[GPRI] FW: [usgp-dx] Imperial jihad; Pelosi's backroom politics with bloody consequences; etc. (Scott Tucker & al.)

Fri Mar 23 07:38:31 PST 2007

Are you getting ready for a great 2008 Green presidential campaign?  greg
------ Forwarded Message
From: Scott McLarty <scottmclarty at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:19:03 -0700 (PDT)
To: <usgp-media at gp-us.org>, <natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org>
Subject: [usgp-dx] Imperial jihad; Pelosi's backroom politics with bloody
consequences; etc. (Scott Tucker & al.)

>From Scott Tucker of OpenLetterOnline.com

TO HELL WITH THEIR IMPERIAL JIHAD

>>>PELOSI'S WAR BUDGET: BACKROOM POLITICS WITH
BLOODY CONSEQUENCES

>>>MOVE ON'S SOVIET BALLOT

Readers of Open Letter,

    Remember that pack of journalistic hounds who
bayed and bared their teeth when they discovered
a Republican donor threw spare change at a Green
candidate in Pennsylvania?  But they are a sleepy
litter of puppies when the subject of huge
corporate bribes and bipartisan politics arises.

    They are merely megaphones for the bogus
"realism" of the Democratic Leadership Council.
They are already busy typing-- not writing-- the
official version of a "kinder, gentler"
imperialism.

    As John Stauber wrote recently (see below),
96% of MoveOn's members did not bother to respond
to the "Soviet ballot" recently sent to them.
MoveOn has always been a front group for
Democratic career politicians.  It was another
descent into Hipster Hell, an attempt to give the
Clinton brand a longer shelf life.  In the blink
of an eye Eli Pariser morphed into Rahm Emmanuel.

    MoveOn is just the new window dressing for
the old backroom politics.  But in this case
backroom politics will have bloody consequences.

    Wars divide public opinion, divide families,
divide friends.  That's a fact.  Lamenting those
divisions is usually the sentimental way of
changing the subject-- from war to the weather,
from war to sports, from war to gherkins,
gingham, or Ghent.

    Well, can't I spare one good word for a
Democrat once in a while?  Sure-- I'll be glad to
quote Rocky Anderson, a "lapsed" (or gladly
renegade) Mormon who became Mayor of Salt Lake
City and has campaigned against the Iraq war,
against global warming, and against genocide in
Darfur.  Unlike Hillary Clinton and Barrack
Obama-- busy with their craven dodges and
triangulations-- Mayor Anderson steps right up to
religious reactionaries and defends gay and
lesbian rights.  If he can fight the right in
Utah, why can't the Clintons follow his example?
Because the Clintons are pillars of reaction in
the party of their choice.

    "There's a real resistance to change and an
almost pathological devotion to leaders simply
because they're leaders," said Mayor Anderson.
There's a dangerous culture of obedience
throughout much of this country that's worse in
Utah than anywhere."

    And Rocky Anderson is unambiguous concerning
"centrist" Democrats who run scared of their
shadows:

    "If you take a principled point of view and
people fall down on one side or the other, you
can be characterized as being principled or being
tough.  Or you can be dismissed as being
divisive, and I think if that's the definition of
divisive, we need more people in politics who are
divisive."

    Divide and conquer?  That old slogan is often
used by Democratic Party apparatchiks to terrify
us and keep us voting by rote.  But many of us
stopped being sheep in that old fold.

    Politically, the democratic left-- which
would not exclude the more decent members of the
Democratic Party-- will have to learn to divide
in order to multiply.

    Rocky Anderson has given the Democratic
Leadership Council some real headaches.  But what
the Democrats and Republicans deserve is a real
opposition party-- and that party already exists.
 The Green Party of the United States is the only
party fully committed to ecological sanity,
economic democracy, and peace.  And Green
candidates stand on a party platform which has no
room for anti-gay bigots such as Bill and Hillary
Clinton.

    Be a pain in the neck.  Be a loudmouth.  Be
the gargoyle that gives nightmares to
"progressives."  But do not retreat from
arguments at dinner tables, in classrooms, or in
workplaces.  Vote against the parties of war and
empire every chance you get.  Do everything in
your power to grind this war machine down to a
halt.  We, the people, have to start talking
directly across bloody borders and over the heads
of bloody-minded politicians.  There will be no
lasting peace without a lasting foundation of
international justice.

    Not one cent and not one vote for the parties
of war and empire!

