I’ve never called any of our elected Democrats spineless. Nor have I, as far as I can recall, ever used similar words to describe anyone,
with the exception of George W. Bush and his minions.
Why not? Because I find it very difficult to put myself in another person’s shoes. It may be true that many of our elected Democratic representatives are spineless. But I prefer to phrase the issue in a less inflammatory way. The truth of the matter is that there is a scarcity of courage in the world. Most people, most of the time, don’t act with a great deal of courage. That fact provides at least part of the answer as to why Germany let Hitler take over their country, and by the same token it provides at least part of the answer as to why our own country
now appears to be slipping into dictatorship.
My intention in saying this is not to defend the many apparent lapses of courage shown by our elected representatives over the past few years. I think it would be fair to say that our elected Democratic representatives have not, as a whole, demonstrated the courage that we believe is demanded by the current crisis that our nation faces. But I’m reluctant to even say
that with certainty, since I don’t know what’s going through their heads.
What I want to do in this post is put the terribly depressing situation our country now faces into perspective. I need to do that for myself in order to try to make sense of it. If in doing so I can help others put this in perspective then that would be great. In my attempt to do that, I’ve done the following:
Recount some of the many great disappointments that we’ve faced, especially since the 2006 election
Identify some possibly legitimate excuses for those who have disappointed us so much
Explain why I believe it is best to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory language
Provide my thoughts on the censure of MoveOn.org and the apology by Representative Stark
Give an example of a former Congressman who bravely stood up to the threat of censorship for his fight against slavery
Try to tie it all together
Great disappointments over the past year(s)Skinner
recently noted that “things have been a bit tense as of late”. And indeed things have been a bit tense. It was bad enough to live through two stolen elections and the worst presidency in the history of our nation, which seems to be moving towards a
fascist dictatorship. At least prior to November 2006 most of us believed that if Democrats could pull off a victory in the mid-term elections we would begin to see some major improvements. But the failure of the leaders of our own Party to stand up to the Bush administration on issue after issue has been profoundly disappointing and tried the patience of many of us to the breaking point.
First among the great disappointments has been the taking of impeachment “
off the table”. Many or most of us,
including myself, see that failure alone as providing a precedent which diminishes the checks and balances of our Constitution to the point where we are in grave danger of sliding into tyranny.
Perhaps we should have seen it coming. Even prior to the mid-term elections, many Democrats
were complicit in giving our President a free hand in initiating an obviously illegal war; our Democratic Senate failed to initiate investigations into the many election
fraud issues that plague our nation when it had the power to do so in 2001-2002; when Senator Durbin had the
courage to speak out about the abuse and torture of our prisoners he received only tepid support from his fellow Democrats in response to a barrage of malicious criticism from Republicans;
all but one Democratic Senator were complicit in giving away many of our Constitutional rights by voting for the
PATRIOT Act; and several of our Democratic Congresspersons
were complicit in removing many of our remaining safeguards against tyranny by voting for the
Military Commissions Act of 2006.
And then, after gaining control of Congress: As if we hadn’t learned enough from the Iraq War debacle, several Democratic Senators made it easier for George Bush to lead us into World War III by
voting for a resolution calling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization; our Democratic Congress has
lacked the will to refuse to fund the Iraq War; and it has
censored or
forced an apology from those who
have had the courage to aggressively criticize the war.
Consequently we are profoundly disappointed, shocked, dumbfounded, and angry. The explanation for some of this may be found in a
quote by Markos Moulitas Zuniga (page 127), referring to Speaker Pelosi’s reaction to Senator Feingold’s censor resolution of President Bush:
Nancy Pelosi chided Russ Feingold for his censure motion. She said, “The Republicans are unraveling, so don’t make news. Let’s not get in the way.”
Some possibly legitimate excuses?The issues at stake are so great that many of us just can’t understand why our Democratic Congresspersons are acting the way they have. I have tried very hard to consider all the possibilities, and none of them are very satisfactory.
In fairness to them, I must admit that using political calculation in an attempt to solidify the Democratic majority in Congress and elect a Democratic President is not the worst thing in the world. It is a rare politician indeed who is free to express all of his/her true views without putting his/her office in great jeopardy. Indeed, there are a number of issues that are simply “
unmentionable” in U.S. politics. For example, Abraham Lincoln had to tone down his
anti-slavery views in order to get elected President. And then he put his Presidency to great purpose when he
ended slavery forever in our country. Would we – or the former slaves – rather that he had freely expressed his views
prior to his election, in which case he almost certainly would not have been elected?
