11-09-06, 9:31 am
The November 7th election result was nothing short of stunning reversal of fortune for the most extreme sections of big business and the Republican right. It has created important breathing space and a new framework for struggle. In particular it marked a major defeat for the extreme right as several of Newt Gingrich’s infamous class of 94 suffered a well-deserved defeat.
Already there is an attempt to define and reign in the scope of the victory along narrow ideological and political lines. Democratic victors are defined as moderates and conservatives; bi-partisanship and centrist compromise are being advised as the road of prudence and progress. But this was no small win: the democratic forces and allies among labor, women and people of color won more than just a numerical majority. They have proven to be leaders capable of working, governing and undoing the Bush agenda and returning the country along a reasonable path.
The immediate dumping of Bush’s secretary of defense evidenced the scale of the victory as a referendum on the Iraq war. According to exit polls and pre-election surveys, more than six out of 10 voters described Iraq as their number one issue, and almost as many expressed disapproval of the war and Bush’s handling of it, favoring some form of US troop withdrawal. Only about two out of 10 expressed strong approval.
Rumsfeld was delivered up as the fall guy for Bush’s Iraq war policy. His firing was Bush’s way of saying, 'See, I’m dealing with the Iraq war problem.' End of story, he hopes. But that isn’t the end. Runmfeld’s firing signals Bush’s implicit acknowledgment that the election was a direct and overwhelming denunciation of the war. Rumsfeld is the last major figure in the administration who hailed from the group of hawks who demanded a second war with Iraq in the late 1990s. He was among the first Bush appointees, according to former administration insiders, who called for responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by launching retaliatory strikes against Iraq – without evidence of any connection. He authored and defended interrogation polices that formed the basis of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and other US prison camps in the Middle East.
But Rumsfeld wasn’t a maverick or an outsider. He represented one of the strongest currents in the administration since its rise to power after the stolen election of 2000. He closely identifies with the so-called neo-conservative movement that prepared the way for and implemented some of the worst Bush administration policies: unilateral preemptive war, including nuclear strikes, unabashed foreign intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, and unvarnished rejection of US obligations to international law, with regard to torture, prisoner abuse and nuclear proliferation and disarmament.
Bush’s repudiation of Rumsfeld is a victory on what will be a long road to reclaiming democracy in this country. The end of that long road was one step closer on November 7th. The labor movement led the way. According to the AFL-CIO, union families were almost two-thirds of the Democratic victory and one-quarter of the overall vote. They supported Democratic candidates by 65 percent. Women, the African American and Latino communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and youth voters also made huge contributions to the victory. The new Congress has a major challenge ahead. The people need to know the truth about the administration’s abuse of intelligence to get us into the war. We need to know what they knew and when they knew it. We need to know the truth about corrupt spending and accounting practices in the war that seemed to benefit corporations, like Halliburton and its subsidiaries, which have strong ties to members of the administration.
In this regard, Congress has a big job to do in getting to the truth. Equally, if not more important, is setting a legislative and political agenda that begins to put the country on another course. Raising the minimum wage, protection for the right to organize unions, clean energy alternatives, a national health care program and protecting Social Security are among the top priorities. The election was a complete repudiation of Bush’s 'stay-the-course' in Iraq mantra. It was a resounding rejection of Bush’s hyperbolic claim that a vote for a Democrat would let the terrorists win. Fortunately, we will not have to hear the phrase 'stay the course' or the terrorist accusation over the next two years of Bush’s lame duck presidency. But we need more than platitudes now. We need to save the lives of our troops and of the Iraqi people. We need a concrete plan and timetable for withdrawal from Iraq that includes economic reconstruction, multilateral diplomacy and international assistance.
This election, if it was anything, was a demand to end the war and bring our troops home. It is up to us to make sure the new leaders of Congress and the president understand that and are forced to act on it.
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