The Democratic Song Remains the Same By Gatto

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_gatto_070204_the_democratic_song_.htm


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February 4, 2007

The Democratic Song Remains the Same

By Gatto

What exactly will Hillary Clinton bring to the Democratic ticket? What will Barack Obama bring to the Democratic ticket? They will bring nothing. They are nothing, and stand for nothing. They will be exactly what the polls want them to be. They will try to be all things to all people. They will take, and talk and talk, trying to hit that combination of words and gestures that will make a convincing sound bite. Their world will consist of demographics and talking points, who's up and who's down? They will both pander to the Corporate Aristocracy and beg for a hand out at every critical juncture in the election.

Their "Brave New World" will promise work in states that have rising unemployment, military increases in states with large numbers of military bases, an end to the Iraq War in the Northeast and the West, even though the Democrats could have ended the war before the Presidential Election. Why would they want to lose their most salient talking point? Both will have a wonderful plan to bring peace and stability to the Middle East, and both will be heavily financed by the Israeli Lobby, so you know right away that the plans they have will never see the light of day.

These are your SOSO candidates. For lack of a better word or a better acronym, that stands for "Same Old, Same Old". They will become the Democrats "Du Jour.", if this is Tuesday and this is Florida, they will be the environmental Democrats, opposed to drilling for oil off the Florida Coast. If this is Thursday and they are in Arizona, they will work hard to bring a "Workable Immigration Policy" to America that will be fair to everyone, without giving any details, because the Hispanic Demographic votes also. Wherever they are, that is what they will be. Their throats will go hoarse from loud promises and their shoulders will ache from raising their hands high while their hands grasp the Governor's hand, or the Senator from that State's hand, or an Iraqi Vet that couldn't get care at the VA's hand.

When the dust settles and the Primary is over, all the name calling and the back biting will be forgotten, as now all the corporate donations for the Democratic side will now go to just one. The running mate will be picked and if the candidate is Hillary or Obama, it will be an "historic" race to see whether a woman, or an African-American can indeed become President of this nation. The race will be long and hard. Trying to be all things to all people can make one forget who they are in the first place. But in the end, if The Democrats win, Hillary or Barack will remember who it is, that they are. They'll remember they are just another dime a dozen politician that will owe their entire win not to the people that voted for them, or their speech writers that wrote those inspiring words for them, but to their Corporate and Special Interest money masters. The people that know exactly what their plans will be for his or her presidency, after all, they paid for the right to set those plans in motion. Hopefully the American people won't realize that they have been duped for the first four years so that he or she will win the next election. Nothing will change, everything will be the same.

"And we'll get on our knees and pray. Just like yesterday...that we won't be fooled again!"



Authors Website: http://liberalpro.blogspot.com

Authors Bio: Former Chairman of the now-defunct Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

1. " Same Old, Same Old "

Corporate money.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. He's right, Goddamit.

What Dems would actually make a difference? Maybe 3 (Gore, Feingold, Kucinich), 2 of whom aren't running & the third of whom is widely held to have no chance--because, of course, he has no prayer of getting the big corporate backing.

I expect 2008 to be one of those years when ya gotta vote for a hack Dem because the alternative is worse.

[acmejack]

3. How many times have we been disappointed?

Work our tails off and then, if we do prevail, all the promises do indeed go by the wayside...

[Wordkisser]

4. Hillary wavering

I just read this interesting article in the OC Register in california. the OC is definitely a conservative leaning paper, but this article seems to be speaking to us. Check it out, i'd sure like to know if it's me or does the writer seem to be a Hillary fan.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/localstatecolumns/article_1563085.php


Here is a bit from it:

"Sen. Clinton is pretending to be something she is not, that is, warm, open and affable. She is ill-equipped to pull off such a charade, as Dr. Lofton suggests, and she risks losing credibility among her base, arguably the only voters paying attention to her campaign this early in the election cycle, because of it.

Clinton voters know her and accept her, not because she can tell a joke well, but because of her position on issues like health care, Social Security and the war. They expect her to remain steadfast in her convictions, and they need her to lead, not "soften."

[Daveparts]

5. The Road Map to the White House

As we approach the not soon enough Presidential campaign, the fever of discontent is rabid among the voters A Newsweek poll asked are you satisfied with the way the country’s going? 65% answered, no 29% answered yes they were satisfied. The fortunes for the Republicans look rough, but the public doesn’t view the Democrats in a much better light. If they expect to capitalize and build on their recent success they must produce results and quickly! The people view both parties as self interested and disconnected from the people.