And let us not forget that risking one’s career is something that is not undertaken lightly even by the most courageous of us. It is something that many or most of us have faced on one or more occasions, yet something that politicians probably face on a daily basis to a much greater extent than most of us.
And I have also speculated that the risks that our elected Democratic representatives face for being too aggressive against the Bush Administration
may be far greater than losing their jobs.
And there is always the possibility that many of our Democratic Congresspersons simply view things very differently than we at DU view them. Or maybe they are simply in denial as to the grave risks that our country currently faces.
But still…. Given the current stakes, including what many of us see as the slide of our nation into tyranny, most of us feel that none of those excuses are satisfactory.
On the need to avoid inflammatory languageI’ll use a personal story to explain my feelings on this: Nearly 30 years ago I was a young public health officer in the U.S. Air Force. I had just completed an Air Force sponsored stint at Berkeley School of Public Health, and I was doing my Preventive Medicine residency at Brooks AFB in San Antonio. At Berkeley I had recently co-written my first scientific research article and was trying to get it published with my coauthor from Berkeley, who was also my research supervisor. To put mildly, we didn’t see eye to eye on many aspects of the manuscript. In fact, I thought she was a first class jerk who was doing everything she could to be obstructive, and I was terribly frustrated with her. So after many attempts to settle our differences, in exasperation I wrote her a nasty insulting (though I didn’t quite see it that way at the time) letter in a last desperate attempt to settle our differences – and I sent the letter (so I thought) through normal Air Force channels.
Little did I know that the commanding General at Brooks AFB would intercept my letter before it was mailed. He called me into his office and proceeded to gently “educate” me on the errors of my ways. He told me that if he was my research supervisor and received a letter like from me that he would tear it up and never speak to me again. He told me to re-write the letter in a more professional manner, and he implied that if a similar incident occurred in the future he would probably go beyond “educating” me.
I did as he said, and the result was that my first scientific research paper was published, which meant a great deal to me at the time. I didn’t have to prostitute myself. All I had to do was bury my anger and re-write what I had written, to produce a letter with virtually the same substance but with a more moderate “tone”.
I relate this incident because I see the guiding principle as being very similar to the issues surrounding the Senate censoring of MoveOn.org and the forced apology of Pete Stark. I have a great amount of respect for the many great things that MoveOn.org has accomplished and for the courageous and principled stance that Congressman Stark has taken against the Iraq War over a long period of time. Yet I only 95% agree with them with respect to the statements for which they were censored/forced to apologize. More specifically, I believe that those statements, though courageous and well founded for the most part, were more inflammatory than they should have been.
Thoughts on the censure of MoveOn.org and Congressman Stark’s apologyWhy do I think it matters that the statements by MoveOn.org and Pete Stark were too inflammatory? Well, though I very much disagree with Nancy Pelosi’s stand on impeachment, I believe that she was correct when she said that Stark’s comments “distracted from the seriousness of the subject at hand – providing health care for America’s children”.
Many of us at DU may not see that because we feel so passionately about the Iraq War and admire Stark so much for aggressively challenging that war – which he has
done on numerous occasions. But in my opinion it was not necessary or helpful for him to say that the war has been conducted “for the President’s amusement”. I myself
have said that the Iraq War has been conducted for the benefit of Bush and Cheney’s corporate cronies (though I may not have said that if I were a Congressman). And
so has Dennis Kucinich. Nobody tried to force Kucinich to apologize for his statement. Why Not? Because there is too much evidence to back up his statement, and Republicans don’t want to have that argument in front of a national audience. But whether Stark’s statement was true or not, few Americans would buy it (in my opinion), and in the eyes of many American voters such a statement makes him (and the Democratic Party to some extent by association) seem over the top.
The same principle applies to MoveOn’s statement. The substance of their statement was right on target and of monumental importance. But by making it into a pun they inadvertently distracted from the seriousness of the subject. Hence their message was blunted, and they were opened up for an attack.
In saying all this I am not for a moment arguing that Congress was right to censor them. Saying that Stark’s remarks were “despicable” was way more off base that Stark’s own comments.
What does it mean that MoveOn was censored and Stark was forced to apologize? It means one thing only: For the Republicans it was done to gain political points, and for the Democrats it was done to
avoid losing too many political points (though whether or not the Democrats calculated correctly on that I don’t claim to know).
