Tuesday, December 11, 2007

All For One

When you vote for a party candidate, you are doing your best to strengthen the success of that party. This matters if the leadership of that party openly espouses corruption and torture.

Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.
Like Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee:
According to Hayden, "the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. In a news release that he put out this evening, Jay Rockefeller claims that the Intel Committees were not "consulted" on the use of the tapes "nor the decision to destroy the tapes." But he does not deny that he was informed of the agency's intent to dispose of the tapes, and he acknowledges that he learned of the destruction one year ago, in November 2006. And this is the first time he has said anything about it. Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity -- but reveals nothing.
Like Senator Hillary Clinton:
In her first response at the debate, Clinton portrayed herself as an opponent of Mr. Bush's policies on Iran. "The Republicans are waving their sabers and talking about going after Iran," she said. "I want to prevent a rush to war."

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the sharpest critic of Clinton all evening, jumped on that statement.

"She says she'll stand up to President Bush on Iran; she just said it again," Mr. Edwards said. "And in fact, she voted to give George Bush the first step in moving militarily on Iran, and he's taken it. Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney have taken it. They've now declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. I think we have to stand up to this president."
If you're truly voting on principles, rather than party membership - that is to say, blindly picking Democrat because that's how your daddy raised ya - then don't vote Democrat. There's bound to be a less craven, less corrupt candidate out there whom you can write in. Hell, write your own name in. You're guaranteed to be less likely to cave on the issues you find important than the candidate of your choosing. Who's more likely to represent your own interests - you yourself, or a stranger who promises to defend you?

But you - or your hypothetical write-in, or your favorite third-party candidate - couldn't win an election, you tell us? It takes the backing of a billion dollar party machine to get into office? Of course it does. It's illiterate to suggest otherwise. And it's equally daft to suggest that, despite receiving these billions in lobbying dollars, that the Democrats are somehow the party of "principle." The "anti-war" party. Or that any obvious and incontrovertible appearances to the contrary are only the result of "bad Democrats."

A commenter on IOZ's site put it best: a vote for Kucinich is a vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. A vote for Obama is a vote for Jay Rockefeller as Chair of Senate Intel. When you vote for a Democratic candidate, you're voting for the Democratic party. Every phone they tap, every house they bomb and every civilian they torture is on your head.

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