Circular Firing Squad [View All]

[McCamy Taylor]

First off, this thread is a Divide and Conquer Free Zone. If you have a beef with a particular candidate or organization within the Democratic Party or anti-war movement, take it somewhere else---like one of the hundreds of threads in Democratic Underground that are dedicated to the proposition that the RNC does not need to spend money fighting us when we can fight among ourselves for nothing.

I believe that every Democrat is united by one desire that outweighs all the bickering. We all want to see the War in Iraq end. I believe that we know that a Democratic presidential victory in 2008 will ensure that goal, whereas a Republican victory will ensure that the war for the possession of someone else’s oil will go on indefinitely, since Exxon and Chevron will always need a sizable U.S. military presence to protect their drilling operations from the threat of nationalization by the government of Iraq.

I also believe that we knew, in our heart of hearts, back in 1968 that Nixon was lying through his teeth when he said that he had a “secret plan” to end the war in Viet Nam, and we also knew that Hubert Humphrey was not the same as LBJ and that he was dedicated to ending the war, for all his reluctance to take an aggressive public stance critical to his own president. But that did not stop us from forming a circular firing squad in 1968 and selling the country four more years of the bloodiest, foulest war imaginable.

Why bring up 1968? Because I see some disturbing parallels, and because a country “that does not learn from history is destined to repeat its mistakes.”

In 1968, LBJ would have been a shoo in, but he did not run, because he recognized the Viet Nam war for the disaster it was and despaired of his own ability to end it. That in itself should have tipped off the nation’s Democrats that this was the party that was going to bring peace. At least we recognized that there was a problem. However, the Democrats became embroiled in an internal war, fueled by violence exacerbated by right wing killers like James Earl Ray and FBI provocateurs. LBJ was denounced as a war criminal. Hubert Humphrey was condemned by association. Eugene McCarthy won the youth vote by his unequivocal pledge that he would bring the troops home immediately---effectively ending the draft. Bobby Kennedy, who might have saved the party by uniting it, was murdered. The party’s method of selecting nominees---with most delegates assigned rather than being selected by popular vote---alienated those who already suspected corporate and government manipulation. Add to that the police riot in Chicago, and the Democrats literally imploded. Within the party, there were people who vowed not to vote at all if they could not vote for McCarthy. Outside the party, people looked at the internal discord and violence and wondered what kind of half assed candidate the Democrats were offering if he could not even rally his own base and keep the peace.

The Democrats did not shoot themselves in the foot all by themselves. They had help. As I mentioned above. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. Bobby Kennedy was murdered. FBI infiltrators could be counted upon to turn peaceful protests violent and law enforcement would then turn it even worse. And, on election eve, Nixon used one of his infamous dirty tricks, one that foreshadowed the Hostages for Votes that Bush would later negotiate in 1980 in Iran.

Humphrey finally saw the writing on the wall and realized that to pull the Democratic base together, he and LBJ needed to take concrete steps to end the war. They called Peace Talks.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/edit4.html

So, to block a late surge by Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 race, Nixon operatives convinced South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to boycott proposed Paris peace talks. Nixon's men feared that President Lyndon Johnson's convening of those negotiations would catapult Humphrey to victory. The Republican gambit worked. The peace talks collapsed, and Nixon hung on for a narrow victory. But the scheme also jeopardized the lives of a half million American soldiers then serving in Indochina.

The 1968 election was the Democrats’ to lose. The U.S. had experienced prosperity under the Democrats. It had explored space. Social strides were being made. The big unpopular issue---the War in Viet Nam—should have played in the Democrats’ favor, since anyone with an ounce of sense knew that a Democratic administration was more likely to end that war than Richard Nixon, formerly Joe McCarthy’s buddy, foe of all things Red and hawk extraordinaire. Nixon was a known cheat and liar. His “secret plan” should have rung as hollow as his false contrition during his Checkers speech.

However, the left leaning Democrats themselves labeled their own candidate as pro-war, declared LBJ a war criminal, claimed that a vote for Humphrey was no better than a vote for Nixon and sat out the election. And thus were the Killing Fields of Cambodia, My Lai, Kent State and many more thousands of U.S. military and Vietnamese deaths brought about.

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/68/69/

In November, Richard Nixon profited from the polarization and disillusionment, winning the presidential election in one of the closest votes ever. During his campaign, he had promised to end the war "and win the peace." Once in office, he quickly reversed himself, expanding it into Cambodia with over a year of secret bombings. Meanwhile, his attorney general, Richard Kleindienst, called anti-war activists "ideological criminals," giving a strong endorsement to the organized repression already underway.

