Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows: The strategy and rationale
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/14/accountability/index.html
Type of Content: Article Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com Accountability Now and Strange Bedfellows: The strategy and rationale Since that overwhelming Democratic victory, this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done: Repeatedly funded -- at the White House's insistence -- the Iraq War without conditions; Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- Jim Webb's bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops; Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support; Enacted -- at the White House's insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support-- the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers; Overwhelmingly approved the Senate's Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization," an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made "regime change" the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq; Deleted from a pending bill -- at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House -- a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran; Overwhelmingly enacted -- at the White House's insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support -- the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program; Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture; Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations. All of this highlights the central political dilemma in the U.S. The Bush-led Republican Party, marching in virtual lockstep, has been the author of the radicalism, extremism and lawlessness of the last seven years, presiding over an endlessly expanding Surveillance State and accompanying war-making machine, and the dismantling of numerous core Constitutional principles. While numerous individual elected Democrats have opposed many of these measures, the Democratic Party's leadership, and the Party collectively, has done nothing to stop it and much to support and enable all of it. As the 2006 election and these subsequent events conclusively demonstrate, mindlessly supporting and electing more Democrats for its own sake doesn't solve or even mitigate anything. But it's also true that actions which result in handing Republicans control over any branches of the Government -- including supporting third-party candidates or abstaining from the process altogether -- makes matters worse still. Nobody who finds the above-documented events objectionable can rationally embrace a course of action that directly or indirectly empowers those who are the prime forces behind these events: namely, the mainstream GOP in its current incarnation. All of that, in turn, leads to this pressing question: what is the best course for those who want to battle against these civil-liberties-destroying, rule-of-law-trampling, war-making policies that the GOP leadership pushes and the Democratic Party leadership supports, enables, and/or passively accepts? In a two-party system where blind support for either party will do nothing but perpetuate these policies, how can they be undermined? * * * * * The campaign we announced back in March to target "Bad Democrats," which has now evolved into Accountability Now and the Strange Bedfellows coalition, is designed to develop strategies for addressing that dilemma (I first announced and detailed how that coalition works here). Grounded in the premise that the Democrats are going to control both houses of Congress for the foreseeable future -- a premise virtually nobody disputes -- the primary objective has to be to alter the behavior of those who control the Congress. Increasing the Democrats' margin of control doesn't achieve that goal. It does the opposite. Conveying to Democrats that you will support all of them no matter they do, no matter how egregiously they trample on your values, only ensures that they will ignore your political priorities and values even more. Working to expand the margin of control Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel and Harry Reid already enjoy -- further entrenching them in power -- only ensures that they will be less responsive and accountable. Only by attaching a serious price to their enabling of these extremist, destructive policies will their behavior change. If they are rewarded with greater control and greater comfort for doing what they've been doing, then it's just guaranteed that they'll continue to do the same thing. Only if they suffer loses and have their power threatened from this behavior will the behavior change. In the past few months, we've raised almost $350,000 with our old FISA-specific fund -- the vast bulk of that amount being raised in the last several weeks. And in just the last week alone, more than 2,000 people have already pledged to donate to the Strange Bedfellows' August 8 Money Bomb. And that's before most of the efforts on behalf of the Money Bomb campaign have begun. It is virtually certain that that the August 8 Money Bomb will generate at least as much as the amount raised already for the prior fund, and it's very likely that it will produce far more than that amount. Thus, this Constitution-defending, civil-liberties campaign will be one of the most successful short-term political fund-raising campaigns on the Internet, demonstrating that there is a very real, intense, active and substantial constituency for these civil liberties, Constitutional rights and rule of law issues. In the last couple of months, we have done the following as part of our campaign, in several instances in partnership with Color of Change, the African-American grass-roots group devoted to compelling greater responsiveness among the Beltway class: newspaper ads in every newspaper in Steny Hoyer's district, along with a full-page ad in the local section of The Washington Post, exposing to his constituents his lead role in engineering the Bush-enabling FISA bill; a massive robocall campaign in Hoyer's district, narrated by respected Pastor Lennox Yearwood from that district, exposing how Hoyer's work in Washington is so out-of-step with the political values of the constituents on whom he relies for re-election; an ongoing multi-media campaign -- involving TV, radio and newspaper ads -- aimed at vulnerable "Blue Dog" Rep. Chris Carney, who worked with Doug Feith at the Pentagon to disseminate pre-war "intelligence" and now is one of the most vocal pro-Bush Democrats in Congress; a full-page ad in the "A" section of The Washington Post, the day before the Senate's approval of the new FISA bill, demonstrating what a profound assault on the rule of law the Congress was waging, and how it further cements the two-tiered system of justice the political establishment enjoys; donations to 12 members of Congress and Congressional candidates who, at political risk, vigorously opposed the new FISA bill; newspaper ads aimed at vulnerable "Blue Dog" Rep. John Barrow, who proudly runs for re-election by denouncing "cut and run" Democrats and who supports one radical Bush measure after the next, despite representing a +2 Democratic district. This campaign, just in its incipient stages, has already been covered by numerous news outlets, including The Wall St. Journal, Politico, Wired, and numerous others. All of this is intended as just a start. We will spend the entire $350,000 already raised for the Blue America fund between now and November by targeting selected, vulnerable Democratic members of Congress who supported this FISA bill and who generally have enabled Bush radicalism. The August 8 Money Bomb is intended to be used to fuel a long-term campaign and an enduring organization devoted to changing the behavior of the political class with regard to these issues. We intend to begin now actively recruiting and promoting credible primary challengers against the likes of Steny Hoyer and other key culprits; to target for defeat those members of Congress who continue to support policies of this sort, Democrat or Republican; and to find ways to affect the public discourse on these issues, which are jointly distorted and ignored by both the so-called "liberal Beltway establishment" and the crux of the Republican Party. Read »
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