An Offer They Can't Refuse

[SteppingRazor]

http://blogs.southflorida.com/citylink_dansweeney/2007/05/an_offer_they_cant_refuse.html


The Democrats, inexplicably still spineless after winning both houses in Congress in 2006, gave the president everything he wanted in a war spending bill yesterday. The vote hasn't taken place yet, but it's expected to pass. Today, the front of the New York Times looked like this:





Pictures of tragedy and bloodshed, and right next to them, a story on the Democrats' inability to end this meatgrinder horrorshow. With their shameless capitulation to the weakened powers that be, the Democrats have taken partial ownership of this stupidity in the Middle East. It is theirs, now, with all the political and ethical repercussions that entails.


Upon hearing of the Democrats' disgusting moral turpitude last night, after first grinding my teeth a bit, I recalled the scene in The Godfather in which Michael Corleone explains his father's business practices to his fiancee:


MICHAEL: Well, when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to this personal service contract with a big band leader. And as his career got better and better, he wanted to get out of it. Now, Johnny is my father's godson. And my father went to see this band leader, and he offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go. But the band leader said no. So the next day, my father went to see him; only this time with Luca Brasi. And within an hour, he signed a release, for a certified check for $1,000.

KAY: How'd he do that?

MICHAEL: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

KAY: What was that?

MICHAEL: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains -- or his signature -- would be on the contract. ... That's a true story.


Perhaps we've reached that point with the Democratic Congress. Those who voted the Democrats in need to step back and say, "What have they done for us?" The truth is, not that much. All the campaign promises — a minimum wage raise, an end to the Iraq War, congressional ethics reform ... none of it has come to pass. Sure, they've passed a few bills around, but the Republicans have shafted every one, either through the president's veto or the Senate's filibusters or threats of filibusters.

And fine, sure, that's all well and good. That's politics. The great fuck-around in which everything starts to get done but nothing ever does. I understand that.

But what has gotten done? A secret trade deal between Bush and Democratic leaders, giving the president the freedom to enter into whatever bruising corporate-friendly deals he wants, with only minimal concessions to labor and the environment, none of which are apparently actually enforceable.

An immigration reform bill that is nearly identical to the one Bush has touted since his re-election.

And now, a war funding bill that supplies no mandatory timetables, just benchmarks for the Iraqi government that Bush can ignore — and that he most assuredly will.

In other words, we who voted in the new Democratic majority have gotten nothing we were promised. At the same time, Bush has gotten every major policy initiative he has called for since Democrats took control.

It's time to either demand signatures or else splatter some brains. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I have been pragmatic up to this point because I figured that a Democratic congress, even one that included more-moderate voices, would at least be able to protect us from Bush's depravity, even if they couldn't pass progressive legislation. Obviously, they are incapable even of halting Republican policy, much less putting forward their own.

No more. No more support for these backstabbing Judas swine who betray their base with a kiss. We, the people, need to demand accountability. Either the Democrats get onboard with what they profess to be their own policy — including an end to the Iraq War — or absolutely zero support for these scum-sucking, craven bastards in 2008. This is not a simple matter of politics. People — our people — are dying in Iraq, fistfuls of them everyday, for absolutely no reason at all. They are dying for a mistake. And by kowtowing to the blood-drenched fiend in the White House, Congress is now complicit in their deaths. Up until now, I have been an adamant supporter of our elected Democrats because I believed in what they said, and I judged them to be the lesser of two evils. Well, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Fuck them.

[Phredicles]

1. Well said! - recommended.

I especially appreciate your refutation of the bromide about how we shouldn't try to impeach but rather concentrate on passing "more important legislation": what legislation have they passed into law, or appear likely to pass?

[SteppingRazor]

3. At this point, nothing.

There doesn't seem to be a single, solitary thing in the pipeline that could come to fruition, as far as actionable legislation. Hell, at this point, even the investigations into previous misdeeds seem like nothing but play-for-the-cameras come ons — cheap political ploys to sucker people like you and me into thinking that there's hope on the horizon.

Thanks for the rec, though — I made it on the Greatest page! I just wish it was for something that I could feel proud about writing.

[Triana]

2. UNFORGIVABLE (n/t)