Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Spinelessness of Lesser Evilism

The Democrats are spineless. It’s a familiar refrain we hear from some liberals and many leftists. When Democrats support rancid proposals of Republican presidents or fail to aggressively challenge the implementation of odious policies, the spineless term gets trotted out.

Only yesterday on Democracy Now!, Canadian author and social democrat Naomi Klein used the anatomical metaphor during a discussion of the Democrats’ reluctance to challenge the Bush administration on its handling of the $700 billion giveaway to Wall Street.

“So, essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, you know, ‘We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the great depression.’ And the Democrats, not known for their firm spines, have so far failed to challenge them in anything other than rhetoric.”

It would seem that since the Democratic Party very rarely has displayed a firm spine in its dealings with the Republicans or when confronted by repressive policy proposals in general — at least in the fashion that most of these liberal and left-wing observers would prefer — that it would be time to retire this fantasy.

Spineless implies the Democrats disagree with a particular policy but are afraid to voice their true opinion or stand up for their beliefs because they fear the American public will turn against them. The liberals and leftists who subscribe to this theory cannot appreciate the notion that the “spineless” Democrats simply may not hold the same political views as them.

Instead of spineless, a more apt description of the Democrats who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who support the taxpayer giveaway to Wall Street and Corporate America, who support the “war on terror,” who support an expanded police state and who generally support repressive and destructive government policies might be heartless or soulless. Or perhaps the correct terms to describe these types of Democrats would be the same ones used to describe Republicans who support these policies. How about thuggish and authoritarian — or perhaps malicious?

Many of these liberals and leftists embrace the electoral strategy of voting for the lesser of the two evils running in presidential and congressional races. Inherent in this strategy is the belief that the policies of the person for whom they are voting are less evil than his or her opponent’s but are nonetheless evil in their own right. So, particularly for the Democrats who fall into the lesser-evil category, it would seem that there would be no cause for surprise when these Democrats, upon assuming power, adopt a legislative style that runs counter to the hopes and views of some liberals and many leftists.

During the same episode of Democracy Now!, host Amy Goodman interviewed former CIA and State Department analyst Melvin Goodman about Barack Obama’s choice of John Brennan, a former intelligence official under former CIA Director George Tenet, to lead the review of “intelligence” agencies and help make recommendations to the new administration on “intelligence” issues. Goodman offered this description of Brennan:

“John Brennan was deputy executive secretary to George Tenet during the worst violations during the CIA period in the run-up to the Iraq war, so he sat there at Tenet’s knee when they passed judgment on torture and abuse, on extraordinary renditions, on black sites, on secret prisons. He was part of all of that decision-making.”

At the end of the interview, Goodman noted that Obama has been working in Washington as a senator for only a few years and “obviously there are things he needs to know about national security, the CIA and the intelligence community. And obviously, he’s listening to the wrong people.”

But maybe Brennan is the perfect person to help Obama fill senior positions at the various “intelligence” agencies in Washington … because maybe Obama agrees with Brennan’s views on how to conduct the “war on terror.” It’s fairly obvious Obama is not listening to the people who Goodman believes would be most effective at running a new administration’s transition team for “intelligence” matters. But, as we’ve seen in his views on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, warrantless eavesdropping, etc., Obama definitely falls into the category of a lesser-evil candidate. And what you get from a lesser-evil candidate who ends a winning an election may or may not be as evil as the alternative. But chances are the policies of a lesser-evil candidate who ends up winning the presidency are still going to be evil when he or she takes office.

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