Victory To The Wisconsin Public Workers Unions!- Hands Off The Unions! -Hands Off The Democratic Legislators

Markin comment:

I suppose we all knew that it would come to this. Probably the last serious bastion of organized labor-the public employees unions are starting to face the onslaught of governmental attempts to break those collective bargaining agreements, crying budgetary crisis- the heart of any union operation. With the demise of the industrial unions (representing less than ten percent cent of the workforce in the wake of the deindustrialization of America) the public employee union became the obvious target in the bosses' relentless struggle to break any collective working agreements. Wisconsin, as all sides agree, is the tip of the iceberg and will be closely watched by other states (and the federal government).

On the question of the Democratic legislators who have left the state (at least as of today, February 18, 2011), to avoid voting on the proposals. While it is unusual for those of us who consider themselves communist labor militants to demand hands off for this crowd under normal circumstances in this case we are duty-bound to defend their action. Stay the hell out of Wisconsin until this blows over. A good idea would be to put workers on the borders to make sure the State Police don't try to force them back. Okay. Strange times that we live in, strange indeed.
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Wisconsin Public Workers Protest Governor's Proposal .Article Comments (277) more in Politics & Policy ».EmailPrintSave This ↓ More.

Text By KRIS MAHER And DOUGLAS BELKIN
For a second straight day, thousands of Wisconsin public employees converged on the state capitol in Madison to protest Gov. Scott Walker's plan to close the state's projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall by increasing the cost of their pensions and health benefits and taking away their collective bargaining rights.

About 10,000 teachers, nurses, city workers and firefighters chanted "Kill the Bill" and held signs outside that said "Recall Walker," while others squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the capitol rotunda as a key legislative panel held hearings on the bill.

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Associated Press

In Madison, Wis., thousands protested a plan to balance the state's budget in part by stripping public workers of bargaining rights.
.Mr. Walker said Wednesday afternoon he would listen to lawmakers' concerns but didn't plan "to fundamentally undermine the principle of the bill, which is to allow not only the state but local governments to balance their budgets."

In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, the state's 170,000 public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs. Mr. Walker has threatened to order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers if the measure fails.

President Barack Obama called Mr. Walker's bill an "assault on unions." He made the remark in the course of an interview with a Milwaukee radio station about federal budget issues.

"I think it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our neighbors, they're our friends," Mr. Obama said. "These are folks who are teachers and they're firefighters and they're social workers and they're police officers."

In Madison, the protesters aimed to sway a handful of moderate Republican senators from traditionally Democratic districts.

Mr. Walker said the dramatic action is necessary to close the state's gaping budget hole for the fiscal year starting in July and avoid massive employee layoffs.

"We're at a point of crisis," Mr. Walker told reporters. And while he said he appreciated the concerns of the public employees shouting outside his office door, taxpayers "need to be heard as well."

Beyond eliminating collective bargaining rights, the bill would force public workers to pay half the cost of their pensions and at least 12.6% of their health-care coverage.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO called the bill "an attack on organized labor and middle class values."The protests have been among the most well attended in recent Wisconsin history.

Public schools in Madison were closed on Wednesday because 40% of teachers called in sick.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference called on state lawmakers to "carefully consider" the implications of removing collective-bargaining rights for public workers.

Under Mr. Walker's proposal, public-worker unions could still represent employees, but could not pursue pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index unless they were approved by a public referendum. Unions also could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold votes once a year to stay organized.

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com and Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com

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*Films To While Away The Class Struggle By- A Slice Of Cold War History- “The Real Story Of Charlie Wilson’s War”- A Guest Review-An Encore

Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip of the commercial movie trailer version of Charlie Wilson's War.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

Markin comment: September 25, 2010

I have recently viewed the History Channel's 2003 production, The Real Story of Charlie Wilson's War. That docu-drama effort basically follows the outline of the commercial film except that there you get interviews, self-serving, self-justifying interviews of course, in the post-9/11 period from the main villains of the piece. Thus, on this one I stand by my comments directly below and the thrust of the comments from the guest reviewer's review of the commercial film.

Markin comment:

The other day I made a short comment on another political blog after viewing this film and reading a long review that gave the real details behind the CIA efforts and the long-term political implications behind the maneuvers that Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson used to get secret appropriations to fund the mujahadeens in Afghanistan back in the early 1980s, the previous heyday of American covert operations around the world, during the early years of the Reagan administration. In that comment I noted that the reviewer made all the key points about the political meaning of this film, including the obvious ones that there was disturbing absence of context about who these 8th century-loving mujahadeen “allies” were and, more importantly, their political program (other than the obvious anti-Soviet one) that Congressman Wilson was so earnestly attempting to help and why the then legally-constituted secular government in Kabul sought out help from the Soviets against this threat. But those are merely just ‘little’ picky points on my part now, right?

I would only add that in politics, any kind of politics, as the American government now has been learning under successive Republican and Democratic administrations in relationship to Afghanistan under different circumstances than those portrayed in the film- the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. I believe that you learn that basic lesson in your youthful schoolyard days, no later. Ouch! The only other point worth noting is that Congressman Wilson surely deserved the citation from the American governmental “combined intelligences services” for his services on their behalf in long ago Afghanistan. However, the rest of us are still living with the fall-out from his “innocent” escapades.


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Workers Vanguard No. 921
26 September 2008

We Said “Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!”

Charlie Wilson’s War Was the ISO’s War

After spending decades in bed with the most vile anti-Communist and woman-hating forces around the world—from Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Iran to clerical reactionary Polish Solidarność and Tibetan monks—the International Socialist Organization (ISO) has suddenly decided it was time for a morning-after pill. A September 9 Web posting by the ISO is promoting a petition by faculty at the University of Texas objecting “to the establishment of a chair in Pakistan studies named for former Texas congressman and misguided cold warrior Charlie Wilson.” Democratic Congressman Wilson played a key role in winning billions in CIA funding and high-tech weaponry for the Afghan mujahedin fighting the Soviet Red Army in the 1980s. For its part, the ISO would have preferred a less “misguided” Cold Warrior.

