A Message to Democratic Senators and Congresspeople
Posted by
Kevin
Don’t go along with this torture bill. I know that the press has been telling you for years that anything “tough” makes the Republicans look good and you look bad. I know that you go rolled in 2002 by the DHS bill. But those rules don’t apply to this monstrosity. First, the reason you lost the DHS issues was twofold: Bush was really popular then and no one made the obvious counter argument. If Cleland had gone on the air and pointed out that Bush was turning over our national security to corporate brown-nosers and yes men, he probably would still be in the Senate. Your mistake wasn’t standing on principle; it was in not fighting for that principle effectively. Which ties back to the first notion: that this country will always support anything “tough”. That is in the case of torture, not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit:
If you ask Americans whether the use of torture is ever justifiable, a clear majority will say that it is not. In the newly released New York Times/CBS poll (PDF), for instance, 56 percent said torture is never justifiable, even “to get information from a suspected terrorist” (question No. 54). Even more striking, 63 percent say that “when it comes to the treatment of prisoners of war,” the U.S. “should follow the international agreements that it and other countries have agreed to,” rather than “do what it thinks is right, even if other countries disagree” (question No. 67).
The majority of Americans oppose torture under any circumstances, even now, even after weeks of the President of the United States arguing that torture is required to protect the country, even after weeks of no one making the counter argument. Right now, the only people that support this nonsense appear to be the GOP base - -and they aren’t voting for you anyway. Torture is for thugs and cowards, two things Americans do not like to think themselves to be. Remind them that the GOP thinks they are, and even some of that GOP base will be repelled.
And don’t think the “soft on terrorism” charge is going to work. Bush is not popular, he is not trusted, and people already oppose torture. Remind them that torture does not work, that torture at Abu Gharib lead to the Iraqis abandoning us, that torture forces the government to spend time prosecuting and interrogating innocent people like Maher Arar instead of going after real terrorists, that the military’s own lawyers oppose these measures. It all has the benefit of reinforcing people’s inclinations against torture and of being absolutely true.
I know the temptation must be to lay low and hope you win enough power to make some changes. But it won’t work. If you don’t fight this, you almost certainly won’t get control of either house. Your voters will have no reason to come out, and people will have no one to support them in their common-sense moral position that Americans shouldn’t torture. Lacking opposition, “torture is okay” will become more and more acceptable making it much harder to reverse the damage in even a few months. If you do fight, however, you can attack the GOP’s strength on terrorism, you can eviscerate McCain for his complete and total collapse in the face of Bush, and you can remind people that the GOP is actively attacking American values. The Constitution and American values were strong enough to survive foreign invasion, the Civil War, the Nazis and the Soviets. Remind people that the GOP is willing to through them all away in the face of a couple of cave-dwelling, failed goat herders and you can change the dynamics of the electorate for years to come.
The people are already ready to support you. The media consensus is that this is a terrible bill so you will have less opposition from that quarter form normal. The politics, even if you lose on the bill itself, offer an opportunity to break the GOP in the minds of all but their most hardcore followers. The merits of the argument overwhelmingly support your case. The morality of the situation is even more clearly on your side. This is a fight that needs fighting, a fight that favors you, and a fight that offers huge gains for the country and for yourselves.
All you have to do is make the fight.
“Mr. Bush will go down in history for his embrace of torture and bear responsibility for the enormous damage that has caused.”
Closing sentence, “The Abuse Can Continue
Senators won’t authorize torture, but they won’t prevent it, either,” Washington Post, September 22, 2006.
Comment 9/22/2006
I’ve got to hand it to the Democrats. The strategy of allowing the Republicans to “thrash out” their differences on the treatment and prosecution of detainees has played out exactly as planned…for the Republicans. Don’t let anyone convince you that you can go to the well too often…that is if you are a Republican and your opponent is a fully inept Democratic Party.
Amidst a trend of favorable polling data and a firestorm of speeches by the President to refocus the voting public on their fear of terrorism, the Democrats stood in the background for the past two weeks and watched what the GOP will call the difficult work of creating legislation that preserves our commitment to civil liberties while at the same time providing our determined President with the essential tools needed to pursue those who seek to kill us all.
OK, perhaps I’m being too harsh. There is a possibility that in the past two weeks the Democrats were able to devise their sixth iteration of a campaign slogan and strategy to roll out with less than 50 days to the election. Perhaps they could call it “Fifty States, Fifty Days…But Never Fifty Percent”! It’s catchy, it’s succinct, and it may well be accurate come November 8th. Arrgghh!
Read more here:
www.thoughttheater.com
Comment 9/22/2006
Kevin, any chance you can provide links to the content of the bill that is objectionable so we can all make up our own mind instead of relying on editorials? I have not found it yet…
Comment 9/22/2006
Ted:
You were asking Kevin, but here, complete with analysis.
