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See also my earlier Blog on the subject: http://tigersoft.com/Tiger-Blogs/10-5-2007/index.html
The Paradoxical Nancy Pelosi:
Historically Savvy?
A Spineless Dominatrix?
A Corporate Shill?
Ill-Advised and Arrogant?
The Speaker of the House controls the Democratic majority to a very
high level.
Wall Street needs to watch this woman carefully. She is as powerful
as she is a
paradox. Why has she ruled out impeachment?
That's what a
majority of
Americans, not just Democrats, want.
Impeachment has always been a key Constitutional power of Congress. The
founding fathers knew
all too well how tyrannical Kings could be, especially when at war.
The very threat of
impeachment serves to hold arrogant President's back. But "Fancy
Nancy", dressed to
the gills in expensive pearls, cavalierly, without explanation, unilaterally
took impeachment off
the table. "She has
voluntarily and unnecessarily granted to
Dick Cheney and George
Bush, full immunity and total escape from any investigation or
prosecution for each
and every violation of the U.S. Consititution, violation of Human
Rights, or high
corruption that they have committed either past, present, or future."
( http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/10/17/164221/61
)
What is just as bad, all year long since, she has prevented a vote which would
simply de-fund Bush's
war on and occupation of Iraq.<1> The latest $50 biliion in
appropriations has a
"goal" set out for December 2008 to "stop combat operations."
Nothing is
mandated. "Goal" is vague. And just how will Bush be penalized if he
fails to meet the
goal in December 2008. By then, he will be packing his bags anyway.
Who does she
think she is fooling. Moreover, she has not sought a vote on a rescinding
of the 2002
authorization for the Iraq war. Earlier in the year, she refused to bring
forth a bill that
provided appropriations only for "protection" and "safe deployment"
out of Iraq.
She said she was afraid of how an impasse would look after a Bush veto.
Such a bill was
advocated by a number of progressive anti-war Democrats. See
bottom of
page for the list<2>.
On 11/7, yesterday, to her fellow Democrats, she became an arrogant and willful
dominatrix. Using
the powers that a House Speaker has, she compelled her Democratic
flock to cower and do
her bidding. There would be no debate about how Cheney
needed to be impeached
to stop the current rush of the US into a new war, this one with
Iran. She whipped
into line even those Congressional Democrats who were co-sponsors
of Dennis Kucinich's
bill to impeach Cheney, so that nearly every Democrat voted to send
his brave Impeachment
bill back to the Judiciary Committee.
On
Nov. 9th, Kucinich wrote Rep Coyners, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee:
"Recent reports indicate that the Vice President is attempting to shape the
National Intelligence Estimate
on
Iran to conform to his misperceptions about the threat Iran actually poses. Much like his
deceptive efforts
in
the lead up to the Iraq war, the Vice President appears to be manipulating intelligence to
conform to his
beliefs.
If the reports are true, they add additional weight to the case for impeachment.
I believe
 impeachment remains
the only tool Congress has to prevent
a war in Iran."
Why Is She So Afraid of Bush and Cheney?
A year ago, despite the mandate handed her by American people to stop Bush's
bloody, costly, stupid
Iraq war, the House Majority Leader "took off the table"
impeachment of Bush and
Cheney even before she was sworn in or had a chance
to take the measure of
George Bush in January 2007. Why did she do this?
1. Fear of Being Branded Weak on Defense and Fear of
Dividing The Democrats
Maybe, her reading of history had convinced her that the Democrats will
only be weakened by taking up
the call for an immediate pull-out. There's something
to this.
Undoubtedly, she recalls the grim fate of Democratic Presidential candidate
George McGovern in 1972.
His anti-war appeal fell on deaf ears and he was beaten
in a landslide.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The McGovern Campaign in 1972In 1968, remember, Richard Nixon ran on a secret plan to end the Vietnam
War, and America bought the promise. Four years later, there was no end in sight. George McGovern's
anti-war message, with a promise to end the bombing on Inauguration Day, won him the
nomination. He also stood for a Congress that reasserts its power to declare war and a war
profits tax, good ideas even today. He didn't try to purge anyone. Indeed the McGovern
campaign was completely inclusive, reaching out to the Henry Jackson-George Meany wing of
the party, which had labeled him the candidate of abortion, acid and amnesty.