Earlier this year, in a column by Joe Allen (Socialist Worker, 25 January), the ISO disparaged the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, which, the ISO complains, paid “a fawning homage to America’s ‘clandestine services’,” who were “recruiting largely reactionary Islamic forces to the mujahedeen.” Allen’s article, “Charlie Wilson’s Not-So-Good War,” declares that “Hollywood’s liberals portray the Afghanistan war as a great triumph in the struggle for freedom, when it should be seen as another savage war for empire in which the people of Afghanistan continue to be the prime targets.” Reading these articles, one wouldn’t know that the ISO was for the Afghan mujahedin long before they were against them.

Well before the Soviet intervention into Afghanistan in December 1979, Washington started funneling arms to the mujahedin from the moment the Soviet-allied People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) came to power in April 1978 in what was essentially a left-wing military coup with popular support among intellectuals and government workers. The PDPA embarked on a program of reforms that included canceling peasant debts, carrying out land redistribution, prohibiting forced marriages and lowering the bride price to a nominal sum. They made schooling compulsory for girls and launched literacy programs for women, building 600 schools in just over a year. These measures threatened the mullahs’ stranglehold on social and economic life and immediately provoked a murderous backlash. The earliest bloody confrontations were over women’s literacy, as PDPA cadres and women literacy workers were driven from villages and killed.

The PDPA could not quell the mujahedin insurgency, which was heavily backed by the U.S., Pakistan and Iran (where the Islamic theocracy under Ayatollah Khomeini had come to power in early 1979). After ignoring repeated requests for military aid, including troops, the Soviet Union, fearing the PDPA regime was about to collapse, finally sent in 100,000 soldiers to combat the Islamic reactionaries. The imperialists seized on the Red Army intervention to launch a renewed Cold War drive. As the CIA undertook its biggest covert operation ever, Afghanistan became the front line of the imperialists’ relentless drive to destroy the Soviet Union. The threat of a CIA-backed Islamic takeover on the USSR’s southern flank posed pointblank unconditional military defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state. As we wrote at the time:

“A victory for the Islamic-feudalist insurgency in Afghanistan will not only mean a hostile, imperialist-allied state on the USSR’s southern border. It will mean the extermination of the Afghan left and the reimposition of feudal barbarism—the veil, the bride price. Moreover, the Soviet military occupation raises the possibility of a social revolution in this wretchedly backward country, a possibility which did not exist before.”

—Spartacist (English-language edition) No. 29, Summer 1980

We unambiguously declared, “Hail Red Army! Extend the gains of the October Revolution to Afghan peoples!” For their part, the ISO howled with the imperialist wolves when the Soviets entered Afghanistan, and popped champagne corks when the Red Army was withdrawn nine years later. Since Charlie Wilson’s war was the ISO’s war, we are left wondering, “What’s their beef?” The exposures of CIA waterboarding, extraordinary rendition and secret prison black sites may make being on the same side as the CIA torturers a bit awkward. Or perhaps lauding the virtues of the veterans of the war against the Red Army isn’t the kick it was before the September 11 attacks. Or it just could be that the ISO—historically allied with the international tendency led by the late Tony Cliff—is irritated that no credit is being given to their role in drumming up support for the CIA-backed cutthroats at the height of Cold War II. Maybe a “Tony Cliff chair” is what they are after.

Screaming “Troops Out of Afghanistan” was not enough for the ISO’s then-parent group, the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP). SWP leader Paul Foot succeeded in provoking an anti-Soviet frenzy on the floor of Parliament, by right-wing Tories and Labour Party “lefts” alike, through incendiary “exposés” in his Daily Mirror column of the possibility that British meat—“our beef”—exported to the Soviet Union might be sent to Soviet soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

Today, the ISO calls Charlie Wilson’s War “thoroughly reactionary.” There is, for example, the scene where wealthy right-wing socialite Joanne Herring, played by Julia Roberts, tells Wilson, played by Tom Hanks, “I want you to deliver such a crushing defeat to the Soviets that Communism crumbles.” But such was exactly the position of the ISO. When Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 1988-89, in a futile attempt by the Kremlin Stalinist bureaucracy to appease the imperialists, the ISO gloated: “We welcome the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan. It will give heart to all those inside the USSR and in Eastern Europe who want to break the rule of Stalin’s heirs” (Socialist Worker, May 1988). Three years later, the British SWP exulted: “Communism has collapsed…. It is a fact that should have every socialist rejoicing” (Socialist Worker [Britain], 31 August 1991). The ISO could have scripted the lines for crazed anti-Communist Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Democrat Jimmy Carter and today a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, when he ranted: “What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Charlie Wilson’s War is a thoroughly reactionary movie. The film peddles anti-Soviet lies discredited long ago, such as that Red Army troops planted toys containing bombs on roadsides in order to maim Afghan children. Nowhere does the film even hint that long before the Red Army intervention, the U.S. was funneling aid to the mullahs who rose up against the Afghan government’s modest reforms for the brutally enslaved women. Ronald Reagan’s “freedom fighters,” with whom the ISO sided, were exemplified by one Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the largest recipient of American aid, who had a penchant for throwing acid at the faces of unveiled women. Though the mujahedin fought to maintain women in purdah (seclusion), forced them to wear the suffocating head-to-toe burka and deprived them of education and medical care, the film ludicrously shows unveiled women mixing freely with men in refugee camps.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Neale of the ISO’s erstwhile comrades of the British SWP (they split in 2001) has suddenly discovered, doubtless after much research, that “feminism is now very weak in Afghanistan”! The cause? “In the 1980s Afghan feminist women supported the Russians and their violent occupation” (Socialist Worker [Britain], 19 January). The “lesson for today,” Neale lectures, is “if the left allies with the invader, the eventual resistance will hate the left.” In blaming the present condition of Afghan women on the Soviet Union and those women who fought alongside the Red Army, the SWP sounds much like the Southern “redeemers” after the U.S. Civil War who condemned former slaves for joining with the Union Army as it marched through the South.