Comment 9/22/2006
Cool, thanks.
Comment 9/22/2006
Linking to other people’s/blogs’ analysis of the bill is cool, but I’d really like to see someone or a news critter give me a simple bill number.
Give me that and I can read the dang thing myself, without it, and I’m forced to rely on the opinons of others. And you know how that works:
There’s about eight bills before congress now that have the word “detanee” in them.
Comment 9/22/2006
the Democrats stood in the background for the past two weeks and watched what the GOP will call the difficult work of creating legislation that preserves our commitment to civil liberties while at the same time providing our determined President with the essential tools needed to pursue those who seek to kill us all.
Religion, if taken too far, can produce hallucinations in adherents that surpass anything chemicals can produce, as the above-quoted worshipper’s incoherent, dissociated tripe makes frighteningly clear. I could mention how “protected” the Port of New Orleans turned out to be, or how much “protection” we have on our borders, but why argue with religion? It gets you nowhere.
The dems should know from every poll taken for about the last 3 years that Americans want badly to see evidence of a SPINE. Apparently the Chimperor’s torturers took their spines out some time ago.
Comment 9/22/2006
It’s pure politics and the GOP won big time. Americans don’t beleive their government tortures prisoners as a matter of policy and nothing will convince them it does. Yeah, isolated cases and those who do it are prossecuted. So all the static over torture only gave the GOP the spotlight dragging it away from Iraq and pushing it towards security, where the polls say the liberals are weak.
Liberals are clearly weak controlling the spot light. Bush has kept it on himself and his poll numbers are going up. The ones making the news gain in popularity while those not mentioned are forgotten. Liberals need better news managment. Fake a duel between Dean and Kerry or something that brings the cameras. That’s what the GOP is doing and doing it well. And Bush is turning the campaign adds that feature him in their candidate’s favor.
Wake up liberals! Promise nuclear war or something. Get tough, downright mean or you’ll be setting on the side lines for another two years. Rambo sells while little sweeties picking poseys are ignored. Get tough and do it quick.
No Republican president has ever won a major foreign war. Point that out. The winners are all liberal Democrats, Wilson - WW1 and FDR and Truman WW2. Truman was the one that unsed the bomb. It saved as many a 10 million Japanese lives and at least 500,00 American GIs. The GOP pussyfoots around maximizing their war profits while liberals pull the trigger, win and get it over. Iraq, the war on terror and drugs are both sores that won’t heal. Is that because the wrong people are in charge? Promise to eliminate opium production in now occupied Afganstan. There are many issues the liberals could use but seem to be waiting for the GOP to self destruct. It isn’t and wont.
Here’s an “old” issue that could be capitalized on. The tax breaks for the rich go on and on. They are quietly passing a tax bill removing the deduction for home loans. Rich people don’t make house payments.
Comment 9/23/2006
There’s another “tax” issue that could be brought up. Only religions own real estate in the USA. All us other so called home owners must pay real estate tax or they will sell our homes to someone that will pay. Chirch real property is tax exempt even though that clealy makes the tax laws doing it unconstitutional. Those tax laws establish religion. The government recognizing religion establishes it officially. That too is unconstitutional.
Liberals need a liberal issue to run with. Honoring the constitution is certainly on the list of legitimate issues that dovetails with fair taxes.
Are liberals afraid of the church? Is big bad Pat Robertson, American pastor Billy Graham or the pope terrorizing liberals with threats of hell. Forget it. Anyone who voted for Kerry is already going to hell according to them. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain making war on the ministry that has already declared war on liberals years ago.
Did you know the Bible is a proved literary hoax? Are you afraid of God or afraid of the God the ministers threaten you with they get from the Bible? Literary hoaxes are proved by finding the source of their material content. That’s been done for the Bible. Are you are so buffaloed by threats of hell you’re afraid of the truth?
It’s not a question of whether or not there is a God. It’s whether or not the Bible is God’s word. Is the Bible God’s word? Absolutely not. It’s man’s word, a hoax invented to gain exactly what religion brings to it’s operators, sacrifices to God that they keep, no accounting, tax free, tax deductible, and at tax exempt facilities. They have huge amounts of money in their treasury that is neither taxed or accounted for. Big time ministers, Pat, Billy, Jerry et al ride around in luxury auytomobiles, fly in privately owned jets, live in houses and pay their “servants” all from the treasury of the Lord God of the Bible. The Bible is a hoax.
[Off-topic comment preserved, link-whoring deleted by tgirsch]
There’s a lot more. It presents liberals with an issue that is 180 out of phase with the neocons.
Comment 9/23/2006
[Comment spam deleted by tgirsch]
Comment 9/23/2006
[…] Kevin issues a “call to arms” to stop this obscenity. […]
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