Too many people have died as a result of this war. They should have stood together and opposed this war from the beginning, as Byrd did, and Kucinich, and Conyers, Jeffords, and all the others. Why do we expect less from the leadership than what we got from these Democrats?

Even if they had not prevailed, at least they would not be constantly explaining themselves, nuancing their positions. I for one, long for some straight talk, such as we heard from Sen. Byrd. Read his speeches before the war!! How anyone could have heard them (and Hillary and Kerry did) and not had the same courage he had (and it took courage back then, he was thrashed by the right, but he didn't let that stop him) to do what was right, I don't know.

This whole thing was so obviously wrong from the beginning. This cabal was so obvious in their attempts to fool the American people, millions and millions of people saw through their lies. Any decent politician should have been willing to resign, rather than go along with it. They could always restart their precious careers later on when the truth came out, but they cannot bring back the dead. Some people DID resign rather than participate in this crime. Even a few Republicans, like the ambassador to Greece, who gave up a post he had dreamt about since childhood rather than be a party to Bush's crime.

Some crimes are simply too great to 'understand' ~ and this is one of them. I am sick of the excuses. Byrd doesn't have to explain himself, he did the right thing from the beginning. I would like to see Conyers run and I would support him without question, and without having to explain anything to anyone.

If Hillary is the candidate, the Republicans will win, once again, imo. Too many people, whether you agree with them or not, will not compromise again. If I were to do so, I would be doing what I despise them for doing. I for one, am angry that I did it before, I will not do it again. We lost anyway, this time I will do what is right ~ as they should have done.

As for Moveon, they were silent for months after the election. They said nothing about the fraud that was being investigated. They made it impossible to even email them to express the extreme anger people felt after that election was over. Since then, I have not followed their activities. I prefer to go to the Conyers blog, where all the issues that concern me are being discussed, and actions are being taken to try to do something about them. If he had the support of his fellow Democrats, maybe he would have had more success by now. But I have a feeling they will jump on board when the political winds shift, and doing the right thing will benefit them.

[MrModerate]

11. I too wish the dems were more courageous.

Like you (I presume) I was in the streets with millions of my fellow human beings in opposition to this war -- which it was obvious that Bush was going to have, no matter what.

I'm convinced that many in Washington (most, perhaps) recognized the war was an idiotic undertaking, a profoundly cynical plot to enhance Bush's stature regardless of the cost, and (given the administration's obvious hamhandedness and lack of preparation) doomed to ignominious failure.

Why didn't dems oppose it more strongly? Lack of courage and miscalculation.

They thought they'd get their political heads handed to them on a plate if they opposed "the war on terra." Not just hiccups in their careers, but political banishment forever. And perhaps they were right. The Bush administration, which is as inept at governing as it is at everything else save politics, is nevertheless BRILLIANT at politics. They had the country in a lather, through the use of campaign style tactics completely inappropriate to running a country, but effective nonetheless.

Even now, when Bush and Rove's political tricks have begun to fall apart, it's a career-limiting move for a politician to say how stupid and wicked this war is. I hate this like poison, but it seems to be the truth.

Hillary wants to win. She needs the center to do so, a center that seems ensorceled by Bushit. She is apparently willing to mute her opposition to the million injustices doled out by the Bush administration, to appear moderate and inclusive and thereby scoop up those votes in 2008. I'm sure she feels she's got the left-of-center locked up. What are we going to do, vote for McCain or Giuliani? The fact that we might instead simply stay home must worry her -- which makes her look even harder for votes in the center.

For me the bottom line is that regardless of the content of their positions, having Republicans in power is an absolute disaster for the country and the planet. They are devil spawn or devil spawn enablers. I would vote for anyone I thought would win to get them out of the White House and wipe out their majorities in Congress.

And -- even though I'm holding my nose as I say this (makes it hard to type), I think Hillary can win, because she can sell herself to the great mass of voters who don't pay close attention to politics but who nevertheless recognize that what's going on now just isn't right.

And, a particular bee in my bonnet, I think her approach to fixing the health care delivery system (my number 2 issue and number 1 for the long run) is something I could support enthusiastically.

I hate the fact that US politics is so dysfunctional. But when the christofascists are tearing this country to bits, I say they must be stopped.

[beltanefauve]

12. Totally agree with you

regarding MoveOn post-election. I was one of those who tried to e mail them and got jack. I believe they at one point asked their members to express their general concerns, too.

I still get their e mails, but they lost their credibility with me.

[meegbear]

5. So I guess groups like "Move America Forward" can cease to exist ...

their side won and all ....

[Mend]

6. Just sent Moveon some money for scalito ad....soooorrrrryyyyy, not.