McGovern was a bona fide war hero, the pilot of 35 missions
over Europe in the Dakota Queen, a B-24 Liberator bomber. With the acquiescence of right
wingers in the Democratic Party, Nixon portrayed McGovern as weak on defense, a cringing
apostle of appeasement. Only days before the election, Henry Kissinger falsely pronounced
that peace was at hand, and the resulting McGovern landslide loss contributed to his name
being invoked as a symbol of failure.
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-War Parties in
History
Except for Russia in March 1917, history does not offer many cases in other
countries where a left of
center party (or parties) made political gains by opposing a war
their country was involved
in. More often, a prolonged war serves to divide the left of
center party and let
rightists brand the left as traitors and make them scapegoats for
losing a war.
That has happened in the US ever since the war in Southeast Asia ended.
Kerry, who actually served in
Viet Nam, was branded a traitor because he turned
against the war when he
returned and testified against it in Congress. (My brother.
reached the same conclusion
in 1970, also after captaining a river patrol boat (PBR) in the
Mekong Delta. And he
was arrested for demonstrating against the war after the Navy
tricked the protestors into
trespassing onto the Oakland Naval shipyard. )
My guess is that Nancy Pelosi appreciates that it was the fragmentation of the
Democrats into pro-war and
anti-war factions which caused Hubert Humphrey to lose to
Richard Nixon in 1968.
Thus, she seeks to avoid raising the issue of a pull-out or
an impeachment. If the
issue is raised, the gap between the two sides will become very
apparent and that will divide
the party. And that could lead to a defeat in November 2008.
History is instructive. Elsewhere, in Germany, the leftist Social Democrats
(SPD) were badly split by
World War I. Some supported the German war effort and
others condemned the war.
Later Germans on the right blamed the socialists in 1918
for signing the
Armistice. The Nazis called them traitors, and claimed they had
stabbed Germany in the back
through their anti war activities and their signing of the
Armistice. They used
this excuse in the 1930s to have them arrested, shot or placed in
labor camps and prisons.
I would say that Pelosi should realize that the "far-right"
in America is bound to say
that peace activists lost the war in Iraq, just they as they
claim peace activists
demonstrating on TV in the US lost the war in Viet Nam. She
might just as well accept
this and confront it, and head off that criticism now. It
absolutely cannot be avoided.
How Do "Chick Hawks" Get Away With Claiming
A Special Mantle of Patriotism?
Already the Neo-Conservatives
claim Murtha (A World War II veteran) and
Nancy Pelosi "are
at it again, engineering another strategy for defeat." What they
would prefer not to
talk about is how many of the Neo-Cons who are so quick
to send innocent
American kids off to war are actually "chicken-hawks", who
never
themselves served in
the US military in a foreign war. There are to many familiar
names that fit this
description to do it justice. But the species "chicken-hawks
include Quayle,
Bush Jr,, Jeb Bush, Marvin Bush, Cheney, Mitt Romney and all five
Romney sons...
- Karl Rove: did not serve.
- Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
- Richard Perle: did not serve.
- Douglas Feith: did not serve.
- Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
- Ari Fleischer: did not serve.
- Andrew Card: did not serve.
- Ken Adelman: did not serve.
|
- Don Evans: did not serve.
- Michael Ledeen: did not serve.
- Elliott Abrams: did not serve.
- John Bolton: did not serve.
- Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
- George Pataki: did not serve.
- Kenneth Starr: did not serve
|
Republican chickenhawks in the U.S. Senate:
- Mitch McConnell, the current Republican leader in the U.S. Senate: did not serve.
- Bill Frist,, the former Republican leader in the U.S. Senate: did not serve.
- Trent Lott, the former Republican leader in the U.S. Senate: avoided the draft, did not
serve.
- Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee" He defeated tripelegic Democratic
war hero Max Cleland by questioning his patriotism!
Republican chickenhawks in the U.S. House :
- Newt Gingrich -- sought graduate school deferment, (too smart to die).
- Majority Leader Dick Armey - avoided the draft, did not serve.
- Majority Leader Tom Delay - avoided the draft, did not serve.
- Majority Leader John A. Boehner - did not serve.
- Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem," although continued in NFL for 8
years.
-
- G.O.P. Leader Roy Blunt: did not serve.
- Bob Ney: did not serve.
- David Dreier: did not serve.
- Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
- Christopher Cox: did not serve.
- Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
- John M. McHugh: did not serve.
|
- JC Watts: did not serve.
