Greenwald: Targeting Bad Democrats

[Truth2Tell]

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon

House Democrats are expected to unveil and possibly vote on their FISA bill this week. While they may (or may not) end up securing some additional, mild safeguards against eavesdropping abuses as compared to the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill, it is almost certain that they will ultimately end up granting amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms and gutting most of the long-standing, core protections of FISA. The recent, extraordinary revelations of just how sweeping is the administration's spying on domestic calls and emails of Americans seem to have had little effect thus far on what appears to be the inevitable course.

As this week's red-district election to Congress of anti-telecom-amnesty candidate Bill Foster demonstrates, they're not doing these things because it's politically necessary. They're doing it because more than enough Democrats believe in the virtues of telecom amnesty and warrantless eavesdropping -- just as they believe in the continued occupation of Iraq, the abolition of habeas corpus, the "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by Military Commissions Act, concealing Bush's illegal eavesdropping programs, and a long array of other radical Bush policies that now have bipartisan Congressional support.

There's absolutely no point in helping to elect Democrats like that to Congress or helping them to stay there. Yesterday, there was some celebration over the fact that Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor will be re-elected without opposition this year. That's the same Mark Pryor who voted for the Military Commissions Act, for the Protect America Act, for telecom immunity, against every Iraq redeployment measure, and scores of other similar votes. The fact that he's being re-elected with no opposition demonstrates his extremely strong political standing, i.e., that he cast these votes because they reflect what he believes. What's to celebrate about the fact that someone like that -- with that belief system -- is returning to the Senate?

Democrats are never going to change their behavior if there continues to be no price for what they're doing. If even the most pro-Bush Democrats continue to receive reflexive support from other Democrats, regardless of how fundamentally they reject the political values of those Democrats, they will continue on the same course. Why wouldn't they? And if Democrats whose political values are violated by these office holders refrain from ever working against them, solely because they have a (D) after their name, then this process will continue unabated.

More:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/11/democrats/index.html

[Dr.Phool]

1. I agree. No quarter for DINO's.

My undying party loyalty died a long time ago.

[Truth2Tell]

3. FYI

Here's the ActBlue contribution page for the up-coming ad campaign against pro-FISA Democrats:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fisa

And you can vote on which Blue Dog to target with the campaign at Firedoglake here:

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/getevenforfisa

[VP505]

4. We all need to commit to

and support campaigns like the one posted at firedoglake, the Blue Dog/Dino crap is getting out of hand and there is only one way to stop that, fear of constituents.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I have never seen an article yet from Glenn Greenwald that isn't point on

This is why I posted the thread on Power and changing Paradigms


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2990587&mesg_id=2990587

[Truth2Tell]

5. Lately I'd put him in the running

for my favorite blogger.