Maine Owl

Democratic control of Congress has been a useless fact in the past year. Pure trivia. I've been trying to construct a good post about why I will pretty much sit out any involvement in the Democratic political process this year. And I may switch my party registration back to Green, or I may go to unenrolled. But Glenn Greenwald has made the entire case for me.

Brief review: In just the last week, there has been a spate of stories from Washington about total Democratic capitulation to what should by all right be a dead Bush agenda: "Pelosi Backs Down in Spending Battle," "Budget Deal Would Probably Give Bush Victory on War Funding." And one of my favorite topics, what Greenwald calls "The Lawless Surveillance State," is going ahead full speed with Senate Majority leader Harry Reid firmly steering the helm towards Telco immunity for cooperation with illegal warrantless government spying.

I don't think it's so hard to understand why the Democrats are failing to do anything to stop the War and why they, with a few exceptions like Senators Dodd and Kennedy, are keen to grant the giant telecommunications companies the immunity Bush so desires for his broad-net spying operations. I think it's because the elite interests of the Democrats largely coincide with the Republicans.

On the Iraq war, everyone inside the beltway understands (though as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in his most prescient remark a couple of months ago pointed out, no one can discuss it in public) that Iraq is a long-term strategic asset over which toleration of Saddam in the chain of control had ended. Iraq is potentially the only genuine swing producers of oil as the Saudi domination of that role diminishes every day. The US-written Iraq oil law almost says this explicitly, as it gives what would be a foreign-dominated Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council the absolute right to decide how to "optimally" produce the resource.

This is why the very few decent Democrats, like Dennis Kucinich, are shouted down in their own party for suggesting the Iraq War is about oil. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership, especially Carl Levin from Michigan, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, embraces the Bush-developed, "benchmark" method of evaluating "progress" in Iraq. The Democrats soon will vote $200 billion to continue the war and claim that they're minding the taxpayers' money by making the Iraqis dance right, as if that's supposed to make us feel better that all these lives and treasure are being flushed down the toilet. What good are these Democrats??

It's all so sad and disgusting. The Democratic presidential candidates pretend in this charade of campaign politics that the voters' desire to see the debilitating wars ended and the troops brought home means something to them. It doesn't, as only Kucinich and Gravel can even say they would stop the war. None of they others even would say, in a debate a few months ago, that they would bring all the troops home before 2013. But Kucinich and Gravel now are blocked from debates in Iowa over technical interpretations of arcane rules.

I suppose I'll go to my caucus in early February (Maine is a caucus state) in order to stand for Kucinich. But that will be the end of it. I will not take out a weekend in May to be a state delegate again. It's not worth it.

Update: HERE is a discussion Democratic machinations behind Telco immunity. An important bill is up for debate in the U.S. Senate TODAY!