Can the United States please get itself an Opposition party?

[Minstrel Boy]

Because the Democratic Party ain't it.

I know it would upset some delicate constitutions, to see legislators and politicians stand for something, rather than stand shoulder to shoulder with "their president." I know it's unlikely, given the rise to gutless leadership of the likes of Vilsack and Reid. But the world and much of America is crying to see it.

Because here's another word Democrats have failed to redeem, and must: "partisan."

Thanks to the GOP, "partisanship" has come to mean "playing politics," when truly it's the opposite. A partisan stands for something. A partisan fights. A partisan has a cause. Those playing politics are found in the mewling, puking DLC faction, who furrow their brows to find a "third way" of compromise; to make accomodation; to "moderate" the Bush agenda to make it easier to swallow.

But to work with Bush now is to be a camp volunteer, reassuring doomed souls and keeping the queue moving as they walk to the showers. I know that sounds extreme, but the world is in extremis, and the world we knew and still hope for may not survive four more years.

Much of the Democratic leadership either still cannot acknowledge the radical villainy of the Bush gang, or they are fifth columnists who have done an admirable job demoralizing their own base, and destroying the prospects of any meaningful alternative to the GOP.

Where is the opposition party?

[WI_DEM]

1. just like the republicans made "liberal" a dirty word without

the democrats raising any objections. Liberalism is responsible for all the great progress this country has made. What has conservatism ever accomplished? especially in its present incarnation.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Like Harry Reid?

Poppy Strikes Gold
UTNE Reader
Tuesday, April 8, 2003

They could well afford it. In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush-era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could “perfect its patent” on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $ 10,000. Eureka!

Barrick, of course, had to put up cash for the initial property rights and the cost of digging out the booty (and the cost of donations, in smaller amounts, to support Nevada’s Democratic senator, Harry Reid). Still, the shift in rules paid off big time: According to experts at the Mineral Policy Center of Washington, DC, Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so.

...

How did he go from busted stereo maker to demi-billionaire goldbug? The answer: Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer, the “bag man” in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage scandals. The man who sent guns to the ayatolla teamed up with Munk on hotel ventures and, ultimately, put up the cash to buy Barrick in 1983, then a tiny company with an “unperfected” claim on the Nevada mine. You may recall that Bush pardoned the coconspirators who helped Khashoggi arm the Axis of Evil, making charges against the sheik all but impossible. (Bush pardoned the conspirators not as a favor to Khashoggi, but to himself.)

Khashoggi got out of Barrick just after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, long before 1995, when Bush was invited in. By that time, Munk’s reputation was restored, at least in his own mind, in part by massive donations to the University of Toronto. Following this act of philanthropy, the university awarded Munk-adviser Bush an honorary degree. Several students were arrested protesting what appeared to them as a cash-for-honors deal.

more
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=207&row=4

[Minstrel Boy]

8. There's gold in them thar compromises!

The "Barrick Museum of Natural History" houses the "Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies" on the campus of the University of Nevada.

http://www.unlv.edu/facilities/plancon/hrc.html

:hi: seems

[seemslikeadream]

9. I absolutely love THE SCREWING OF CYNTHIA MCKINNEY EXIBIT!

By Greg Palast

HOW THE NEW YORK TIMES, NPR AND OTHERS DROVE A U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN OUT OF OFFICE BASED ON A QUOTE THAT WAS NEVER UTTERED.


Did I mention to you that (ex-)Congresswoman McKinney is black? And not just any kind of black. She’s the uppity kind of black.

What I mean by uppity is this:

After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbyist for a Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. Hey, a guy’s got to work. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick’s Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.

You’ve guessed: Cynthia McKinney.

That was covered in the . . . well, it wasn’t covered at all in the U.S. press.

McKinney contacted me at the BBC. She asked if I’d heard of Barrick. Indeed, I had. Top human rights investigators had evidence that a mine that Barrick bought in 1999 had, in clearing their Tanzanian properties three years earlier, bulldozed mine shafts . . . burying about 50 miners alive.

I certainly knew Barrick: They’d sued the Guardian for daring to run a story I’d written about the allegations of the killings. Barrick never sued an American paper for daring to run the story, because no American paper dared.

The primary source for my story, an internationally famous lawyer named Tundu Lissu, was charged by the Tanzanian police with sedition, and arrested, for calling for an investigation. McKinney has been trying to save his life with an international campaign aimed at Barrick.

That was another of her mistakes.

more
http://www.alternet.org/story/16172

3.5 MILLION DEAD IN CONGO SINCE 1998

[Q]

3. There was nothing wrong with 'compromise' in the past...

...when compromising actually meant getting something in return and the opposition wasn't determined to destroy everything the LEFT has fought for decades to achieve for all Americans.

- Today...compromising with those in the process of destroying democracy and peace should be called traitorous.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. That's right.

Canadian poltics has long made a virtue of compromise, and there was a time in America when bipartisanship was legitimate and valuable.

Not anymore. It's "whose side are you on?" time.

[sui generis]

4. it should be the democratic party

When are we going to stand up and say the that George Bush is a liar and a criminal, and that his party is the party of racists and bigots, of churches and corporations, and not of the ordinary American!

When are we going to say civil marriage is not only moral, it's overdue in a 21st century society, and any rabid minority fundamentalists who think it's immoral are unAmerican, and bigoted. In fact, America was also the last country in the world to abolish slavery, by over 300 years!

We need to play the fear card. What would an America look like where it's alright to have church in government? Especially if there might someday be a muslim majority? In Allah we trust. One nation under Allah. (I'm not the bigot, just using an example so don't flame).

Do we need auditability in our election processes? You bet! Some day the democrats might just decide to pay the same people who hacked the elections in 2000 and 2002 and 2004 MORE money than the republicans did and the election will flip our way and the poor little republicans won't be able to do anything about it but "whine" and wring their hands.

Everything those evil bastards do, we or someone else can do more evilly. It's in their best interest to see how vulnerable they have made themselves.

It's in our best interest not to EVER pull any punches out of "propriety", because you can be damn sure they won't pull any punches. We certainly don't need to sugarcoat our language or strategies, and we will actually rally people to a "strong" party.

[stray cat]

6. Look what happened to Daschle.

Friends in South Dakota said the main reason Daschle was defeated was because he got in the way of Bush's policies (and Daschle wasn't that much of an oppositionist). This is from a Bush supporter. Opposition candidates have to remain in office to be effective so they better choose their battles and approaches wisely.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. That's why Democratic leaders need to come from safe blue constituencies.

Courage is needed now, and those who aren't elected by razor thin margins in red states are more likely to provide it.