Not Grateful

The tsunami of faxes, phone calls and that engulfed the Senate offices this past week failed to move the Democrats to do the right thing. They refused to block the Alito Supreme Court nomination. In the post disaster eulogies, organizers asked us to express our gratitude to the twenty-five senators who did respond to the unprecedented public outcry.

Twenty-five votes is a pitiful response on to a grassroots revolt and I don’t think it deserves my thanks. Democrats have no excuse. They had the numbers to stop this nomination and had a good reason. They promised us they would when they took our money and asked for our votes.

For reasons know only to themselves, it is my belief the Democrats never intended to block this nomination. When we began to complain and one or two members of the Senate got a little worried, they responded with symbolic gestures that would not affect the outcome. They voted against cloture in small enough numbers that the confirmation would go forward. In a vote of the full senate, they could all vote no. throw their constituents a sop and still put Alito on the court.
Supporting inappropriate nominees and helping to pass as much bad legislation as they can without starting a revolt is what the Democrats have busy doing the last five years. They are good at it.

I am not grateful that Harry Reid’s idea of leadership in a time of great danger is to tell Senate Democrats “to vote their conscience”. The quality of work this Senate has produced shows little evidence that it’s members are acquainted with their consciences. Such a statement reflects a complete abrogation of leadership.

I am not grateful that Senators Kerry and Kennedy made a last minute effort to prevent the Supreme Court from being subverted. They had a month to do their homework on this nominee and to arm twist. Where were they? What was so important that they didn’t pay attention to the most important issue of the day? They had years to contemplate a strategy. Why didn’t they?

The Senators will get no thanks from me for failing to get their colleagues to stick together to take a principled stand against putting the power of kings in the hands of a moral deficient and his thuggish cartel of hangers on. They won’t be thanked for putting corporate bad actors in the driver’s seat, the military industrial complex in hog heaven and us back in the medical and scientific dark ages.
No serious person should doubt that the work of this court will surpass their worst nightmares. Worst-case scenarios are the hallmark of the Bush administration. Alito and Roberts are their men.

I am not grateful that the Democratic Party counsels surrender and pays people to teach them how to be GOP right wing extremists.
Though the Democrats are not directly involved in the corporate shakedown racket of the likes of DeLay and Abramoff, can anyone doubt they are pandering to their corporate clients by installing this court? Can anyone doubt that the rot has spread till it has engulfed both political parties?

I am so ungrateful that the Democrats are not getting a dime of my money.
It is now a physical impossibility for me to vote for my own senatorial sellout, Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in the up coming election.
“The girls”, my Democratic Senators Murray and Cantwell, took turns screwing us out of a functional judiciary. Murray voted for Roberts while Cantwell did the decent thing and said no. This time Murray gets to keep her integrity while Cantwell took one for the team.
Their version of legislative musical chairs smells bad but I am not interested in why they are dysfunctional. It is enough to know that they are dysfunctional and that the party as a whole is dysfunctional.

All this holding our noses while we voted for their third rate candidates and begging has resulted in some very bad behavior on the part of the Democratic Party. They think they can get away anything because we have no choice. Nothing is going to change in the Democratic Party unless we take serious action. Nothing will change for us as long as we support their intransigence. We must give ourselves the choices they are preventing.

This country has problems and the problems have problems. We need to solve our problems. We need to stop adding to our problems. Neither political party is willing or able to do so.

The best suggestion I’ve heard so far is a coalition party. By cherry picking unhappy people from both parties and giving them an attractive alternative, we can weaken them both of these bad actors. By forming a coalition with Greens, independents and Libertarians we could give ourselves a big base. We know what the vast majority of Americans care about and we'll make those issues a priority. We must offer the assistance both Republicans and Democrats have withheld from election reform groups and take our system back from private industry and incumbency.

Give it a name.
Let's get started.

Carol DW