The Obama administration is taking well-deserved heat for trying to control the Benghazi affair with shifting talking points. Obama’s opponents altered, perhaps even criminally, leaks of these talking points to score their own political points, but the administration’s own opacity, more than Republican forgery, is the real cause of its woes. Government should be more open.
Likewise, the IRS “scandal” may be an opportunity for Republicans, but again the administration shot itself in the foot by its obsession with secrecy. The spectacle of an IRS Commissioner taking the Fifth does nothing to inspire confidence. Yet all this is bipartisan political theater deflecting attention from real IRS scandals: approving, in the first place, 5014c status for groups that are obviously political; and conducting illegal wiretaps of those whose taxes it is auditing. Neither party has challenged either.
One of the minor scandals is the Obama administration’s spying on the Associated Press. Maybe it’s not a crime if the president does it (to quote Nixon). But, really, where is the bipartisan outrage regarding these (and other) violations of the Constitution? When did the Second Amendment become the only one Americans care about?
Speaking of trifling Constitutional technicalities, there is yesterday’s admission by the Obama administration that it has been assassinating Americans abroad. This has been known for some time, yet the administration doggedly defends its secrecy. But the American public deserves to know how the Constitution may be abrogated to kill one of us. Claiming “reasons of National Security” for everything is less a feature of a democracy than a police state. Again, both major parties have no objections.
Then there is the unprecedented crackdown on whistle-blowers and renewed domestic spying. Shortly into his first term it was clear that we had exchanged Tweedle Dumb for a surprisingly Nixonian Tweedle Dee. Obama has used the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to harass and intimidate not only right-wing groups associated with ALEC but also the Occupy Wall Street movement. “Fusion centers” proliferated and civilian police forces became militarized. We now have drone flights over Quincy that no one will explain. The conservative president who replaced the liberal candidate was willing to dismantle FDA chicken inspections but never had any intention of scaling down the Pentagon’s budget.
The Democratic presidency is in trouble, and the rest of the party is too.
Brimming with millionaires, billionaires, Blue Dogs, Blue Bloods, and old-time Dixiecrats, the Democratic Party (like the GOP) is little more than a way-station for lobbyists and business interests. Recently our own Lt. Governor resigned to become president of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce. Former Massachusetts House Speaker Tom Finneran is now a Rhode Island health care lobbyist. Former state Rep. Stephen Canessa resigned from the Legislature to go to work for SouthCoast Health System as its “legislative liaison.” Watching former Obama point man and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel trying to bust the teacher’s union and shut down neighborhood schools says much about the party today. A marginalized Progressive Caucus and a few earnest souls like Elizabeth Warren will never make the Democratic Party a voice for the 99%.
Much has been made of the Republican Party’s meltdown. It now seems that the cranks, the extremists, and the just plain dumb guys are being sidelined as the party grownups try to figure out how to position themselves in 2016. Meanwhile, the Democrats seem smugly content with their permanent move to the right. In 2016 both parties will field “moderate” candidates declared “viable” by a (biased?) press. Once again, voices of third parties will be sidelined. This means that heterodox political ideas and ideals will never make it onto paper, the airwaves, the digital world, or into the public conversation.
Is this attenuated version of democracy really what Americans want? With Citizens United, lobbying, PACs, billionaires, and 501c4 abuse, democracy is up for sale more than it has ever been in our history.
Short of the Democratic Party reforming itself there is one thing voters can still do: raise the bar, demand and vote for principled candidates, and vote your conscience – even if he/she is from a third party. Eventually we’ll get the change we had hoped for.
This was published in the Standard Times on May 28, 2013
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20130528/opinion/305280303
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