- Vin Weber: did not serve.
- Bob Barr: did not serve.
- Mark Souder: did not serve.
- Walter Jones: did not serve.
- Katherine Harris: did not serve. .
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- Sean Hannity: did not serve.
- Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
- Matt Drudge: did not serve.
- Steve Forbes: did not serve.
- Tony Snow: did not serve.
- Michael "Savage" Weiner: did not serve.
- Brit Hume: did not serve.
- Roger Ailes: did not serve.
- Chris Matthews: did not serve.
- Neil Boortz : did not serve.
- : did not serve.
|
- Paul Gigot: did not serve.
- Bill Kristol: did not serve.
- Ralph Reed: did not serve.
- Michael Medved: did not serve.
- Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
- Anne Coulter: did not serve.
- Jerry Falwell: did not serve.
- Alan Keyes : did not serve.
- Ted Nugent: did not serve.
|
(Source: http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/chickenhawks.html
)
Nancy, It's Not That Hard To Defend Yourself from
Republicans Who Wrap Themselves in The Flag.
Given how ubiquitous Republican Chicken-hawks are in Washington D.C.,
and how it is they who are
the ones challenging the patriotism of peace activists.
it should NOT be very
difficult to show voters that THESE Republicans should be
dismissed as hypocrites and
self-serving jingoists. Nancy, why don't you just
show the voters that right
wing super nationalism is most often a simple facade,
to get votes and to promote
war time profiteering?
We are forced to ask again whether Nancy Pelosi really is afraid that
impeachment will make
Democrats seem unpatriotic to marginal voters. Or, as I
think is true, is Nancy
Pelosi much more concerned about offending corporate and"
media moguls who are
benefiting from the status quo and have an interest in
continuing America's huge
level of military spending, which is greater than all
the rest of the world
combined!.
There's another reason for doubting her motivation being one of political
caution. She must see
that her spineless lay-down for Bush necessarily make her
and the Democrats look weak
and ineffectual. This posture invites scorn, more
Administration arrogance and
also risks losing a lot of anti-war votes, as people
decide not to waste their
vote on weak Democrats. She must realize this. But she
persists. So, there
must be other motives. And spinelessness is not the real
explanation.
2. She May Secretly Support The Occupation of Iraq
against The Wishes of Most Americans
Perhaps, the Democratic Leadership is happy to get the votes of peace seekers,
and it indulges them
just enough to get their votes. Perhaps, Nancy Pelosi and her
fellow Democrats
actually, but secretly, believe there truly is a light at the end of
the fighting tunnel and
that those who would kill Americans in Iraq will soon be
vanquished.
If this is the motivation, Pelosi et al. feel that the war simply needs to be
prosecuted more
efficiently. They rationalize the way they mislead the peace activists
about their real
intentions by saying to themselves that they know more about these
things than do war
weary American people who just want out!.
Clearly, Pelosi is not a peace activist. She understands her own limitations.
She can't persuade
others to accept an abrupt end to the war, if she can't articulate
the power of peace.
And she can't do this if she lacks its spirit. So, she misjudges or
chooses not to listen
to the heartfelt desire for peace in America. I think it's fair
to say that after a war
longer than World War II, the American people generally do
long for peace and
"normalacy" (This was Harding's slogan in 1920, which he used
against the Democrats
who ran the American war in Europe in World War I.)
People do long for peace. Country music has long been felt to be a bastion of
support for the right wing of
America. But listen to the lyrics of country singer,
Randy Travis in "Whisper My Name". The chorus repeats
"Let Peace ring like an
anthem through the years." Other country music stars who are now
peace activists
include: Willie Nelson and family
, Vince Gill, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard.
By May 2004, only a third of Americans believed the US-led occupation of
Iraq was doing more
good than harm and a solid majority favored an immediate
pullout. ( http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm
)
In March 2007, CNN
found that only 46% of Americans thought the Iraq War could be
"won".
54% of Americans said that the Bush Administration had mislead America
into war.
60% want America to pull its troops "immediately" or "within a year".
"The drop in Bush's approval ratings on
fighting terrorism came disproportionately from political
independents. The
poll suggests that views on the Iraq war's impact also remain highly partisan.
Three in four
Republicans said the Iraq invasion has boosted domestic security, while three in four
Democrats said it
has not. Political independents lean negative on the issue: About six in 10 said the
war has not made
Americans safer."
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700296.html
)
Nancy Pelosi has given lip service to the majority of American's view on Bush's
Iraq War when she
calls it a "grotesque mistake" that has not made America safer.
(Radio Address on
9/24/2004!) But she seems to be doing very little to stop Bush.
She has the
options of defunding and impeachment. But she does not use them.
On November 8th, she agreed to provide $50 billion
more with a "goal" that
combat
would be ended by December 2008. There is no mandate. Thete is no
requirement. And just what will COngress do in December 2008 to penalize Bush
if he does
not work towards the goal Congress sets. In fairness, the $50 billion
is only a
quarter of the $198 billion Bush requested.
( http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/353229.html
_
"This
is not a blank check for the President,”
She
does not explain how providing more
money
will restrict Bush. (11/8/2007)
3. I Think She Wishes Not To Offend Corporate Campaign
Contributors and Is Afraid of How The Mainstream
Media
Would Treat An Effort To Impeach Bush or Abruptly End
The War.
Is Nancy Pelosi serving her campaign contributors rather than listen to
her
voters? For the period 2007-2008, Labor unions have given her $210,000
while
Business contributions were $503,200. Among her biggest campaign
contributors are:
General Dynamics $10,000
Goldman Sachs $10,000
Chicago Board of Options $10,000
Lockheed Martin
$10,000
Metroplitan Life $10,000
Real Estate Rountable $10,000
Wells Fargo $10,000
There are no oil companies listed here.
Is she too attentive to arms industry interests as a result of these campaign
contributions? That seems doubtful. But because she gets so much more
money from
corporations rather than unions, she is probably not willing to be very bold
or do
anything which confronts the status quo. Impeachment and a sudden switch
in foreign
policy would certainly upset things. Look what impeachment did to Wall Street
in the
Summer and Fall of 1974. The DJI fell from 800 to 580 in two months.
Nixon's Resignation Caused 25%
Drop in Stock Market in 1974
Taking Bush on directly at the jugular would make people question authority.
Her actions
do support the war, no matter what she says! They do support domestic
spying.
They keep in place the present White House which favors corporations at every
turn.
In acting this way, she shows her corporate backers that she is not a threat to
military
contractors or the military industrial complex. Similarly, the
credibility of the
mass media
that sold Amercians on the war is not challenged. Quick changes in
prospective
regulation of business are avoided. These are what her actions communicate
the the
Power Elite. Her San Francisco voters may be proud to have one of their own
be House
Speaker, but it is she is far less progressive than they are en masse.
4. Is She Ignorant The Duties She Has To Protect The US
Constitution? Or Does She Just Not Want
To Rock The
Boat and Allienate Her Corporate and Mass Media
Supporters.
More and more, Nancy Pelosi reveals herself to be as arrogant as George Bush
in her own way.
She treats with contempt those who protest the war outside her office.
“If they were poor and they were sleeping on my
sidewalk, they would be arrested for
loitering, but
because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First
Amendment.” - Nancy Pelosi Apparently, she would like to arrest them,
rather than
respect them for
exercising their rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
In San Francisco she refuses to meet peace protestors outside her Pacific Heights
home or in her office.
"On Wednesday, about 20 demonstrators gathered outside Pelosi's
San Francisco office --
but before they could enter, a staff member ushered the group down
to a conference room
seven floors below, where many voiced frustration that Pelosi was
not being aggressive
enough in seeking an end to the war. "They're continuing to fund
the war, and it's
ridiculous if you say you're against the war to keep funding it," Blome, a
51-year-old El Cerrito
resident, said of Congressional Democrats. "It's shocking how little
the Democrats are doing
to stop this war."
( See the reactions stirred by this
article on http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/12/news/state/31107184042.txt
)
Five Hunger
Strikers and Peace Activists Arrested At Federal Building:
Pelosi Refused to Speak with Peace Community
Today 5 CODEPINK hunger strikers and peace activists were arrested for a symbolic shut
down
at the Federal
Building. The women, Toby Blome, Jody Paulson, Pamela Stephens, Nancy Mancias,
Pamela
Bennett were arrested
after blocking all entrances to the building for two hours. They were arrested under
code
of federal regulations
102-74.385. One CODEPINK activist, Rae Abileah, was injured after a federal police
agent, who was
unwilling to disclose her identity, pushed a door into Abileah’s body.
The women, who have been fasting for 11 days to meet with Speaker Pelosi about the war,
recently
received word from
Pelosi’s SF Director Dan Bernal that the Speaker would not meet with peace groups
in her district anytime
during the August recess. Shut out and silenced by the Speaker, CODEPINK women
held a symbolical shut
down of the Federal Building on Thursday afternoon.
Women with CODEPINK: Women for Peace have been fasting and camping outside Speaker Pelosi
and Senator Feinstein’s
offices for 11 days asking for meeting about the war. In response to the tents pitched
outside her Pacific Heights
mansion, Senator Feinstein held a meeting at the encampment with the fasters
on Tuesday, August 21, after
which the group agreed to end their camp at her home. Speaker Pelosi, however,
has refused to meet and
called the hunger strikers “nuts.” The fasting activists presented a letter to
the Speaker
asking for a meeting.
The letter was signed by 30 prominent peace and justice groups in the Bay Area,
including Iraq Veterans
Against the War, the San Francisco Labor Council, Jewish Voices for Peace,
American Muslim Voice and MoveOn.
“Pelosi’s SF director, Dan Bernal, said the speaker refuses to meet with any of
us, but won’t give us a
reason why,” said hunger
striker Nancy Mancias. “We will block the entrance
to the Federal
Building to symbolize our lack of
representation by our elected representative.”
Can Nancy Be Trusted?
Nor is she competent or a woman of her word. Just as Roberto Gonzales was
resigning over allowing
illegal wire-tapping and politicizing the criminal justice system,
she arranged for an
expansion of surveillance. Some Democrats may say they were
fooled by the
Administration's new reports of a terrorist attack on Congress itself - which
were false - when they
passed this expansion. But the ACLU claims the Democrats
had lied about their
intentions all along. The ACLU was not consulted on this quick
expansion of
sureillance, as they has been promised. An angry ACLU
lobbyist
denounced the
Democratic leaders, “They turned
around and screwed us over - and
the Constitution - all
at once.”
(See: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=behind_the_fisa_flop
)
Conclusion: It's Not A Question
of Her
Having No Spine
Pelosi has no interest in overthrowing Bush. Her battles with the Administration
are over issues the
Administration cares much less about than the issues of war and
peace. Their top
goals are international domination and military intimidation. This works
for Nancy Pelosi.
She wants to keep the basic status quo. She does not care that
much about the
Constitution, or how her inactions weaken Congress and thereby
threaten democracy and
a divided balance of power, which is the genius behind American
government.
She figures her Party is guaranteed to get enormous corporate contributions in
the next year,
for so long as she does not rock the boat. Corporations have nowhere
else to go.
Forget the long run or how this affects America for years to come, she wants
to capitalize on this now.
Senator Clinton is also showing how true this is. She is raising
far more in campaign
contributions than any Republican who would be Presdient. The
corporations are giving
money to Democrats now because they know they will
need "political
access" when the Republicans lose the White House and much of
Congress in 2009,
as seems very likely now.
So, Pelosi is doing what Democrats always do. She is taking progressives for
granted. She
knows that they have nowhere else to go with their votes. So, she
positions herself just
to the left of Bush and waits for 2009. Meanwhile, the US may go
into a new war with
Iran, and thousands in Iraq are dying or being wounded or scarred
for life in a war that
should not be fought and cannot be won.
All this is starting to be understood by Wall Street. It means there is a real
chance
for Bush will give the
orders to send Cruise missles to attack Iran at any time. And it
means the Dollar will
go lower and lower for another year, as the expensive 2 trillion
dollar war becomes a 3
trillion dollar war. Thus, the Dollar is losing its friends. It is no
longer stable and
reliable. And the future is not bright. The Fed may may be able to
paper over the crack
for another year, until 2009, as they are want to do. But in 2009,
they won't even
try. Then interest rates will go sky high, just as they did from 1978 to
1980.
Very depressing stuff
to contemplete. And it could all be brought out now, if Pelosi
were a leader not just
another hack opportunist - politician. No wonder Cindy Sheehan
has decided to run
against Nancy Pelosi for her San Francisco Congressional seat.
Sheehan has at least
one local supporter. Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon
Papers to show the
pattern of Administration lies, Democratic and Republican, with
respect to the War in
Viet Nam.
( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/08/09/state/n120844D33.DTL
)
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David Swanson is
a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the
Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of
America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild,
TNG-CWA. 