The Soviet military intervention into Afghanistan was one of the few genuinely progressive acts carried out by the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy, opening the vista of social liberation to the downtrodden Afghan peoples. It underlined the Trotskyist understanding that despite its degeneration under a Stalinist bureaucratic caste, the Soviet Union remained a workers state embodying the historic gains of the October Revolution of 1917, centrally a planned economy and collectivized property. A Red Army victory posed the extension of the social gains of the October Revolution to Afghanistan through a prolonged occupation and the country’s integration into the Soviet system. The Red Army troops, many of them recruits from Soviet Central Asia, who fought against the CIA-backed mujahedin genuinely believed they were fulfilling their internationalist duty. And so they were!

This military intervention in defense of the Soviet degenerated workers state not only opened up the possibility of tremendous gains for the hideously oppressed Afghan peoples but offered the prospect of reanimating the Bolshevik program of proletarian revolutionary internationalism in the Soviet Union. As we stressed at the time, a genuinely internationalist perspective toward Afghanistan required a proletarian political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and return the Soviet Union to the road of Lenin and Trotsky.

By the mid 1980s the Red Army had the mujahedin on the run. But as we warned from the outset, the Kremlin bureaucracy cut a deal with the imperialists and pulled out. When in 1988-89 Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan, we denounced this as a crime against both the Afghan and Soviet peoples. We stressed to Soviet workers and soldiers that it was far better to defeat counterrevolution in Afghanistan than to confront it in Leningrad. Events have bitterly and amply verified our warning that the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan would mean a bloodbath for women and leftists. And the Stalinist bureaucracy’s treachery in Afghanistan was the direct precursor to the 1991-92 capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union, destroying the homeland of the October Revolution.

As the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, we extended an offer to the beleaguered PDPA regime to organize international brigades to “fight to the death” against the mujahedin cutthroats. This offer was refused, but the Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—took up the PDPA’s appeal to organize an international aid campaign for the besieged city of Jalalabad, raising some $44,000. For the next three years, the Kabul government forces, especially the women’s militias, fought valiantly, but were finally overrun by the U.S.-backed fundamentalists. A few years later, the Taliban, born and bred under the patronage of Pakistan’s ISI secret police and supported by the U.S., emerged as the strongest of the mujahedin factions in the internecine feuding that broke out after the fall of the PDPA regime, coming to power in Afghanistan in 1996.

The ISO greeted the Taliban’s rise to power by grotesquely declaring, “Tragically, the Taliban has no answer to the terrible crisis of the country”! The Cliffites have always displayed a certain penchant for Islamic fundamentalism. As the Shi’ite mullahs fought for power in Iran in 1979, we put forward a program for proletarian revolution, declaring: “Down With the Shah! Down With the Mullahs! Workers Must Lead Iranian Revolution!” In contrast, the ISO ran laudatory articles on the mullahs’ “mass movement” with headlines like, “The Form—Religious, the Spirit—Revolution!” In 1994, the Cliffites published a pamphlet by SWP “theoretician” Chris Harman titled, The Prophet and the Proletariat, complete with a green cover and Arabic-looking lettering, while the British SWP declared, “Islamists have now replaced socialists and the left in terms of being in the frontline against the state in many countries” (Socialist Worker [Britain], 20 August 1994).

The Cliffites’ genuflection before religious reaction is not a bizarre aberration. They have historically sided with any and all counterrevolutionary forces against the Soviet Union, no matter how reactionary. In this, they stand completely in line with U.S. imperialism, which, notwithstanding its current reactionary crusade against Islamic fundamentalism, fostered the growth of Islamic reaction for decades as a bulwark against “godless” Communism and even secular nationalism. In 1950, John Foster Dulles, who was later Secretary of State during the Eisenhower presidency, wrote: “The religions of the East are deeply rooted and have many precious values. Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and materialism. That creates a common bond between us, and our task is to find it and develop it.”

Just as it was obligatory to fight for the unconditional military defense of the Soviet Union and East European deformed workers states, so it is the elementary duty of workers around the world to defend the remaining deformed workers states of China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea. Today, the ISO continues to fight Charlie Wilson’s war. In “Tyrannies That Ruled in the Name of Socialism” (Socialist Worker, 28 August), Paul D’Amato reasserts the ISO’s “Where We Stand” call for capitalist counterrevolution: “China and Cuba, like the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, have nothing to do with socialism. They are state capitalist regimes.” The ISO sides with the forces of “democratic” imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution, reprinting in Socialist Worker online (27 August) a piece by Dave Zirin, a regular contributor to that paper, that chides the bourgeois media for insufficient China-bashing during the Olympics and condemning them for supposedly not asking “why the State Department last April took China off its list of nations that commit human rights violations.”

As Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky taught, you can’t win new gains without defending those already won. The capitalist counterrevolution welcomed by the imperialists and their social-democratic lackeys like the ISO was a world-historic defeat for the international proletariat, creating a “one superpower” world where the U.S. imperialists feel they can run roughshod over the world. It paved the way for the brutal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, where women continue to be enslaved. U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan! Defeat U.S. imperialism through workers revolution! For new October Revolutions!

*On The Congressional Afghan War Supplementary Budget Vote-The Vote

Click on the headline to link to a website (via Boston Indy Media) for a list of those in Congress who voted for the Afghan(the extra dough, extra above and beyond the main dough, for the war).

Markin comment:

The website here suggests that the reader vote against those who voted for the war budget. I think we communists have a little more "robust" solution. In the meantime-Obama, Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Afghanistan (and Iraq)!

*The Latest On Obama's Afghan War Budget- The Parliamentary Front- Vote "No" On All War Budgets- With Both Hands

Click on the title to link to a short article culled from "Boston Indymedia" concerning the (weak)parliamentary buildup in opposition to Obama's supplementary Afghan war budget.

Markin comment:

This one would seem like a no-brainer. But just to be sure we anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, pro-workers party militants vote "no" on the small change Afghan supplementary war budget (the little 33 billion dollar one noted in the linked article), the regular big ticket Afghan war budget, the still big ticket Iraq war budget, and for good measure the whole imperialist war budget (yes, that 700 billion plus one). And for even more good measure-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Afghanistan and Iraq! Hands off Pakistan and Iran! Not One Penny, Not One person For the Obama War Machine!

*A Short Note On The Question Of The Politics Of “To The Streets”

Click on title to link to my blog entry, dated September 21, 2009, concerning the latest talk of of American Afghan troop escalations by chief commander there, General Stanley McChrystal. The Markin commentary there is an example of my "to the streets" perspective.

Markin commentary:

Of late I have been on something of a tear concerning the need for us, that is leftists, labor militants, radicals and the odd, assorted left liberal, to get back on to the streets in opposition to various policies of the Obama administration, especially of the probably endless future troop escalations in Afghanistan(only limited by the shrinking supply of cannon fodder, mainly our working class and minority youth) and the insidious immigration policy of en mass deportations of ‘’illegal’ immigrants that has put the wretched Bush Administration policy in the shade. In response to an inquiry in this space- NO, I do not have a “street” fetish political deviation. Hear me out.

Underlying my political perspective in the various commentaries on “to the streets” politics has been the understanding that we left militants do not, as a practical matter, have very much leverage today, over the political agenda in America. Moreover, Obama, for the most part, still enjoys a “honeymoon" period of unknown duration with the mass of people that we want to get to- labor militants, minority activists, and various other left-leaning constituencies. I have also noted that the Afghan troop escalation question is a wedge that we can use to pry those "folk" away from the Democratic Party. That is the simple politics of my latest my propaganda and agititional proposals.

I pose the question this way to those who offer another perspective. What is it? What is your alternative? Reliance on that slim, very slim parliamentary formal, somewhat half-hearted anti-war opposition? The labor bureaucracy? The “ghost” of Ted Kennedy? You get my drift. Furthermore, that parliamentary opposition to the February Obama Afghan troop escalation while heartening, as any objectively anti-war action is, was very narrow, very narrow indeed. On the real issue, the funding for Afghanistan (and Iraq) there was a very small left Democratic group of Congressional figures who voted the straight up NO vote required on that bill.

And that sad reality points to part of our political problem here in America. We have no independent working class party, we have no worker party representatives to act as “tribunes of the people” on our behalf in the halls of Congress, we, if we are principled, moreover, do not want a workers party executive running this imperialist show so what we have, or don’t have, will be determined by those mean downtown city streets. I will add, under a theme that I have used repeatedly before, that “those streets are not for dreaming now”. But with the hell to come over Afghanistan and other issues we better be there. And this slogan, above all, should be emblazoned on our banners- “Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan (and Iraq).


Note: I have railed, endlessly, about the limits of “peace crawl” demonstrations in stopping imperialist war, at the time of Vietnam and Iraq (I&II), that are the total sum of the strategic perspectives of many leftists and left organizations. I stand by those prior polemics, as a general proposition. The point is that politics, including revolutionary politics, has a lot to do with timing. The timing now calls for a turn to the streets. We will yell at the “peace crawl” strategy and those who endlessly advocate it when those who advocate the strategy are an an obstruction to stronger actions. For now –“To The Streets”

*Vote NO On The Bush (Oops!) Obama Iraq/Afghan War Budget

Click On Title To Link To "Common Dreams" Site And An Analysis Of The Obama Afghan War Budget. I Pass This Link Along For Informational Purposes Only. I Do Not Know What Their Political Perspective Is But I Doubt That It Is In Accord With Mine. The Budget Breakdown Is Interesting, Though. It Has The 'Wonkish" Aspect To It That Comes In Handy When Making Arguments Against The Bush (Oops, Again)Obama Administration's' War Policy.

Commentary

The latest news out of Washington on the Iraq/Afghan war front is that President Obama (unlike the “dovish” Illinois Senator Obama) is asking Congress for some 85 billion additional dollars to cover the cost of his war projects in Iraq and Afghanistan (Associated Press, Andrew Taylor, Friday, April 10, 2009).

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I am so sorry for my almost error in the headline to this commentary above concerning which presidential administration, Bush’s or Obama’s, is asking for a supplemental war budget of some 85 billion dollars to cover incidental war expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year or so. Over the past several years we have gotten so use to seeing this little ploy used and having to make an additional fight against the imperial war budget that I felt that I was in something of a time warp.

However, you can hardly fault me for my little mistake when the Obama administration takes a page from the Bush playbook and tries to do an “end around” by special pleading for separate funding for these little military adventures. The Obama administration does, however, promise according to the AP report that this will be the last time this little ploy will be used. So next time instead of an overall military budget of say, 500 billion dollars, it will be an overall budget of some 600 million dollars. Thank heaven for tender mercies. Then we will only have to do one propaganda fight to call for a NO vote on the war budget. Nice, right?

But enough of all this emphasis on the bloody Obama administration. The crux of the matter here is that the Congress must appropriate these funds and that is where the struggle lies. I have spilled no little ink each year around this time dealing with calling for a NO vote on these bloated imperial war budgets, supplementary or other wise. This year is no exception. Here is one of the good things about the Internet though; one can save information readily without the muss and fuss of spending a lot of time looking for it. Thus, I was able to conger up some old commentary from 2006 and 2007 around the question of the fight against the war budget.

I repost some of that commentary here. I have not done much editing so where its says Bush put Obama, where it says Republicans put Democrats and where it says political con job put political con job. The funny thing is that except for changing a few of the names of the politicians in charge, a few of the purposes that the money to be appropriated for and the fact that we are a couple of more years into this Middle Eastern quagmire they could have been written today. So maybe, just maybe, it was not some Freudian slip (or other psychological quirk of mine) when I make my 'mistake' in the headline. To be on the safe side let’s just leave it at this- Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. / Allied Troops From Iraq/Afghanistan. Vote NO on Funding For The War Budget.