Today’s Democrats need to keep 1968 in mind as we head towards the primaries and the nominating convention. As in 1968, a war is the number one issue. Once again, the outcome of this election will determine whether the war will end now or escalate, possibly spilling over into adjoining countries and dragging on for years. As in 1968, the election appears to be in the bag for the Democrats---but all that can change. There haven’t been any assassinations, nor are there likely to be. In this modern age of the corporate media, we see character assassination. Nixon started it in 1972 when he decided he wanted to run against McGovern instead of Muskie.

Now, the press does the dirty tricks, giving certain candidates no publicity or bad publicity while others are given lots of good publicity, based upon whether or not Rudy or whoever the anointed one happens to be wants to run against that candidate. Or, based upon what kind of triangulation they are trying to set up for the Democratic Convention. Divide the Democratic vote between candidates whose supporters have vowed that they will never vote for each other’s candidate, send them to the convention, plant some moles to denounce so and so as “the same as George Bush” and so and so as “anti gay” and you can get a nice little war going.

This is Divide and Conquer at its finest, and Divide and Conquer is the Republican National Committee’s favorite strategy when it comes to dealing with the Democratic Party. It is so easy to do, since we are the party of diversity. Usually we respect each other’s differences. But send a provocateur in to pretend to be a bigot, and watch the sparks fly.

The Republicans are hoping to see the Democrats leave the convention with a nominee and a fractured party. The losers (they hope) will have either failed to endorse the winner or have grudgingly endorsed him/her. The losers’ supporters will be vocal in their disdain for the winner. This kind of scenario is most likely after a bitter primary battle in which a lot of name calling has gone on. In a perfect world (for the GOP), Democrats will be proclaiming their own nominee “no better than Bush” and a “warmonger”---the way that Democrats in 1968 called Humphrey a pro war candidate. Even if they are not talking about it after August, the Republicans can go back in time and pull up footage of the Democratic challengers and their supporters saying it during the primary battle. With the Democrat labeled for all the world as a hawk who will perpetuate the war just like the Republican (who is going to put forward a “secret plan to end the war” you can count on that) suddenly the War in Iraq is going to become muddled in people’s minds.

Clinton is the most vulnerable to this kind of attack, but it can be used against Edwards, since he voted for the war resolution. Even Obama can be attacked, since his position is hawkish compared to that of Kucinich. That is why this issue of who is the real anti-War candidate is so dangerous. Are you anti-war if you want the troops out on the first day? The first week? The first month?

Democratic candidates can afford to differentiate themselves on a number of the issues, like how they would tackle global warming and how they would offer universal health care and how they would solve the energy crisis. But none of them can afford to act like Humphrey and hedge on the issue of the War in Iraq. He bears a large part of the responsibility for the loss in 1968 due to his unwillingness to publicly part ways with LBJ. Nor can they afford to act like McCarthy. How many of his youthful college supporters ended up dying in Viet Nam because their candidate failed to give the party's nominee his whole hearted support in 1968?

The candidates need to be be united. The answer to the War in Iraq is “I will end U.S. involvement in the civil war in Iraq as quickly as possible.” Period. How quickly is "possible" is something that a commander in chief decides once he/she has access to classified information. Anyone who demands a more specific date should be told so, politely but firmly. Any candidate who tries to win this campaign by declaring an opponent "no better than Bush" is doing the party and the country a serious disservice.

Democratic supporters also have an obligation to stop using the War in Iraq for the gain of their candidates. Parsing the words of other candidates and then claiming that so and so is “no better than Cheney” because he/she used the phrase “pretty soon” instead of “immediately” is irresponsible. It is exactly the kind of thing that McCarthy’s supporters were doing back in 1968.

Unfortunately, even if we stop, the corporate media has gotten into the business of grading the Democratic candidates. So, you will see Matthews on MSNBC analyzing the latest utterings of Hillary or Edwards or Obama to determine which is the real anti-war Democrat. I find this disturbing, especially since you never see a pundit do a close reading of Rudy, Romney or Thompson to see which will invade Iran the fastest. It is almost as if the press is aware that the Democrats have begun to divide their candidates up along a continuum of “most hawkish” to “most dovish” and the men in the suits in the board rooms who are mostly in the 50s and old enough to remember 1968 are rubbing their chins and thinking “Divide and Conquer….”

Once again, this is a No Divide and Conquer Zone. Please put away your guns. The rest of Politics in DU may be a circular firing squad right now. I would like to offer this space as someplace for people who believe that we should be united in our mission to bring the troops home and end the suffering of the people of Iraq.

Solidarity.

:dem: