The Nation: The Beginning of the End for *?

[paineinthearse]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=3617

The Beginning of the End?
Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
June 19, 2005

"We see this as the beginning of the end," said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic representative from Maine who is executive director of the antiwar group Win Without War. "It's the very beginning of a new wave of activism on this war. There's a real sense that something is beginning to move." --Los Angeles Times, Friday June 17, 2005 Earlier that day, a friend and longtime antiwar activist left me a voice mail message. Just ten days earlier he told me that he was more depressed about our politics than at anytime in the last 40 years. "Hello, this is..." he said. "I was in Washington yesterday at the rally and at the Conyers hearings. And since I laid a heavy statement on you last week, I just wanted to make a correction. It's finally over. My despair is over. Something has happened these last ten days that has revived the antiwar issue. It has to do with public opinion polls and casualties and Republicans like Walter Jones and more Democrats standing up. I won't say how optimistic I am. But something is coming together--you can feel it."

You can feel it. *Every day brings news of public opinion turning against the occupation--and the President's conduct of the war. Last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that for the first time since the war began, more than half of the public believes the US invasion has not made the US more secure; and nearly 40 percent described the situation there now as analagous to the Vietnam War. A new Gallup survey finds that almost 60 percent of Americans say the US should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq, the largest number in that category ever. And for the first time, most Americans say they would be "upset" if President Bush sent more troops. Gallup also found that 56 percent now feel the war was "not worth it," and 73 percent consider the number of casualties unacceptable.

Every day brings news of more Democrats coming forward, standing up and introducing "exit strategy" resolutions. (Though, as of yet, leadership isn't coming from the leadership.) Lynn Woolsey forced a Congressional vote on bipartisan legislation that would have asked Bush to submit a plan to Congress explaining the outlines of an exit strategy from Iraq. Senator Russell Feingold has introduced a nonbinding resolution calling on the Bush Administration to set specific goals for leaving Iraq.

In the House, the International Relations Committee last week voted overwhelmingly, 32 to 9, to call on the White House to develop and submit a plan to Congress for establishing a stable government and military in Iraq that would "permit a decreased US presence" in the country. Congresswomen Maxine Waters (D/CA)--along with 41 Congressional progressives, including Woolsey, John Lewis, Charles Rangel, Jim McGovern, Rush Holt, Marcy Kaptur and Jan Schakowsky--has just formed the "Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus." Its sole purpose, Waters says, "is to be the main agitators in the movement to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan." And Rep John Conyers' impassioned efforts to bring attention to the Downing Street Memo--on Thursday he held hearings on Capitol Hill and then delivered to the White House letters that contained the names of more than 560,000 Americans demanding answers to questions raised by the British memo--has reenergized and refocused opposition to the war.

<snip>

This really can be the beginning of the end of a disastrous war and a bankrupt national security strategy.

[hippiechick]

1. 2 questions:

While I am totally thrilled that the tide seems to be turning, I have to wonder

1. Why'd it take this long for the Dems to finally start fighting back ?

and

2. Is it too late to undo the massive, massive damage that the Moron has done - financially, environmentally, spiritually - to this country and to large parts of the rest of the world ?


:shrug:

[paineinthearse]

2. hippiechick , there are no short answers for those questions

Let me ponder for a time.

[hippiechick]

3. They're almost rhetorical in nature ....

... because the answers may not be clear for quite a long while.

Until all the bills come due for what Bush has wrought with his 'War on Terra' ... subverting domestic programs for military (crony) spending; future generations of 'insurgents' abroad; damaged relations with other countries - diplomatically and financially --- it could be decades before we know the real damage he's done ...



:hi:

[Inland]

4. No happy responses

1. It wasn't the dems so much, but some people need to see the bad actually happen first, or the absolute proof the the lie first. Moreover, it is shocking, and fundamentally frightening, to think that the great democratic nation of America could have voted in this sort of incompetent, lying bunch of theocrats and kleptocrats that have put us on the downward spiral. Nobody wanted to believe that this blessed nation could be lose its way, maybe forever; nobody wanted to think that the goverment was just not up to the job of protecting us; nobody wants to think that God has abandoned us. So we pretend that we are on the bestest and highest and most moral and most competent path as long as possible.

Even now, you see polls where the "Bush approval" is twenty points higher than any issue, or on the direction of the country, etc. Nobody wants to admit that a nutbag idgit is behind the wheel, it's simply too frightening, so we close our eyes as much as possible.

2. The damage has been done, time to move forward as best we can, as usual.

[reality based]

5. Answers

1. Because we Democrats had a dispirited leadership that no longer believed in government of, by and for the people, except for a small band of largely black congressional representatives. These leaders ignored the 50% of the turnout that voted for them as well as the millions of alienated who don't bother to vote at all. They also persisted in thinking that * would be just another Republican conservative playing by the rules.

2. Much damage has been done and we cannot expect to go back to where we were in 2000. But we cannot despair for in the disastrous mess that * and his masters have fomented are many opportunities. It's time to start rolling the boulder uphill again.

[paineinthearse]

7. Alas, you may be right nt

[burythehatchet]

6. Because we gave them the balls