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“Hold Their Feet To The Fire”, April 22, 2006

Commentary

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY

The election cycle of 2006-2008 has started, a time for all militants to run for cover. It will not be pretty and certainly is not for the faint-hearted. The Democrats smell blood in the water. The Greens smell that the Democrats smell blood. Various parliamentary leftists and some ostensibly socialists smell that the Greens smell blood. You get the drift. Before we go to ground let me make a point.

The central issue in the 2006 elections is the Iraq quagmire. As we enter the fourth year in the bloody war in Iraq many liberals, and some not so liberal, in Congress and elsewhere are looking to rehabilitate their sorry records on Iraq and are having a cheap field day. As militants we know that the only serious call is- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of all U.S. and Allied Forces Now (or rather yesterday). Many politicians have supported a pale imitation of this slogan-now that it safe to do so. These courageous positions range from immediate withdrawal in six months, one year, six years, etc... My personal favorite is withdrawal when the situation in Iraq stabilizes. Compared to that position, Mr. Bush’s statement in May, 2003 that the mission in Iraq was accomplished seems the height of political realism. Hold on though.

After the last slogan has faded from the last mass anti-war demonstration, after the last e-mail has been sent to the last unresponsive Congressman, after the last petition signed on behalf of the fellowship of humankind has been signed where do we stand in 2006. When the vast majority of Americans (and the world) are against the Iraq war and it still goes on and yet the “masses” are not ready for more drastic action we need some immediate leverage.

The only material way to end the war on the parliamentary level is opposition to the continued funding for the occupation. For that, however, you need votes in Congress. Here is my proposal. Make a N0 vote on the war budget a condition for your vote. When the Democrats, Republicans, Greens, or whoever, come to your door, your mailbox , your computer or calls you on the telephone or cell phone ask this simple question- YES or NO on the war budget.

Now, lest I be accused of being an ultra left let me make this clear. I am talking about the supplementary budget for Iraq. Heaven forbid that I mean the real war budget, you know, the 400 billion plus one. No, we are reasonable people and until we get universal health care we do not want these “leaders” to suffer heart attacks. And being reasonable people we can be proper parliamentarians when the occasion requires it. If the answer is YES, then we ask YES or NO on the appropriations for bombs in the war budget. And if the answer is still YES, then we ask YES or NO on the appropriations for gold-plated kitchen sinks in the war budget. If to your utter surprise any politician says NO here’s your comeback- Since you have approximated the beginning of wisdom, get the hell out of the party you represent. You are in the wrong place. Come down here in the mud and fight for party workers can call their own. Then, maybe, just maybe, I can support you.

I do not believe we are lacking in physical courage. What has declined is political courage, and this seems an irreversible decline on the part of parliamentary politicians. That said, I want to finish up with a woefully inadequate political appreciation of Karl Liebknecht, member of the German Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag in the early 1900’s. Karl was also a son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, friend of Karl Marx and founder of the German Social Democratic Party in the 1860’s. On August 4, 1914, at the start of World War I the German Social Democratic Party voted YES on the war budget of the Kaiser against all its previous historic positions on German militarism. This vote was rightly seen as a betrayal of socialist principles. Due to a policy of parliamentary solidarity Karl Liebknecht also voted for this budget, or at least felt he had to go along with his faction. Shortly thereafter, he broke ranks and voted NO against the war appropriations. As pointed out below Karl Liebknecht did much more than that to oppose the German side in the First World War. THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE KIND OF POLITICIAN I CAN SUPPORT. AS FOR THE REST- HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE.

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“ONCE AGAIN ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR IRAQ WAR”, March 9, 2007

Commentary

ON THE WAR BUDGET FIGHT FOR A NO VOTE

I can hold out no longer. It seems like a political eternity since I have commented on the question of the Democrats and their response to their Iraq war. I have been waiting patiently for my liberal political friends to cry “uncle” over my prediction, made in the wake of the midterm elections, that when all the hoopla died down their Democrats would take a political dive on the Iraq question. Oh, yes I forgot the House of Representatives did pass a non-binding ‘softball’ resolution that even my mother, a life long Republican, was in favor of-as long as it had not teeth. Be still my heart, that one sure had President Bush shaking in his cowboy boots. While my liberal friends wait until Iraq freezes over for their Democrats to turn the corner those of us who really want to end this damn war need to take stock.

For the past year I have been propagandizing for the formation of anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees in order to lead the way out of Iraq. If one thinks about it for a moment in that time anti-war soldiers and sailors have done more to end this war than all the parliamentary actions of Democrats and all the anti-war demonstrations put together. As noted in an earlier commentary in this space (SEE THE CALIFORNIA SOLDIERS MUST NOT STAND ALONE in the January 2007 archives) many anti-war service personnel have signed onto a petition for the redress of grievance- and that grievance is the continuation of the war in Iraq. That is a good start but more will have to be done than petitions to get out of Iraq before hell freezes over. More on this later.

The next matter is getting a little redundant, that is of having to bring up the question every time the war appropriations are up for a vote, but I will repeat it once again. In wartime the only parliamentary question that matters is the question of funding the war budget. You know, the way the war gets paid for. A few thoughtful Democrats know that but, more importantly, President Bush and his coterie damn well know it. And have thumbed their noses at Congress whenever any slight rumbling about ending the war funding comes on the horizon.

There is a Democratic-sponsored bill before Congress now that speaks to tying war funding to some specific exit date. It is, however, as is true of much such legislation, so filled with loopholes, exemptions, exceptions and fallback positions as to be worthless. This is not a supportable bill. Moreover, it has as much chance of passing the Democratically-controlled Congress as Iraq freezing over. Here are the ABC’s of the situation. For those who still suffer a belief in the Democrats pose this question, STRAIGHT UP-on the war budget – YES OR NO. I fear you will not like the answer. And if you do not like the answer then you had better hurry along and form those anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees. Forward.

