Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Will a Clinton Administration Give Bush a Free Pass and Movement Conservatism A New Lease on Life?

[via Democracy Now]
“Former President Bill Clinton’s comment that his wife’s ‘first thing’ as President would be to send him and former President George H.W. Bush on a worldwide fence-mending tour has a political subtext,” reports investigative journalist Robert Parry. “It signals that a second Clinton administration would give a free pass to the second Bush administration on its abuses.”

The first thing? Pardons for everyone! Awesome. Because we all know how important and useful "healing," "civility," "unity," "bipartisanship" always is when it comes to Republican lying, looting, criminality, vitriol, secrecy, corruption, incompetence, disenfranchisement, violation of civil liberties, obstructionism, war profiteering, and never is when it comes to Democratic efforts to clean up Republican messes, bring Republican wrongdoers to justice, correct Republican errors, incompetence, and injustices, or govern in a way that reflects even remotely the expressed interests of the citizens of the country. Hey, bygones!

For much more in-depth coverage of the Presidential campaigns in Iowa and elsewhere, watch or listen to today's free newscast of Democracy Now!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why are Republicans the only ones helped by "healing", "bipartisanship," etc.?

Dale Carrico said...

Well, up front, please just let's assume that there are appropriate qualifications around all the nevers, nones, alls, and so on in this admittedly polemical formulation so that we don't have to go through the joyless ritual of interminable hairsplitting corrections on this score, when what matters here is forcefully articulating so as to come to grips with the overwhelming fact of just how many Republicans are scoundrels, thugs, and hypocrites.

You ask: Why is it Republicans who benefit most from "bipartisanship" and "healing"? Well, of course, they don't.

Republicans engage in the most vitriolic partisanship and divisiveness and wasteful interminable fishing expeditions in search of exploitable improprieties in their opponents imaginable.

What I actually said is that they benefit from calls for "bipartisanship" and "healing" that suffuse the public sphere any time there is any suggestion that Republicans be held to account for their misconduct in any way.

What calls for "bipartisanship" have come to mean in the Village is simply the demand for instant utter capitulation to the right by the left under all circumstances.

What calls for "healing" have come to mean since Nixon and since Iran-Contra historically is that

(a) Republican wrongdoing is never exposed so that lying mass-mediated Republican narratives and frames can substitute for reality in the Village's "cw" or "common wisdom" and

(b) Republican wrongdoers are never brought to justice so that they can wait in the wings to do their mischief over and over and over again.

Since I'm explaining basics to you here, I'll also point out that "the Village" is a left Netroots shorthand description for the tiny insular parochial in-bred out-of-touch inside the Beltway klatch of Machine politicians of both parties (along with their handlers and lobbyist friends) who jealously govern the country, often in sublime indifference to the expressed will of the people who elect them, as well as the even smaller klatch of superficial gossipy reactionary consolidated-corporate media pundits (many of whom fancy themselves liberal) in corrupt cronyist relations of friendship and patronage to the elected representatives and professional administrators they are covering.

People-Powered-Politics, or what I call p2p democratization is undermining the politics of the Village to the good of all, which is why one hears so much from the Villagers about "angry bloggers" and their lamentable "lack of professional standards" and about the crying need for docility, er, I mean, "civility."

All the evidence suggests, by the way, and precisely to the contrary of interminably touted Villager common wisdom, that popular participation in politics rises when people are given real choices reflecting the actually existing differences in the country and that people understand perfectly well that people disagree about stuff and both appreciate and enjoy the political process of working through these differences in public.