Feingold: How Can We be Afraid at This Point?

Since Senator Feingold proposed censuring President Bush, the Senator has rightfully garnered some much deserved praise and attention. On CNN Senator Feingold was awarded the "Spine Award," for his "political play on the week;" and, of course, the Liberal grassroots and blogsphere have been rejoicing that, finally, an elected Dem is willing to take it strong to the hole against the Bush White House. To be fair, though, the Congressional Black Caucus has always been a strong critic of the Bush White House, though their efforts hardly ever garnered as much attention as what Feingold’s censure call is getting.

On The Charile Rose Show Senator Feingold said out loud what the grassroots has been shouting to the top of their lungs for the past couple of years:

Shades of October 2002. These are the same pundits, consultants, and spin miesters who said you’ve gotta vote for the Iraq war or George Bush is going to hang you out to dry and he’s gonna show that you don’t care about the troops and you don’t care about the fight against terrorism.

They pull it every time. And the Democratic insiders in Washington and the consultants fall for it every time. They don’t realize that the thing that bugs people about the Democratic party right now is that we don’t seem to stand strongly enough for what we believe in.

How can we be afraid at this point, of standing up to a president who has clearly mismanaged this Iraq war, who clearly made one of the largest blunders in American foreign policy history? How can it be that this party wants to stand back and allow this kind of thing to happen?

And then add to that the idea that the president has clearly broken the law — and a number of Republican senators have effectively admitted that, by saying "you know, we need this program so let’s make it legal," — so they are admitting it’s illegal.

The idea that Democrats don’t think it’s a winning thing to say that we will stand up for the rule of law and for checking abuse of power by the executive — I just can’t believe that Democrats don’t think that isn’t something, not only that we can win on, but it does, in fact, make the base of our party, which is so important, feel much better about the Democrats. The Republicans care deeply about making the base of their party feels energized. What about the people of our party who believe in the Democratic Party especially because they fight for the American values of standing up for our rights and civil liberties?

You can check out the interview over at Google Videos, courtesy of Crooks and Liars.

People Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Their Government, Governments Should Be Afraid of Their People

Go see "V for Vendetta." There are some that am sure will charge that the movie is too this, too that… that it is heavy handed… that it is not faithful in some way to the original vision, etc., etc., etc… However, "V for Vendetta" is worth seeing because it unabashedly addresses the concerns of our time and it asks us to take some part of the blame for letting it all happen — simply because we were afraid. (Of course, many in this community (DailyKos.com), especially in this beautifully Liberal community, stopped being afraid a long time ago… but not all of our fellow citizens have managed to shed their fear.)

I simply loved this line from Vendetta: People shouldn’t be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people. Now, no one, of course, is advocating violence in any form, but symbolically, the dark hero of this movie is right on… for far too long we’ve been afraid of what we’ll be charged with: un-American, un-Patriotic, an opportunist merely seeking to position oneself for a presidential run in 2008 — think Feingold, and the shit with which his courageous and CORRECT stand has been met with by some that are still afraid (including elected Dems). At any rate, here we have a movie that comes dangerously close, given our times and the paranoia that still lingers in some circles, to advocating a storming of the castle, en masse… err, should I say, a Crashing of the Gates, as it were (and, frankly, it suggests that we, The People, do a lot more than just batting down some gates).

Now, aside from open advocacy of an up rise against an oppressive and un-representative government, bent on moralizing and hoarding power while those that hold key government posts profit from the failures of their own government; V for Vendetta also offers some provocative moments and more than a couple of touching performances by Natalie Portman (whom looks great with short hair or even wearing a baby doll outfit (see the movie!)).

Of course, as with any work dealing with a dystopia, at moments the movie falls short; but, I believe, specially if one puts the movie in today’s political context (and how could one not!?), there’s a lot in V for Vendetta that’s provocative and well worth the $10+ bucks that many of us will pay now days to go see a movie.

PS. I just saw this post, which covers some of the more substantive issues that V for Vendetta raises.