    Peace and solidarity,

    Thomas Scott Tucker

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thomas Scott Tucker
tstucker at ca.rr.com
http://www.openletteronline.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

----- Original Message -----
From: jensenmk at plu.edu
To: jensenmk82 at gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 7:20 PM
Subject: [ufpj-news] R, CMD: Pelosi war-funding
bill is 'back room power politics of the worst
sort'

NEWS & COMMENTARY: Pelosi war-funding bill is
'backroom power politics of
the worst sort'

[House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sponsoring a
$124.1-billion appropriations bull that will vote
funding of the Iraq war while also attaching
spending for drought relief, hurricane
rebuilding, and other measures, with the proviso
that all U.S. combat troops would have to be out
of Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008, Reuters reported
Wednesday.[1] -- Commenting on Wednesday on
MoveOn's attempt to use a "poll" of its members
to generate support of the bill, John Stauber,
the founder (1993) and current executive director
of the Center for Media & Democracy, accused
MoveOn on engaging in cynical "let them bleed"
politics that will prolong the Iraq war in a way
that Democrats can benefit from electorally in
2008.[2] -- The poll was inappropriately
presented to members, he argues, and
insignificant in its results, since "96% of
MoveOn's 3.2 million members did not even bother
to vote in their member survey." -- "The biased
'poll' that MoveOn emailed to its 3.2 million
subscribers reads like a Soviet ballot," Stauber
wrote. -- "Many liberal strategists inside the
Beltway believe that what the House leadership is
doing is smart and practical politics. In fact,
this is back room power politics of the worst
sort. . . . The American people deserve
leadership and honesty from their political
representatives and from groups that claim to be
representing them. A choice between Republican or
Democratic gamesmanship on Iraq is no choice at
all when it allows the dying and suffering of
tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis to go on, all for some
campaign leverage down the road in 2008. As
confused as the American public has been by the
Bush propaganda that sold the war, and the
failure of the mainstream media to confront and
expose it, there is now a solid majority of
Americans who want the U.S. out now or in the
very immediate future. They are not being served
by partisan gamesmanship, nor is their country."
-- Thanks to Joe Thompson for sending the second
piece. --Mark]

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5958/

1. U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRATS SEE IRAQ WITHDRAWAL BILL
WIN
By Richard Cowan

Reuters
March 21, 2007
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21296138.htm

WASHINGTON -- Democratic leaders on Wednesday
predicted the U.S. House of Representatives will
pass a war-funding bill that sets a strict
timetable for withdrawing American combat troops
from Iraq, after struggling to round up
sufficient votes.

"We're going to go this week," said Rep. Rahm
Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House
Democratic Caucus. "We'll have 218 (votes),"
Emanuel said.

Loading up the bill with funds for drought
relief, hurricane rebuilding, and other measures,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and her
Democratic lieutenants have worked to clinch the
necessary votes -- 218 of the House's 435 members
-- to pass a $124.1 billion bill that mostly
funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

President George W. Bush wants the money to keep
U.S. forces in Iraq in an effort to stabilize it.
Democrats have made the spending bill the focus
of their efforts to end the conflict that has
entered its fifth year with more than 3,200 U.S.
troops killed and more than 20,000 wounded.

But Democrats have been split, with liberals
calling for a quicker withdrawal date than the
bill sets and moderates worried they could be
depicted as undermining U.S. troops by putting
strings on the war-fighting funds.

Under the Democrats' bill, all U.S. combat troops
would have to be out of Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008, a
provision the White House says would prompt a
veto from Bush.

Democrats, already anticipating that veto, are
eyeing other bills coming up this year to attach
similar language while building pressure for an
end to the war.

Backing Bush, House Republicans said they were
united against the Democrats' war funds bill.
"There is only one way to do the right thing for
our troops and for the safety and security of
future generations of Americans," said House
Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, who
called for a war-funding bill "with no strings
attached."

'BIG TEST'

Some liberal Democrats have announced they would
support Pelosi's bill even though they want an
earlier troop pullout, letting Democratic leaders
claim momentum going into the vote.

Rep. James Moran, a Virginia Democrat who sits on
the House Appropriations panel that oversees
defense spending, said the vote "is really the
first big test of whether we can pull together
the left and the right (of the Democratic Party).
It is a test of our leadership."

But indicative of how close the vote could be,
Pelosi summoned former national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski to Capitol Hill to appeal to
Democrats to vote for the war-funding bill with a
timetable for troop withdrawal.

