[Marxism] The party of cut and run

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

THE PARTY OF CUT AND RUN
By Roger Burbach and Paul Cantor

The Bush Administration has it right. The Democratic Party is the party of
cut and run. It used to be the party where progressives could find a home.
No longer. Cut and run has turned it into the party that stands for total
disarray, desertion of core values, or nothing at all.

What happened to universal health care? Cut and run. The welfare
state?  Cut and run.  Calling as a party for an end to atrocities such as
torture and rendition?  You guessed it.  Holding government leaders
responsible for their actions? Donald Rumsfeld is still secretary of
defense. Support for international law and the United Nations?

In 2002 twenty-eight Senate Democrats voted for the Authorization for Use
of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution. One of the minority who didn't,
Russell Feingold, got it right from the start: "Both in terms of the
justifications for an invasion and in terms of the mission and the plan for
the invasion, Mr. President, the Administration's arguments just don't add
up."

Cut and run is the reason George W. Bush was re-elected. Instead of taking
a strong position against the invasion of Iraq that would have energized
his supporters John Kerry cut and ran in 2004 and his Presidential campaign
fizzled to defeat as a result.

Cut and run is the reason 31 Democratic Senators voted last week against a
resolution calling for the pull out of US troops in Iraq by July 1, 2007.
Hillary Clinton who is entertaining a run for President in 2008 was one of
them.

Where are the Democrats calling for closing Guantanamo? Cut and run. For
the resignations and prosecution of everyone responsible for Abu Gharib?
Cut and run.

Cut and run is the reason George Bush has gotten away with torturing
prisoners, wiretapping our homes,  keeping records of what we read and how
we spend our money and violating human rights at home and abroad in a
myriad of other ways.

Cut and run, in short, is why progressives in this country are fed up with
the Democratic Party and looking for real leadership elsewhere. That is why
when the party claims the way to stop Bush is to elect more Democratic
representatives and senators the response on the left is likely to be less
than enthusiastic.

Jeff Bingaman, Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Mark Dayton,
Dianne Feinstein, Herb Kohl, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, and Debbie Stabenow
are ten of the seventeen Democratic Senators up for reelection. Every one
of them voted against the amendment for setting a date to bring the troops
home. How then, we might ask, will voting for them help hasten an end to
the occupation? Where are the members of the party with real progressive
values and the courage to stand up for them?"

What this country and the world desperately needs now is voices that will
stand up for the ideals embodied in our constitution, human rights around
the world, and international law. Progressives expect those voices to come
from representatives in the Democratic Party. Instead what it has received
from those representatives is cut and run.

Therefore, it is our job to turn things around. It is our job to finally do
what too many of our would be allies in the Democratic Party have failed to
do: stand and fight. That means more than just taking part in protest
marches. There are people out there ready to lead the kind of actions that
will get our elected "representatives" to take notice.

Those people include grandmothers who were arrested for blocking a military
recruitment office in New York, protesters in Seattle who tried to stop the
shipment of military supplies to Iraq, and demonstrators at the U.S.
Mission to the United Nations who denounced the torture of prisoners at
Guantanamo. All we need do is join them.

Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas
(CENSA), based in Berkeley, California. He is the co- author, with Jim
Tarbell, of Imperial Overstretch: George W Bush and the Hubris of Empire.

Paul Cantor is a professor of economics in Norwalk, Connecticut and a human
rights activist.


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