- For the moment, millions of Haitians don't matter. For
Washington and the West, they never did and don't now. It's pretense, a
topic a forthcoming article will explore.
-
- Today, however, the Massachusetts political earthquake
takes precedence, and headlines explain it.
-
- From the Boston Globe:
-
- "Big win for Brown....Voter anger caught fire in
final days." How can it be, asks the Globe, that "an obscure
state senator with an unremarkable record" (became) a household name
across the country by the end of the abbreviated campaign."
-
- From the Financial Times:
-
- "Democrats suffer blow in Massachusetts vote (sustaining)
a humiliating defeat....in one of (America's) most liberal states."
-
- From the New York Times:
-
- "GOP Senate Victory Stuns Democrats....Independents
Voice Unease....Democrat Defeat Imperils Health Care Overall."
-
- From the Washington Post:
-
- "Brown upsets Coakley in Massachusetts race...Election
dramatically alters the trajectory of Obama's agenda....Democrats ponder
health reform....Voters turn anger on Democrats."
-
- From the AP:
-
- "In epic Upset, GOP's Brown Wins Mass. Senate Race
(riding) a wave of voter anger to win the US Senate seat held by the late
Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century....marring the end of (Obama's)
first year in office" in a state where registered Democrats outnumber
Republicans three to one, and has as many independents as both parties
combined. They likely made the difference.
-
- From the Wall Street Journal:
-
- "Republican Victory Upends Senate....Independent
Voters Abandon Democrats....Americans Weary of Government Intervention,"
and an op ed headlining "Blame the Left for Massachusetts," typical
Journal blather blaming Democrat defeat not on "the messenger, but
the message - and the sooner progressive Democrats face up to that fact,
the better."
-
- According to the Journal, the message is leftist, never
mind that throughout Obama's first year, he's been solidly pro-Wall Street,
pro-Big Pharma, pro-the insurance lobby, pro-war profiteers, and pro-business
overall, Republican credentials in all but name.
-
- Brown's victory margin was 52% - 47%, and given the state's
poor weather and fact that it was a special election, turnout was remarkably
strong - the highest in any Massachusetts non-presidential general election
in 20 years. The defeat stuns Democrats given the stakes for Obama's agenda,
now that his Senate supermajority is lost.
-
- Consider also that in the 2008 election, he carried the
state by 26 points, and it's solidly Democrat. The party holds large majorities
in both houses. The governor is a Democrat, and for the most part, Republicans
are unloved in a state far less liberal than commonly believed. Not this
time, so at issue is why.
-
- At one point Democrat Martha Coakley (state Attorney
General) held a 31 point lead, yet managed to lose it in weeks, an astonishing
reversal any time, let alone one this short.
-
- According to the Boston Globe, angry voters "sent
Washington a ringing message....Enough." Perhaps so, yet unexplained
is their overnight change of heart and the fact that Massachusetts elects
so few Republicans. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was its last senator, a seat
he lost to John Kennedy in 1952, and the one brother Ted held from 1962
until his 2009 death.
-
- Worse still is candidate Scott Brown, a man MSNBC's Keith
Olbermann calls "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary,
ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women."
-
- Perhaps so based on his voting record, overwhelmingly
hard-right, including public support for waterboarding, other enhanced
interrogation methods, and no constitutional rights for "enemy combatants."
-
- According to Project Vote Smart and On the Issues.org,
his positions are strongly pro-business, pro-war, and anti: civil and gay
rights, affirmative action, state provided health care, other social services
including welfare, abortion, progressive immigration reform, labor, stem
cell research, and women's rights - an unlikely choice to succeed Ted Kennedy.
-
- Brown's also for tax cuts for the rich, or in his own
words:
-
- "I am a free enterprise advocate who believes that
lower taxes can encourage economic growth."
-
- In other words, for business, not the most needy. He
also opposes taxing big banks, and since January 12 has been against Red
Cross aid to help Haitians post-quake.
-
- He provided no healthcare for his campaign staffers and
opposes government involvement in delivering it. On his web site he says:
-
- "I believe that all Americans deserve health care
coverage, but I am opposed to the health care legislation that is under
consideration in Congress and will vote against it. It will raise taxes,
increase government spending and lower the quality of care, especially
for elders on Medicare. I support strengthening the existing private market
system with policies that will drive down costs and make it easier for
people to purchase affordable insurance."
-
- Of course, leaving healthcare in private hands is the
problem, not the solution. Neither is Obamacare - legislation that will
ration it, raise costs, enrich insurers, drug companies and large hospital
chains, and take a giant step toward destroying Medicare, a position Republicans
and Democrats endorse.
-
- Brown also supports the right to keep and bear arms,
tough crime fighting measures, the death penalty, marriage between men
and women only, and Israel, stating:
-
- "Israel has made enormous sacrifices in an attempt
to secure peace....I support a two-state solution that reaffirms Israel's
right to exist....Israel lives every day under the threat of terror yet
shares with America a dedication to democratic ideals, a respect for faith,
and a commitment to peace in the region."
-
- In fact, Israel from birth chose violence, not peace;
confrontation, not diplomacy; and strength through militarism, intimidation,
and naked aggression. Its agenda is repugnant, indefensible, destructive
and malignant. It ruthlessly occupies the West Bank, strangles Gaza under
siege, expropriates Palestinian land, practices torture as state policy,
and denies its own Arab citizens rights afforded only to Jews.
-
- It menaces its neighbors and humanity with a Zionist
ideology advocating oppression, dispossession, Jewish exceptionalism, and
racism, yet presidents, the entire Senate, and most House members pledge
support, Democrats and Republicans.
-
- Brown also "support(s) the bi-partisan Iran sanctions
bill and believe(s) that until Ahmadinejad gives up his nuclear ambitions
he should be isolated from the rest of the world. With its reckless pursuit
of nuclear weapons, Iran represents the biggest threat to Israel....A personal
meeting with Ahmadinejad, as suggested by my opponent, would embolden him
and be used as a propaganda tool to strengthen his position."
-
- Brown ignores the real threat - from Israeli and American
belligerency and the enormous global consequences.
-
- Voters Across America Are Rightfully Angered
-
- After one year in office with a Democrat-controlled Congress,
voters express disillusion, frustration, and anger over promises made,
then broken, and a realization that once again they were betrayed.
-
- Ignoring people needs during the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression, the Obama administration supports business,
militarism, and homeland repression. He backs open-ended banker bailouts,
aggressive wars, repressing dissent, privatized healthcare, free, not fair
trade, a war on Islam and Latino immigrants, torture, illegal surveillance,
military commissions, preventive detention for dozens of detainees facing
no charges, and extraordinary renditions to offshore hellholes, most of
them secret.
-
- He opposes labor, civil, and human rights, free expression,
dissent, public education, social services when they're most needed, job
creation, help for the unemployed (over 20% of the workforce with all categories
included), whistleblower protection, detainee habeas rights, prosecuting
Bush administration war criminals, and help for millions of Haitians facing
starvation, disease, debilitating injuries, and death post-quake.
-
- He's provided continuity, not change, a bogus democracy
under a repressive police state apparatus, militarism, and permanent wars
at the expense of vital homeland needs. His record is betrayal and failure.
-
- Perhaps that's the Massachusetts message - not just opposition
to Obamacare as state polls show, but a rejection of the entire Democrat
agenda and a demand for real change, promised but not delivered.
-
- Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre
for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday
at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://republicbroadcasting.org/Lendman
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