******

“ON THE HOUSE WAR BUDGET VOTE-THE DEMOCRATS OFFICIALLY OWN THE IRAQ WAR”, March 24, 2007

Commentary

NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE SOLDIER FOR THESE WARS!

On Friday March 23, 2007 the United States House of Representatives by a narrow vote of 218 to 212 voted for a 124 billion dollar war budget for funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, among other things. That is more than the Bush Administration requested. However, attached to this budget was a binding (finally, something other than smoke and mirrors) resolution for withdrawal of troops from Iraq no later than August 31, 2008. President Bush in response stated unequivocally that he would veto this budget due to the withdrawal resolution and the fact the war budget was more than he wanted. Who would have thought?

Militants call for a straight no vote to any capitalist war budget. That is a given. However, some comment is required here. Clearly a war budget that was patched together with little goodies by the Democratic House leadership in order to get a majority vote is not supportable. Nor is a budget that is passed on the basis that the President is going to veto it anyway but everyone gets to look good for the folks back home. That is cynical but hardly unusual in bourgeois politics. What I find important out of this jumble is the amount of pressure that the House leadership felt was on it to carry out its mandate from the mid-term elections about doing something to get the hell out of Iraq. Unfortunately this is not the road out of Iraq. Increasing the war budget and then leaving it up to Bush to veto the damn thing smacks of parliamentary cretinism. Forget the Democrats (on this one the Republicans are not even on the radar).

A semi-kudo to Democratic presidential candidate Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich for voting against this charade. At least he had the forthrightness to state that if you wanted to end the war you needed to vote against the measure. That he is a voice in the wilderness and is in the wrong party is a fact of life. That his candidacy is thus not politically supportable by militants does not negate the fact that he is right on this one. NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE SOLDIER FOR THE WAR! UNITED STATES OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN! BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM!

Vote NO (With Both Hands) On The Obama Afghan War Budget

Commentary

Today the gloves can come off. This is the first ‘wake-up’ call in the fight against President Obama’s slippery road to escalation in Afghanistan. Get ready. I also note that some leftist intellectuals share my concern. They have already taken out a half page ad in the “New York Review of Books” entitled “Not This Time” (dated February 26, 2009, page 35) calling for, among other things, withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan. While I might disagree with the thrust of the letter to the President as a tactic I stand in solidarity with their call for withdrawal. Below is a proposal for a more concrete form of opposition.


Down With The Afghan War- Down With The Afghan War Budget- For Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of American/Allied Troops From Afghanistan (and Central Asia)! Hands Off Pakistan!

Praise be. Finally we can get down to brass tacks on this Obamian imperial presidency. As regular readers of this space will know last fall in the American presidential elections, as befits an anti-capitalist labor militant, I called for a NO vote on Obama, McCain, Nader (“Independent”?) and McKinney (Green) as an expression of opposition to the pro-capitalist parties, large and small. I at the same time, nevertheless, recognized that the immense popularity of the Obama victory would give him, if not from me, then from the masses of youth, blacks, Hispanics and old time ‘soft’ lefties from my “Generation of ‘68”, a protracted “honeymoon”. That possibility seemed all the more likely as the wreckage of the truly obscene and incompetent Bush administration, an administration that even by loose bourgeois political standards was a disaster, came to light after he left office. But now, as if to mock the wisdom of the political gods, even that supposedly protracted “honeymoon” is to go by the boards, at least for thoughtful political types.

Why is that honeymoon over? Well the money season, especially the military money season, is upon us as the political calendar churns on. That means, in practical terms, also money for Obama’s Afghan war funding. Politics is about careful selection of issues and timing. That little nugget of political wisdom is true whether you, like Obama, have been empowered by a 600 million dollar plus electoral campaign or, like me, are out in the “wilderness” as a left-wing political propagandist with a budget of six dollars. Obviously, thoughtful militants, and I like to include myself in that category, have been frustrated over the past few weeks looking for a cutting edge issue in order to gain some political leverage.

After the aura of the Inauguration festivities dissipated what did we have for an edge? The muffed Obama Cabinet selections? That was a yawner, except for ‘insiders’ and truly desperate political junkies. The fight around the bailout of capitalism by the ‘second-handout’ governmental actions generically called the “stimulus package”? Frankly, there is no leverage in those issues for leftists today. Sure we can furtively rail about the “bum of the month” club now known as Wall Street but that is tempered as an issue by some of the ‘goodies’ in the package that might actually help working people. Times are desperate enough that we cannot get a reasonable hearing on that one, at present. But now, with military appropriations coming up over the next few weeks, we have a banner to fight under.

And, moreover, we apparently are not alone here, at least among those few left-wing parliamentary Democrats that fought a losing battle against the various Bush Administration Iraq/Afghan war appropriations. Very early on in the fight against the Iraq war build-up I noted that, on the parliamentary playing field, the only serious question is YES or NO on war appropriations in the fight against any particular imperialist war move. That is as true today as it was then. I do not know where ex-Democratic presidential contender Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, one of the few consistent “anti-war horses” (excuse the turn of phrase) on Iraq/Afghan war appropriations stands on opposition to Afghan war appropriations now but fellow “anti-war horse” Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern has, according to a recent article from the Associated Press (“Antiwar lawmakers wary of adding troops in Afghanistan” by Anna Flaherty, dated February 9, 2009), some ‘jitters’ about where things are heading there.

Well, Congressman McGovern here is the ‘skinny’. President Obama has already authorized an ‘intermediate’ troop escalation with more planned. He, moreover, has very publicly declared that Afghanistan, come hell or high water, is his signature war and has made Afghan policy a high priority. I have argued previously my belief that Obama intends to stake his administration, if not his place in history, on Afghanistan. In short, although he has proven he can raise fantastic sums of money for himself, since he is not going to pay for it personally he is coming to you looking for the loot. As the beginning of anti-war political wisdom therefore-“just say NO”. No money. Nada. I would urge every anti-war militant to sent e-mails, letters (does anyone do that anymore?) or call your representative and tell them the same thing. But here is the real anti-war ‘skinny’. Let’s get ready to, once again, go back into the streets and shout (and shout at least as loudly as we did at the unlamented Bush), Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All American/Allied Troops From Afghanistan!

