Stanley Rogouski published this on www.worldcantwait.net on 6/13/06. It rings so true.
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2393&Itemid=220Fitzmass Cancelled: No Free Lunch for the Democrats
By Stanley Rogouski, 6/13/06
Do nothing while the Republicans self-destruct.
For the past two years under the leadership of Harry Reid, the Democrats have moved steadily to the right. They’ve studiously avoided taking a position on gay marriage, the war, abortion, the Christian right and the NSA spying scandal all in the hopes of swooping in and picking up the votes of conservative Middle American voters as the presidency of George W. Bush implodes under the weight of his own incompetence. Even with Bush’s approval rating hovering around 30% they ran like scared rabbits away from Russ Feingold’s censure resolution and put up only a token resistance against one of the most reactionary supreme court nominees in American history, Samuel Alito.
What were they thinking? Did they expect the Republicans to remain passive forever, for Bush’s approval rating to stay at 30%?
Left for dead, George Bush and the Republicans have come roaring back. Brian Bilbray successfully demagogued the immigration issue in California congressional district 50 to beat out liberal darling Francine Busby even in the face of what looked to be a perfect storm for the Republicans. If anybody represented the “culture of corruption” that Howard Dean likes to talk about during interviews, it was Cunningham, who is now serving eight years and four months in prison after taking $2.4 million in bribes. And yet, even in California District 50 against the Republican Party of Duke Cunningham, the Democrats still couldn’t win.
Far from retreating on his commitment to the Christian right, George W. Bush continues to push his constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. And with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Bush seized the moment and traveled to Baghdad for a surprise visit to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. The newest plan is to keep 50,000 American troops in the country permanently as well as 75,000 “Iraq and coalition” troops, who are going to keep the city of Baghdad in a state of almost complete lockdown.
If it looked bad for the Democrats up until today, their prospects for winning back Congress have just been dealt an even more serious blow with the news that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has decided not to indict Bush’s chief of staff for any crimes involving the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Rove, the electoral genius behind George Bush’s rise to the governorship of Texas and the man mainly responsible for humiliating John Kerry and the Democrats in 2004 will now be free to put his formidable arsenal of dirty tricks at the disposal of his party for the election of 2006. With all of the hype around the coming indictment of Karl Rove, the Jason Leopold fiasco, the constant pumping of Bush’s low poll numbers on liberal Democratic blogs and publications, the raised expectations that the Democrats were inevitably going to win back Congress in 2006, it’s quite possible the Democrats and their supporters will be so demoralized they won’t be able to pick themselves up off the canvass.
What’s more, it’s clear that the hype around the Plame leak and the coming indictment of Karl Rove is not coming from the Republicans, the media, or anybody on the left or inside the anti-war movement. On the contrary, the constant hyping of Bush’s low poll numbers along with the running joke on liberal Democratic blogs about how “Fitzmass” (Fitzgerald’s indictment of Rove) is “just around the corner” is coming from the elite of the Democratic Party. It has as its objective to create an impression of an inevitable Democratic victory in 2006, provided that they run to the right and muzzle their pro-gay, feminist, anti-war and pro-impeachment grass roots. Indeed, the very term “Fitzmass” indicates the passive stance the Democratic Party’s grass roots has allowed itself to be maneuvered into. Instead of protesting the war, expressing outrage over the NSA spying scandal, mobilizing to defend Roe vs. Wade or preparing for Bush’s impeachment, they are waiting like children for Santa Claus to come down the chimney in the guise of a conservative Republican prosecutor to bring them presents.
But there will be no free lunch for the Democratic Party’s elite. In order to win in 2006, they will have to act like a real opposition party and it’s more than obvious they won’t. Let’s be blunt. The Democratic Party is run by people who have no set of core values they’re willing to fight for, and who are more than willing to sit back and protect their own jobs while Bush continues to hammer his authoritarian agenda into law, strips us of our civil liberties, continues to wage his brutal and illegal war against the Iraqi people and gears up for the invasion of Iran. There’s too much at stake to depend upon a passive, corrupt Democratic Party leadership. Whether or not the Republicans maintain control of Congress in 2006, or lose it to a Democratic Party running on a conservative agenda, the tone will be set by the Bush Regime and we cannot afford to let it continue. If George Bush is allowed to stay in the White House until 2008, if he continues to wage his illegal and immoral war in Iraq, strip the American people of its civil liberties, pander to Christian fascists, continues to “radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come” it will be almost impossible to reverse its effects.
Join us on October 5th for a massive day of resistance to drive out the Bush regime. On Thursday, OCTOBER 5TH 2006: All day and into the night, across the country, we must decidedly break the paralysis that still grips too much of American political life. Taking off work, taking off school, shutting down campuses and coming together in mass gatherings, we must let the country and the world know that millions of us reject this illegitimate regime that is as criminal as it is dangerous to humanity and the existence of this planet, that we refuse to grow accustomed to a political climate that is becoming everyday more frightening & reactionary.
Forget about “Fitzmass”. We are what we've been waiting for.
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