One more thought about Stark’s apology. I have seen that some DUers were disappointed in him for apologizing and wondered how he could make such a “180 degree turn”. I don’t see it that way at all. I thought his apology was conducted with much dignity. He showed great courage in making his original statement (even though I have some disagreement with the words he chose). But then he was faced with what he saw as a potential career endangering scenario if he refused to apologize. So maybe he didn’t quite have enough courage to resist that. Big deal! Or alternatively, he could have sincerely believed the words he used to frame his “apology”. His so-called apology didn’t in any way back down from his stand against the war. He merely said that he was sorry if he offended his colleagues or the troops. So what?
The attempted U.S. House censure of John Quincy Adams for his courageous stand against slaveryOne of the best examples of a Congressman who had the courage to fight for principles with little regard for risk to his political career was John Quincy Adams. Elected to a Massachusetts seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1830, two years after he was soundly defeated in his bid for a second term as President, Adams served in the House for the remaining 18 years of his life before dying at his desk in the House at the age of 80. He began his long fight against slavery shortly after being elected to his first term, and he didn’t give it up until he died. The story of his courageous fight against slavery is told by William Lee Miller in his wonderful book “
Arguing About Slavery – John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress”.
Adams’ initial battle against slavery was directed against the infamous “
gag rule”, which passed the House in 1836 and prohibited any discussion in the U.S. House of Representatives on the topic of slavery. Time and time again Adams found ways around the “gag rule”, and thus he precipitated frequent malicious attacks against him from pro-slavery Congressmen. He was warned that he could be prosecuted for his speeches on the House floor on the charge of attempting to incite a slave insurrection, and he received immense outpourings of abusive mail, including death threats. And on three separate occasions the House attempted to censure him.
The first occasion of an attempt to censure Adams arose when he requested permission to present a petition from slaves. The slaveholders became apoplectic at this suggestion, and some even wanted to expel Adams from the House for this great insult to their “honor”. In response, Adams eloquently defended the right of slaves to petition the government:
If this House decides that it will not receive petitions from slaves, under any circumstances, it will cause the name of this country to be enrolled among the first of the barbarous nations… When you establish the doctrine that a slave shall not petition because he is a slave, that he shall not be permitted to raise the cry for mercy, you let in a principle subversive of every foundation of liberty, and you cannot tell where it will stop.
Adams not only did not mind the attempts to censure him, he positively encouraged them. The third and last attempt by the slave-holders to censure Adams came following his attempt to present a petition from his constituents that prayed for the dissolution of the Union, so that they would no longer have to be associated with slavery. On that occasion Adams’ friends and allies tried to table the censure motion, but Adams voted against the motion to table, saying, “Let’s have it out. Let’s see if you can censure me”. When the motion to table failed, Adams then used the opportunity to pound away at his favorite subject for a week, using abolitionist material given to him by his abolitionist friends. And then so many petitions flowed in against the censuring of Adams that the effort to censure him was called off. And the next day Adams presented 200 more petitions.
And as he aged he tended to lose his former restraint, as shown in this reply from Adams on the House floor, in response to a Congressman who suggested that his actions could result in a civil war:
Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
Some final thoughts on political couragePolitics is a tremendously complicated business. Failure to stick up for principles is not always a sign of insufficient courage. Sometimes sticking up for certain principles is the equivalent of political suicide. Rather than commit political suicide, it is sometimes better for our best elected representatives to bide their time until they actually have the power to do something. Like Lincoln did. Or like some Nazis who made a career out of helping Jews to escape death. I continue to hope that something similar is happening in our country today, but with every passing week that appears less likely.
More often, the
apparent lack of sufficient political courage is just what it appears to be – lack of sufficient political courage. I call it “lack of sufficient courage” rather than cowardice because cowardice implies something much worse than the norm. And what we’re seeing now in our Congress is not, I believe, too much worse than the norm. That is very unfortunate because, given the current precarious state of our nation, we are in great need of leaders who will demonstrate extraordinary courage. And I don’t see that happening any time soon.
In order to improve the quality of our elected leaders, several things need to happen:
Get the money out of politics (criminalize what currently passes for legal bribery).
Require transparent and fair elections.
Bust up the monopolies held by wealthy corporations on our news media.
Restore our Constitution, and with it, the notion that nobody in our country is above the law.
But first and foremost, in order for all that to happen, the American people
need to wake up and demand that it happen. And I don’t know what it will take to make that happen.
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