A man from Missouri ran for President in 1948 a poll of fifty newspaper editors nationwide came back fifty to zero against his election. Factions in his own party asked him for the good of the party to step down, the party eventually split three ways making the chances of election even more remote. Everyone was certain he didn’t stand a chance except one, himself. “Except for the reward of service” he told the Secretary of State “I find little satisfaction in being President.” He further told his sister “No man in his right mind would ever wish to be President if they knew what it entailed.”

So except for the reward of service why would he fight for a job he didn’t like? Perhaps he had a chip on his shoulder, a farmer without a college education he was a failed small businessman, Entering the army as a corporal he left a captain, with one superior officer reading his performance reports commented “get him in here, hell, no ones that good” but according to the men that served under him he was that good. So why did he do it? In his own words, He felt it was his duty to “Get into the fight and help stem the tide of reaction. They (the Republicans) did not understand the worker, the farmer, the everyday person… Most of them honestly believed that prosperity actually began at the top and would trickle down in due time to benefit all the people.”

He began his campaign speech by stating clearly what he thought the country needed, he told the speechwriters what to write and if he didn’t like it he told them to change it for he was his own campaign adviser, he didn’t have a spin room or a focus group. The liberals in the party had abandoned him the conservatives had formed their own party. He called for National Health Insurance; he wanted to raise the minimum wage not by a nickel or a dime but by more than 55% he called for a poor mans tax cut. “Our first goal” he said “Is to secure fully the essential human rights of our citizens.” This was 1948 his position was not considered astute it had already caused a split in his party yet he continued.

“Not all groups are free to live and work where they please or to improve their conditions of life by their own efforts. Not all groups enjoy the full privileges of citizenship…
The federal government has a clear duty to see that the Constitutional guarantees of individual liberties and equal protection under the laws are not denied or abridged anywhere in the union.” He called for federal laws against “The crime of lynching, against which I cannot speak too strongly.” He called for an end to poll taxes and end to discrimination by employers and labor unions. He called for Congress to act on the claims of Japanese Americans forced from their homes and kept in confinement “Solely because of their racial origin”

Several Southern Democrats meeting privately with him, explained all would be forgiven if he would only soften his views. He responded “But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this.”

With his approval rating at 36% in June he took to the rails as the press had already written him off. He told the crowds “I am coming out here so you can have a look at me and hear what I have to say, and then you make up your own mind as to whether you believe some of the things that have been said about your President. Yet every where he went the people turned out 1,000 at tiny Crestline, 100,000 in Chicago in Republican Omaha 160,000 lined the streets. In Missoula they waited late into the night, He appeared in his bathrobe and pajamas, “I’m sorry I had gone to bed, but I thought you would like to see what I looked like even if I didn’t have on any clothes”

His attacks were pointed and not just at Congress “Educate yourself, you don’t want to do like you did in 46 when two thirds of you stayed home and look what a Congress we got! That’s your fault, that is your fault, you know, this Congress is interested in the welfare of the better classes. They are not interested in the welfare of the common everyday man.” A cry from the crowd said pour it on! He answered, “I’m going to, I’m going to.”
At Seattle 100,000 in Los Angeles an estimated one million lined the route from the train station to his hotel.

“The only prize we covet is the respect and good will of our fellow members of the family of nations. The only realm in which we aspire to eminence exists in the minds of men, where authority is exercised through the qualities of sincerity, compassion and right conduct…

After the convention it was back on the road “It’s going to be tough on everybody but that’s the way it’s got to be. I know I can take it. I’m only afraid that I’ll kill some of my staff and I like you all very much and I don’t want to do that. In September the polls had him behind 48% to 38% yet he kept drawing huge crowds.

“I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? These Republican gluttons of privilege are cold men. They are cunning men… They want the return of the Wall Street economic dictatorship.”

“ I’m not asking you to vote for me, vote for yourself,”

“Something happens to Republicans when they get control of the government… Republicans in Washington have a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and special interest.”

“You don’t get any double talk from me, I’m either for something or against it, and you know it.

Give ‘em Hell, Harry! “I just tell the truth and they think its hell!”

It all seems so simple now, with our strategy teams and polling groups our Carl Roves and James Stephanoplis and all the other guru’s. That this one man could take his case to the American people and win by over two million votes and had his party not been split he would have carried New York and it would had been a landslide. Just from these few quotes you know much about this man, about what he thought because he didn’t think of himself as a philosopher or even the smartest man in the room. To him it was simple,
right is right and wrong is wrong. Gifted is making the difficult look easy, genius is making the impossible look easy. Speak the truth, listen to the people, and support the right thing even if it’s currently unpopular if it’s right. Put the good of the country and the people of the country as your only goal.

“It’s amazing all that can be accomplished if you don’t care who gets the credit”

Harry S. Truman

[Demeter]

6. It's Good To Remember That It Wasn't Always Like This

and to hope that with hard work and persistent jawboning, it can be changed to something we can live with, again.