Rotten-Rock Democrats, "Friendly Fire," and the MoveOn Vote

Back in the day, as the expression goes, many radical activists considered liberals "rotten rock." It's a climber's term. It refers to saprolite, a weathered rock found on outcrops, that crumbles beneath the climber's fingers as she's holding on for dear life.

The association came from bitter experience--for instance, around sexual orientation:

In 1970 the issue came to a head when Betty Friedan, the President of the National Organization of Women (NOW), characterized advocates for the inclusion of lesbian issues in NOW's platform as a "lavender menace." Gloria Steinem [may she and her tribe be forever blessed] responded by [nailing it,] arguing that feminism was a revolution, not a public relations movement; and in 1971 NOW members voted overwhelmingly to affirm the legitimacy of lesbian oppression as a concern of feminism. [Commentary added, obviously.]

It must be hard for today's political activists to feel the horrific sense of betrayal that we felt at that moment. I'll just say that it came amid the early, heady days when feminists of all stripes still thought that such a thing as "sisterhood" existed among women who identified as feminists. We found out the hard way, hanging from the cliff, that it just wasn't so. There were many rotten rocks, some in surprising and powerful places.

That's the back story.

"Rotten rocks" succinctly describes the Democrats who voted with the immeasurably hypocritical GOP to censure MoveOn.org for its Petraeus ad. You can find their names here. They include Diane Feinstein, Max Baucus, Barbara Mikulski, Mary Landrieu, Joseph Lieberman, and Patrick Leahy. It also applies to Cantwell and Obama, who sat this one out. (Biden was on the campaign trail; he may be excused given his pole position. Lieberman needs no comment.)

There certainly used to be a code of ethics that made abandoning a buddy in a fight a real chicken-shit thing to do--the kind of thing that folks couldn't really come back from--sort of like sleeping with your best friend's lover.

Democrats like Feinstein and Leahy, et al., don't seem to get it that we are in a fight for our lives, the fight of our lifetimes, against a regime and a party that stands for everything our Constitution expressly stands against. MoveOn.org does get it, and doesn't hesitate to go directly after the heart of the beast, as I wrote yesterday. That is why Republicans must attack them in ever more spectacular ways. It is also why Democrats must stand with them, no matter what. That they still don't get this is completely mystifying to me.

The Republicans understand that. They also understand elementary campaign dynamics. This is not the point in a campaign for speaking to the nation as a whole. This is the time to speak to the base, who will be called to pick a candidate before the nation is called to pick a president.

Feinstein, Leahy, Mikulski, Landrieu (I really don't get that woman; she represents Louisiana and of course New Orleans)and the rest are choosing their votes for the wrong reasons and in a fog of fear. Instead of seeking to preserve their integrity, they appear to be seeking to appease someone. But who? Not the majority of the country, which gets the lies and charades and wants out of this war and craves a tough and unyielding leadership. Not principled Republicans, because as far as I've seen, there are none. Their frame of reference is a mystery to me, because if they fear demonization by the GOP, evidently they still haven't realized that that will come at them regardless of what they say or how they vote.

No. This capitulation to the rhetoric of a deadly serious foe amounts to "friendly fire," except that it's considered and deliberate, not accidental. These troops, safe in the Senate's padded chairs, just fired on their own front lines.

Fascism Isn't Coming to The USA. It's Here.

Today’s latest Senate disgrace needs to be evaluated in the context of a purely fascist ideology that, gradually over the past 30 years, has seized our country while we were busy refusing to suspend our disbelief that it could happen here.

To some, today’s Senate resolution condemning MoveOn.org’s New York Times ad seems just garden-variety congressional stupidity. In the scheme of things, it is admittedly a smallish thing seen next to anti-war soldiers mysteriously dying, but I think it is more worrisome than mere stupidity. The US Senate, part of the highest tier of government, has chosen to strike directly at our constitutional right of free speech. This seems to suggest the coming-out of something quite troubling.

When God and Country are conflated in an increasingly Christianist military force that, in turn, symbolizes the perfect righteousness of our ends and means, the suggestion that its senior spokesman might be a fraud – could be corrupt, deceitful, and complicit -- is the one implication that a fascist regime cannot afford to let walk unassailed into daylight.

But this ad, which simply asked, “General Petraeus or General Betray-Us?,” publicly pinned the lie to the symbolic heart of fascism. An attack was inevitable.

This isn't so much about the person. I don't know what Petraeus believes, but it's hard to think much of the principles of a commander who doesn't really know whether the deaths he oversees are doing anything to make us safer, but nevertheless hasn't resigned for that reason.

This is about symbolism. The decorated uniform of highest rank wasn’t just meant to lend credibility where it has been so lacking. In the context of everything else we've seen in the last 30 years--especially the last six as the curtain has risen--I'm comfortable saying more. I believe it was also meant to suggest subtly that "moral authority" could be enthroned by force here, too, if necessary, and yes, to dissuade any challenges. By costuming him in full, decorated uniform, the theatre manager intended us to understand that the USA is now God, Might, and Fatherland conflated, and that to question him is to question the new ruling trinity.

But the ad pre-empted the vignette, and in my view, the ad stands as a distinctively populist and distinctively brave American impertinence.

It speaks aloud what we’ve all had to live with for some time: That our leaders, some civilian, some military, some corporate, are equally comfortable eating lobster bisque in a zone of atrocity as perpetrating undeniably deep and extravagant violations of human dignity and the moral, cultural, social, and economic order of Iraq and of our own country. And are happy to lie about it all. If this isn't fascism, I don't know what is.

Thus, the despotic little tanty voiced in the Senate today was inevitable. That it was authentic fury and fear just unmasks these fascists, and their appeasers, for who they are.

We citizens shouldn't let this stand. Small as it may seem, today's resolution must become a turning point at which we call a fascist an un-American, anti-constitution fascist, and demand their resignations en masse. The resignations won't happen, I know, but let us at least get out the checkbooks for MoveOn.org and let our voices be heard.

Now is just not the time to sit down and shut up.