Note: In my introduction to this entry I noted that some leftist intellectuals shared my concern about Obama’s slippery slope in Afghanistan. I also noted that they have already taken out a half page ad in the “New York Review of Books” entitled “Not This Time” (dated February 26, 2009, page 35) calling for, among other things, withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan. I placed myself in solidarity with that call, if not the tactic of the letter to the President. What I noticed in reading the list of signatories is that outside a few old hardened “soft lefties”, like the very fine ‘magical realism’ writer Russell Banks and academic radical gadfly Howard Zinn, there were not the usual heavyweight academic lefties that usually sign these things. While a fair number of such types, like Norman Mailer, have passed away recently and some of the names that I did not recognize are just beginning their letter signing careers I have a funny feeling that in the academy Obama is being given that protracted “honeymoon” I mentioned above. This is not a good sign.

On Parliamentary Cretinism and the Iraq War Budget

Commentary

Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq!


Have I missed something or has the war in Iraq fallen off the political radar screen lately. The last big splash of news was back in September when General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker gave their self-servicing positive reports and the Democratic-led Congress tried unsuccessfully to tie funding for the war with a timetable for troop withdrawals. Since then other than rhetoric there has been virtually nothing on the parliamentary playing field. Not to worry though. Just when one had though that the anti-war parliamentary Democrats had gone into hibernation until 2009 (or later) they have come back at us with part two of their parliamentary cretinist strategy.


On November 14, 2007 House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion funding bill for the Iraq war tied to another one of their inevitable timetable schemes, this time with the idea of ending combat by December 2008. The measure passed 218-203, basically along party lines. If this plan sounds familiar it is. This is the same tried and true strategy they have been using since last spring. Here is the problem with that strategy as we are too well aware of by now. The measure cannot pass in the Senate. Moreover, this measure faces the inevitable Bush veto which cannot be overridden give the composition of the Senate. So why would seemingly rational politicians go over the same ground they got beaten down on before? Ah, here is the rub. The Democratic House leadership wants voters to know that they tried. Well, hell yes they did but my read on the midterm elections that brought those self-same Democrats back to power was to actually end the war. Trying is only good in selected situations, maybe horseshoes. This is certainly not one of them. Do we really need any more proof that the parliamentary road to ending the war is a dead end? I think not.

A couple of other interesting points have come up around the political configurations concerning the war budget vote. Last spring Democrats tried to twist arms, break heads and promise the moon in order to get Republican politicians to break with the Bush administration on Iraq. They had some initial success, especially with Senators from hot anti-war states facing reelection in 2008. That tactic ran out of steam once there was an iota of evidence that the ‘surge’ military strategy was working in Iraq, at least for public consumption. The present House vote indicates that the lines have hardened and that there is no political benefit for Republicans to drift far from Bush on the war. Timing means a lot in politics and with elections fast approaching this is one of them.

The other interesting point is the reaction some of the hard anti-war House Democrats to the proposal. In the past upwards of thirty such politicians have voted against previous similar proposals because the timetable was too long or some other reason. The beginning of wisdom here is a straight vote against any funding on principal, not funding tied to some other condition. Apparently a few of the 'hards', notably Representatives Woolsey, Lee and Waters buckled under after being assured that the money would be used to bring the troops home. Why is this important to us? For the last several years the leadership of the non-parliamentary anti- war leadership, United For Peace and Justice, ANSWER, World Can’t Wait, etc. have touted these representatives as our allies. The long and the short of it is we do not need allies who will vote for the war budgets under any pretext. It only adds fuel to my contention that the only way to get the troops out of Iraq is by our own means. Increasingly that appears to be require declaring war on the parliamentary Democrats. Immediate Withdrawal from Iraq!

*THE ABC'S ON THE WAR BUDGET

COMMENTARY

NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE PERSON FOR THE WAR!

ATTACHING UNENFORCEABLE RIDERS ONTO THE WAR APPROPRIATIONS BILL IS NOT A NO VOTE ON THE WAR BUDGET. HONOR THE MEMORY OF THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRAT KARL LIEBKNECHT-HE KNEW HOW TO VOTE NO ON THE WAR BUDGET.

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR A WORKERS GOVERNMENT!

WRITTEN ON MARCH 17TH 2007 THE DAY OF THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ORIGINAL MARCH ON THE PENTAGON

Okay, one more time on the war budget. As I have repeatedly mentioned over the last year or so the only meaningful parliamentary maneuver on the Iraq War is a no vote on the war budget, under the principle of not one penny, not one person for the war. I have nevertheless been castigated lately for a seeming softness on the Democrats when I mentioned that the beginning of wisdom was a straight up and down no vote on the budget. (See ONCE AGAIN ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR IRAQ WAR in the archives for March 2007). Some very politically savvy acquaintances of mine have assumed that this meant political support for the Democratic efforts in Congress, particularly in the House, for the various pieces of legislation now before those bodies. Apparently they have missed my very clear statement that we cannot support such legislation.

Why no such support? All the riders on the legislation, and I mean all, are attached in order to pass the war budget. The only control is over the timetable for withdrawal. That, dear readers, is very, very far from not one penny, not one person anti-war politics. Where, in God's name is that a capitulation to Democrats? No one, I repeat, not one of the Democrats from 'fellow traveler' Vermont Senator Bernie Saunders to Democratic presidential candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich has advocated a straight up and down no vote on the war budget. That said; let us take a look at history to see what a real parliamentary anti-war war budget vote looks like.

