[Sosfbay-discuss] One More Thing About Lantos

[alexcathy at aol.com]

 One more thing about Lantos and I'll drop this thread. 
 
 A couple of contributors to the South Bay Green list interpreted my append as praise for Tom Lantos. 
 
 Nothing could be further from the truth, so please do not misunderstand me. I purpose was NOT to praise Lantos, that world-class Democratic Party hack, but to give a pat on the back to people like San Mateo County Green Party leader, Pat Gray, who had courageously been challenging Lantos for more than four years. 
 
 PARADOX: AS WAR BECOMES MORE UNPOPULAR, ATTACKS ON THE ANTI-WAR LEFT ESCALATES
 
 
 I am not a big fan of Todd Gitlin, but the old 1960s SDS guys made an observation about two years ago which, I think, is relevant. 
 
 Gitlin recalled that support for the Vietnam War dropped precipitously after 1970. The funny thing was that even as the war become more and more unpopular and more and more people were asking the same question as the John Kerry: "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" the anti-war movement became less and less popular, too. 
 
 Notice how, to this day, being tagged as a "McGovern Democrat" is an insult. Also notice how, to this day, almost every mainstream depiction of the anti-Vietnam War "peacenik" is a negative stereotype: unkempt bearded "nerdy" guys and bellicose not well-dressed and not "pretty" (but nonetheless implicitly promiscuous) gals. 
 
 Gitlin predicted, I think correctly, that as Mr. Bush's War became more and more unpopular, that we'd see more and more attacks on the anti-war left. Put it down to psychology -- some weird cognitive dissonance -- nobody is going to say "Yeah, you Greens and 'Lefties' were right to protest Bush's lies and we were cowards and suckers." 
 
 I saw a poll recently that reported Bush's support WITHIN THE MILITARY has dropped way down. Another poll shows that 70% of southerners opposed to so-called surge and about 80% of American generally. 
 
 And yet ...
 
 Six years after Bush - Gore - Nader, the general hostility for Greens seems not to have diminished one bit. 
 
 Lately, I've been doing some blogging on The Daily Kos and it's really weird. On the one hand, those "netizens" literally hate Bush and his crew. I mean, they have even posted gratuitously mean and nasty stuff over there about Mary Cheney's pregnancy. 
 
 They also hate Joe Lieberman (rightly in my opinion), as the world's greatest rat fink.
 
 And yet ...
 
 They still have this hostility toward anybody they perceive as being "To the Left" of regular liberal Democrats and a near hatred of the Greens, in particular. It is the most infuriating thing. In effect, they say we must be loyal to the Liebermans of the world even if they are rat finks. Why? Because they're Democrats! 
 
 BEING "GREEN" IS SUDDENLY RESPECTABLE 
 
 Also, have you noticed lately how that word "Green" has suddenly become super respectable? It is truly Kafkaesque. Almost every day I read some commentary about the need for "Green living" and "Green values" and "Green industry." They say Arnold Schwarzeneggar is gonna be a "Green governor." Thomas Friedman's latest project is gushing "Green Globalization." But they still conform to the totalitarian "party line" that you are never, ever supposed to say anything about the actual Green Party that does not invoke stereotypical images of... well... something like freaky "peaceniks." And while Friedman gushes being "Green" on a global scale he never notices that in the U.S. only ONE political party has that specific kiund of global orientation, namely the Green Party. 
  
 DEMOCRATS: "WE WON! WE WON! NOW, LET'S DUMP ON THE BLACKS"
 
 As a Green Party man who also happens to be African-American, I am particularly annoyed by the unmistakable tendency of these creepy Democrats to take that huge black Democratic vote totally for granted. Ninety percent of African-American big-city voters throw away their votes on corrupt and incompetent Democratic Party hacks. And then right after every election the "smart liberals" immediately start mouthing off about how "what Democrats need to do" is go suck-up (yet again) to southern white conservative voters! It's ridiculous! They are NEVER going to get those voters back. In some places the Democratic vote among southern whites has dropped below twenty percent. And if they do put somebody like Barack Obama on the ticket in 2008, mark my words, it will go even lower. 
 
 Some of the best progressive Democrats in Congress happen to be members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Notice how those guys get almost no credit fro ou "liberal" leaders. Joe Klein, bullshit "liberal" for Time Magazine, actually wrote that John Conyers and Charles Rangel were "an embarrassment" for the Democrats and that Nancy Pelosi should be commended for, in effect, keeping Conyers in his place on impeachment. I'm no big fan of Alcee Hastings of Florida, but he WAS just about the only member of the House Intelligence Committee who actually did his job and questioned Bush's lying intelligence. So, what was Hastings' reward? Being trashed by nearly everybody, including by the "netroots" who are supposed to be the anti-war avant garde. 
 
 CONTEMPT FOR THE "LEFT" AND CHEERS FOR THE "MODERATES"
 
 If you have been following the blogosphere in recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about an alliance between the anti-war Democrats and the so-called libertarian Republicans. On the Daily Kos, where no good word is every written about that hated Greens, and where there is open contempt for millions of loyal Democratic voters who are people of color, there are shouts of hosanna! and hallelujah! every time some white Republican conservative rat jumps Bush's sinking ship. 
 
 If nothing else, all this demonstrates the lack of character and lack of intellectual honesty of the Democrats. 
 I concluded about ten years ago that while I agree with most of those guys on most issues and while I can work IN COALITION with them on matters of mutual interest, I DO NOT want to be one of them. In this life grown-up women and men respect people and associate with people who respect and want to be associated with them. 
 
 The struggle between Greens and Democrats will continue.
 
 
 Alex Walker 
  
 
  
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