Come 2008, Will Kucinich and the “New Democrats” Fool Us Again?

By Kurt Nimmo
Dec. 16, 2006

It’s the old same old in Washington.

Democrats, worried about not appearing “hawkish” enough—that is willing to invade small countries and slaughter large numbers of innocents—are attempting to out-neocon the perfidious neocons.

“If you think a new wind is blowing in Washington in terms of security issues because the Democrats are going to take over Congress, you probably have another think coming,” Christopher Hellman of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation told OneWorld, according to Aaron Glantz.

Of course, “security issues” translates into more war and more money squandered on antiquated defense systems, not needed since the fall of the Soviet Union, or rather not needed by the American people but certainly needed by the likes of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Science Applications International Corp., General Dynamics, and last but not least, Halliburton.

“Escalating conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the all-volunteer force to the breaking point,” declares an October report by Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute, the policy arm of the “centrist” (read: neocon lite) Democratic Leadership Council. “Democrats should step forward with a plan to repair the damage, by adding more troops, replenishing depleted stocks of equipment, and reorganizing the force around the new missions of unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, and civil reconstruction.”

Out of this murk steps, once again—call it a yawn-inspiring re-run—Ohio Democrat Congress critter Dennis Kucinich, who tells us he will seek the presidential nomination come 2008.

“In announcing his candidacy, Kucinich voiced concern that the Democratic leadershipā€™s continued support for the occupation of Iraq was discrediting the party and placing it on a collision course with tens of millions of voters who repudiated the war in the elections,” writes Jerry White.

Of course, the Democrat leadership, aforementioned as neocon lite, care not they are on “a collision course with tens of millions of voters who repudiated the war in the elections.”

Since when do Democrats and Republicans care about what the American people want?

Poor Dennis. He actually believes, or expects us to believe, that pressure from below, from the Democrat rank and file, will force change upon Hillary and the War Party, neocon lite faction. Fat chance.

As White notes, the “Democratic Party is committed to continuing the criminal occupation of Iraq and the escalation of violence against those who oppose US domination of the Middle Eastern country. While sharp tactical divisions exist within the US political establishment, the Democrats are just as committed as the Republicans to the use of military force to secure US domination over the oil resources of the Middle East and to prevent a Vietnam-style defeat in Iraq…. That is why any talk of a rapid withdrawal of US troops and ending the war has been taken off the table in the month after the US elections. The terms of debate set by both the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership concern the best means to crush the popular insurgency against the occupation and secure the interests of US imperialism in the region.”

Kucinich represents a feeble attempt to reform the Democrats and turn them back to their supposed “people’s party” roots. He is joined by a predictable cadre of so-called progressives, including “left-liberal forces such as the Nation magazine and the ‘World Canā€™t Wait’ and ‘United For Peace & Justice’ coalitions, which promote the conception that protests and pressure will move the Democrats to the left,” a flight of fancy if there ever was one.

You’d think these folks would have learned their lesson back in 2004.

Recall the “New Democrats” sabotaging the candidacy of Howard Dean, who served as a rallying point for desperate antiwar Democrats. New Dems made damn sure Dean went down—he was characterized as some kind of grunting and howling neanderthal by a complaisant media—and the nomination went to Bush’s distant cousin and fellow bonesman, John Kerry, who presented himself as a neocon lite on steroids. In response, Kucinich closed down his antiwar campaign and called for Dems far and wide, high and low, to support Kerry. At the Democrat convention, Kucinich called on delegates and voters to “blaze a new path with John Kerry and John Edwards.”

“Thus, Kucinichā€™s ‘anti-war’ candidacy provided a political cover for the right-wing policies of the Democratic leadership and helped contain the mass opposition to the war within the confines this big business party,” explains White. “Although he was exposed as an apologist for the selection of a pro-war Democratic candidate during the last presidential election, this is not stopping Kucinich from offering to play the same role once again.”

Question is, as the pre-election games commence this coming year, will rank and file Democrats, the grist of the party, be fooled again? Or will they tolerate another parade of neocon lite warmongers, as they did last time around?

Does a trained dog fail to jump for the biscuit every time, to the satisfaction of his master?

In preparation for a new year chock full of political swagger, the usual suspects are talking the talk and walking the same old walk, ready to fool us again, or those of us who manifest signs of insanity, as Albert Einstein would have it, by doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

Consider Gen. Wesley Clark, the mad bomber of Serbia, “presidential hopeful,” who informs us “you can” in Iraq, according to the New York Observer. “General Clark specifically warned against the idea of a timeline for troop withdrawal, because it would mean a loss of American leverage in fostering a potential political solution,” thus breaking with the “phased redeployment” scheme offered up by the likes of Harry Reid and Carl Levin.

Clark’s basic adaptation of the Bush neocon line is billed as an “alternative” by the New York Observer. But, we are told, he is not alone. “Hillary Clinton, despite the maddeningly deliberate pace of her evolution on the issue, seems genuinely to be searching for a position on Iraq that will allow for eventual withdrawal but doesnā€™t leave the Iraqis entirely at the mercy of local militias and foreign terrorists.”

In other words, as a whole lot of Americans, some of them Democrats, are really and sincerely pissed about the “war,” actually phase one of the Zionist and neocon plan to decimate the Arab and Muslim Middle East, Hillary is taking a wait and see approach, although it is obvious she is yet a “New Democrat,” like her husband, who killed around a million Iraqis during his tenure.

Despite “criticism from anti-war liberals within the party, she has been consistently reluctant to talk about specific timetables for withdrawal,” that is to say she is reluctant to talk about what she and the neocon lite faction of the Dem party have in mind for average Iraqis—an influx of more troops, increasingly of the murderous and criminal yahoo variety, as all the good guys were long ago used up, as they are basically “dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy,” as Henry Kissinger would have it.

Once again, the average American, far too bovine and politically incurious, will follow in peripheral and distracted manner the circus, as presented by the likes of Fox News and CNN, and come election day 2008 he or she will dutifully march off to the polls and vote for the selected candidate, never mind the unpalatable stench emanating from the entire process as it offers up Candidate A, Hillary Clinton, and Candidate B, John McCain, or whomever is selected by the ruling elite. Of course, most will not bother to vote, and this is fine and dandy for our rulers, as they call the shots anyway.

Kucinich will be there, pulling off the scam once again, a flimflam gulped, as usual, hook, line, and sinker by “progressive” (shorthand for easily hornswoggled) Democrats.

“Concern about the war runs deeper now than in 2004, but there is no guarantee that will improve Kucinich’s chances this time,” writes John Nichols for the Nation. “There may be another candidate—Barack Obama—who, while not as pure or precise on the issue as Kucinich, has a record of opposing the war from the start and supporting a redeployment timeline. If the media frenzy that greeted Obama’s recent trip to New Hampshire was any indication, it’s a good bet that the Illinois Senator will be given many more opportunities to deliver his message than Kucinich. If Obama does not run, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is likely to position himself as the candidate with a plan to bring the troops home.”

Oh, lordy, we are in serious trouble. Barack Obama and John Edwards are antiwar candidates?

Obama, the rising star of the neocon lites, excuse me the Democratic Party, told the Chicago Tribune back in 2004 that “the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.”

Does anybody remember John Edwards back in 2002, as the neocons plotted the invasion of Iraq, writing in the Washington Post the small and sanctions-enfeebled nation was “a grave and growing threat” and thus Congress should “endorse the use of all necessary means to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction”?

Or, as the unitary decider so eloquently said, “Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”