On Tuesday, Brzezinski, who served in President
Jimmy Carter's administration, said the
Democrats' war-funding bill "provides what has
been lacking: a means to hold the Iraqi
government accountable for its performance by
conditioning U.S. support to the meeting of
benchmarks already endorsed by President Bush and
Iraqi leaders."

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a New Hampshire Democrat
newly elected in November on an anti-war
platform, told reporters she will vote for the
bill because it sets a date for withdrawal.

"If you want to support the troops, you need to
get them out. This has a date, so I'm comfortable
with this," she said.

Asked if she heard "murmuring" back home from war
opponents in her district, Shea-Porter responded,
"No murmuring, just screaming," from constituents
who she said were shocked she would vote for any
measure that continues to fund the war.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell)

2.

PR Watch

96% OF MOVEON MEMBERS DID NOT SHOW SUPPORT FOR
THE PELOSI BILL
By John Stauber

John Stauber's Blog
Center for Media and Democracy
March 21, 2007

http://www.prwatch.org/node/5882 or
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0321-34.htm

On Sunday, March 18, Sheldon Rampton and I wrote
"Iraq: Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?" an article
now widely circulated online. It has helped to
focus debate on whether the Democratic Party is
really attempting to end the war in Iraq, or is
content to simply manage the war for supposed
electoral advantage in 2008.

The liberal advocacy group MoveOn has 3.2 million
members. Yesterday MoveOn misleadingly claimed
that the results from their recent member survey
showed overwhelming support for House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi's bill on Iraq. "The results are in
from our poll on whether to support Speaker
Pelosi's proposal on Iraq: 84.6% of MoveOn
members voted to support the bill," according to
MoveOn. However, this claim flunks the smell test
and is far from accurate.

MoveOn is engaging in that oldest of PR games
known as 'lies, damned lies, and statistics." The
truth is that 96% of MoveOn's 3.2 million members
did not even bother to vote in their member
survey. Most of MoveOn's members probably ignored
and failed to open the email, since nothing in
the subject line indicated it was particularly
important. MoveOn claims that slightly over
126,000 people voted in what I pointed out to
them was a very biased pro-Pelosi poll. The
MoveOn question essentially provided a choice of
Pelosi and peace (Yes), or Republicans and war
(No). Gee, guess how that one gets answered?

The real news is that 96% of MoveOn's huge list
did not vote with them to support the Pelosi
bill. When MoveOn says 84.6% of their members
chose Pelosi's bill, they mean 84.6% of the
measly four percent of their members who bothered
to open their email and respond. A polling of
members in which 96% do not vote is no polling at
all. Unfortunately MoveOn, while claiming to
represent their overwhelmingly anti-war
membership, is being unaccountable and
anti-democratic.

An article in Politico.com makes clear the
crucial role MoveOn has played by supporting the
Democratic leadership over the large caucus of
pro-peace progressive Democrats. Here's a
description of how the MoveOn survey was used
inside the Capitol: "A jovial Rep. Dutch
Ruppersberger went up to fellow Maryland Rep.
Albert Wynn as he sat off the floor with a
reporter and told Wynn that a vote against the
bill was a vote for Republican victory. He waved
a copy of the MoveOn.org press release backing
the measure. 'Have you seen this?' Ruppersberger
asked. 'Yeah, who did that?' replied Wynn, a
member of the Out of Iraq Caucus."

The biased "poll" that MoveOn emailed to its 3.2
million subscribers reads like a Soviet ballot.
Many liberal strategists inside the Beltway
believe that what the House leadership is doing
is smart and practical politics.  In fact, this
is back room power politics of the worst sort, a
cynical 'Let It Bleed' strategy that abandons
efforts to halt the war and is geared toward
getting Democrats elected in 2008 by blaming the
continuing quagmire of the Iraq occupation on the
Republicans.

The American people deserve leadership and
honesty from their political representatives and
from groups that claim to be representing them. A
choice between Republican or Democratic
gamesmanship on Iraq is no choice at all when it
allows the dying and suffering of tens of
thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis to go on, all for some campaign
leverage down the road in 2008. As confused as
the American public has been by the Bush
propaganda that sold the war, and the failure of
the mainstream media to confront and expose it,
there is now a solid majority of Americans who
want the U.S. out now or in the very immediate
future. They are not being served by partisan
gamesmanship, nor is their country.

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