I have mentioned elsewhere the name of the revolutionary German Social Democrat Karl Liebknecht in association with my model for what a parliamentary anti-war leader should look like, and even he had to do some somersaults to come out to the right decision. (See March 2006 blog archives.) As is well known, or should be well known, the Western European social democracy as institutionalized in the Second International before World War I was formally committed to the fight against war and especially imperialist war. That included a pro forma commitment to opposition to the capitalist war budgets. As we know, to our regret, those sentiments were fine in peace time but by the time that the war drums for World War I started most European socialist parties were committed to vote in favor of their own nation's war budget. Most notorious in this regard was the stance of the German Social Democratic Party, the largest and most organized party in the International, that voted unanimously (including Liebknecht) to support the Kaiser's war budget on August 4, 1914.

An explanation is in order about Liebknecht's initial vote. The German Social Democratic Party's parliamentary delegation in 1914 (composed at the time of 110 members) was bound by bloc voting. Since the majority in caucus voted for the budget Liebknecht felt obliged to go along at the time, but not for long. By December of 1914 he had broken that fictitious solidarity and cast the lone against the war appropriations. For those familiar with the Liebknecht story, and those who are not, he went on to cast more no votes and got a few more Social Democrats to vote with him (not always for the same principled reason or with his intensity). Ultimately his agitation led to the lifting of his parliamentary immunity and eventual imprisonment for what amounted to treason against the German state. Liebknecht was later release as a result of the events of the November 1918 German Revolution and shortly thereafter assassinated, along with Rosa Luxemburg, after attempting to establish a Socialist Republic during the failed Spartacist uprising of January 1919.

To even tell the Liebknecht story in the content of what today passes for anti-war bourgeois politicians seems slightly ridiculous. With the Iraqi War seemingly never ending and subject to increased 'phantom' escalation with the latest news that the American military command in Iraq want several thousand MORE troops to support the already committed five ‘surge’ brigades anything short of a no vote seems less courageous than usual, if that is possible for capitalist politicans.

THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES-IT'S THE WAR, STUPID!

COMMENTARY

MR BUSH HAS CASHED HIS CHECK- BUT CASSANDRA IS ON WATCH

DONALD RUMSFELD WALKS THE PLANK-IS THERE ANY REASONABLE, OR FOR THAT MATTER UNREASONABLE, LEGAL, POLITICAL, MORAL, ETHICAL OR SOCIAL ARGUMENT WHY THE SECRETARY SHOULD NOT BE IN THE DOCK WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN?

FORGET ELEPHANTS, DONKEYS AND GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!
REVISED: NOVEMEBER 14, 2006

Well, the results are in from these misbegotten midterm elections and not surprisingly the Democrats have rode the whirlwind of voter disgust with the Bush Administration’s policy in Iraq, the effects of ‘real’ economy on their lives and disgust with overall political ugliness to boot these bastards out. NO leftist will cry over these election results even though we cannot share in the illusions that the Democrats in power will be qualitatively better.

Despite the fact that I enjoyed kicking these guys when they were riding high- and will give a little extra kick now when they are down- enough is enough. We can all breathe a little easier, at least for the moment, now that we will probably not have to live in constant fear of the knock at the door or have to look twice over our shoulders before we make a move. Nevertheless proceed with caution- as the 'red scare' of the 1950's and the Democratic Lyndon Johnson presidency during the Vietnam War era testify to the Democrats are just as capable as the Republicans of throwing off the niceities of democratic form when it is their interests. And leftists are among the first to pay.

But now on to mundane matters. Yes, I will confess that I lost my share of money on my various bets on the outcome of the elections. I misjudged the extend of the furor over Bush, reflected in the House races, after having seen his Administration run roughshot unopposed by man or beast, except for the thousands who took to the streets over Iraq, for six years. I was, obviously, clearly off base in my appreciation of the Senate races. In my last blog on the subject I took note that I believed that the Democrats must have been smoking “something” to make any projections of victory in those races. Obviously, I must have been having my own “problems” in that "something" direction. This crushing personal defeat only goes to show, once again, that this militant writer is so detached from run of the mill bourgeois electoral politics that he should leave making predictions about bourgeois politics alone-until next time. In any case I call on my muse Doctor Hunter S. Thompson- help, please send money- I have an irate liberal raving over how much I owe her. Notwithstanding my “errors” I feel compelled to make a few comments on what this whole election cycle means, at least in the short haul.

The first and foremost item that strikes me is how little the results will effect the war in Iraq despite the fact that many people used that as their reason for switching horses in mid-stream. Why? First and foremost, exhibit #1 is one George W. Bush and his dwindling coterie of hack supporters. He has made no bones about the fact that he intents to keep troops in Iraq under his watch and retain Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld (but see headline above, the draft of this blog was written before the 'sad' news of Mr. Rumsfeld's demise occurred). He may have to throw Donald to the wolves but make no mistake, he will keep those troops in Iraq until freezes over or his administration ends- and the rudderless Democrats will acquiesce.

That leaves the question of who these new Democrats are. We already know the old lame ones who allowed the Republicans to run roughshot over the political process with timid, if any, opposition for the past six years. The flap over Senator Kerry’s remarks about Iraq and the consequences of not 'studying' hard enough on the personal fate of the young (see October 2006 archives) and the dive even his fellow Democrats took over the issue should serve as a shocking reminder of how gutless these yahoos are. I have mentioned elsewhere that this election is no watershed of bourgeois politics like 1932 or 1960. And a look at who was elected on what program tends to confirm this view. A virtually unending string of victorious anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, lukewarm Iraqi oppositionists Democrats do not make one think that we are in the opening stages of a third bourgeois revolution in America. I do believe that the Republican right has reached its highwater mark and that a slight drift left is in the making-small relief after forty years of a Republican right-wing onslaught.

What this writer sees as a result of these elections is confirmation of Republican-lite. Conservative policies with a velvet glove. That is what confronts those, mainly power-starved liberals, who thought that the “times they are a changing”. But in the flush of your victory, hear me out. I will provide a litmus test for all those who do not like my Cassandra-type warnings. On Iraq, the central question of the elections and of our times- Will you honorable Congressman or woman or esteemed Senator next year in the next Congressional session vote against the war budget? ON THE RECORD. Ah, now there is the rub. And the answer will not be pretty.