In the 2004 Presidential election I sat home on my hands and wished bad cess to all the candidates. I even had a bit of an argument over the net with the late Harry Browne as to whether or not he and all the other candidates for prexy were not convicted by their very candidacy of being dedicated to the Fhrerprinzip (you know, the fond and also usually fervid belief that the hero on a white horse alone can lead us out of our bondage into a marvelous new freedom and to total victory over our adversaries).
In the 2000 election, I had voted for Howard Phillips and the Constitution Party (formerly The Taxpayers Party), as I had in 1996 and 1992. I consider that I have paid my dues to the grand idea of starting a new party and breaking the stranglehold of the Big Two.
It ain't a'gonna happen. That's what I've learned over a quarter-century. The idea of it is an ignis fatuus, a will o' the wisp, an utter delusion. The Fates (or something) have decreed that there will be but two effective political parties in America. Power and perks will be lobbed back and forth between them, while both instinctively work smoothly together to keep any real ideas, any real solutions, any real options, from ever being presented to the voters.
That uncannily great tennis player, Roger Federer, furnishes us with an instructive modus operandi: When your opponent is proving stronger than you expected, think through a way to bring him down, and then implement it; don't just keep on playing the way you like to. It won't do the job. Ratchet up, baby.
We all know what the Republicans are going to bring to the party: Bush, Bush, and more Bush, which means Neocon Nastiness, or the Strauss Solution, or Halliburton Hell, till the rafters ring.
That means, war, war, and more war, all prosecuted in a gross fog of mendacity and delusion and presented by our wonderfully compliant "major" media as a reasonable and ethical line of action.
In view of that, how, indeed, does one ratchet up and win? I don't know. Give me a little more time to think. But meanwhile let me outline for you what is not going to unseat Bushbaby.
I quote from Alexander Cockburn's March 23 column on Counterpunch.org:
“Real Security” [a current Dem catchword] calls for the Democrats to hinge the 2006 fall campaign on how the Republicans have failed us on the issue of national security. Harry Reid says Democrats should wrap themselves in the flag, use tanks as backdrop and then try to outflank the Republicans from the right with demands for increased military funding, a better fought war, tighter borders, and ports run by white American-born Christians, preferably free of radical organizers from the ILWU.
"As reported in the Washington Times, Reid’s strategy memo advises: u2018Ensure that you have the proper U.S. and state flags at the event, and consider finding someone to sing the national anthem and lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the event.' Next up was Joe Biden, standing between two gold-fringed flags, and probably with Old Glory underwear, telling the press that u2018to the extent that Bush fails in Iraq, American interests are seriously damaged, and I’m rooting for his success, not his failure.' This is the man who explained his 30-minute opening speech at the Alito hearings by saying he wanted to put the nominee at his ease."
And so forth. The same basic report can be found in the copy of a considerable number of pundits just now.
So what is going to happen is a rerun of the 2004 movie, "Kerry, the Lethal Opponent, Takes a Dive." Hillary seems to have positioned herself along these same lines; her version is "More Iraq, but Smarter." A friend of mine who claims to know what odds the bookies are making on the several likely candidates puts Hillary waaaaaay out in front, which seems incredible, but I have to admit that practically everything more and more seems that way to me.
Can it really be that no "Peace Now" candidate is going to come forward, or what is even more important, be heard nationally and be on the ballot of one or the other of the only two viable parties? Yes, it can really be. Our so-called representatives are no longer representing us (did they ever, really?); they are representing themselves and their real constituency, which is certainly not us, but rather special people with power and money (of course I repeat myself), who can therefore command the attention of our loyal legislators. You must try to understand the problem of having a sort of political ADD.
Well, then, what is the forward strategy to be – for this mid-term election and the one to follow in 2008? I see two choices. Decide which of the two Warmonger parties you think is liable to do the least damage over the next two years. If, with me, you think that it is likely the Dems, then go to the polls and support the Democrats in all races, even if their candidates for all offices are the very Devil's disciples. You will have sent a message of sorts to the Republicans that they are personally unpleasant; have, that is, political body odor. Thus we might, just might, vote one batch of humbugs out and another in, as James Russell Lowell put it way back in the early years of the Republic, and gain thereby some slight access of sanity.
Or (and I suspect this is the way I'll go), stay home and sit on one's hands one more time. That way I think I will be turning my back on Bush and all his accomplices as Karen Kwiatkowski suggested we do in her column last weekend, "Our Little Nero." And we get to do the same to all the Dem phonies into the bargain, "Don't vote. It Only Encourages Them" seems a good slogan still. It may move us up on the Halliburton Detention Camp list, but what the hell. I have only one freedom to give for my country.
March 28, 2006
