The Meaning In The Balance Of Power

Yesterday during a radio interview, South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson had what it appeared at the time as a stroke. In mid sentence he suddenly had difficult speaking, often stumbling over his words and seemed to forget what he was trying to say. Later in the interview, he seemed to improve as he finished up. But, even after the interview, he had been said not to be feeling well. Johnson was taken to the hospital where it was determined that he needed surgery. As we now know, he had suffered not a stroke, as originally feared but, bleeding on the brain. Both doctors and fellow Democrats are both saying that it is far too early to predict the long term condition of M.R. Johnson and the future of his political career.  His condition is going to be closely watched since it suddenly puts the Democrats control over the Senate in a precarious position.  But, the question the American people should be asking themselves is, how much of a difference are we really to expect from Democrats both nationally and internationally from of what have seen from the GOP over the last six years.

Internationally, concerning the war in Iraq, the Democrats have backed away from their election message of bringing troops home immediately and forcing the Iraqi Government to take over that responsibility. In fact some in the party have even suggested increasing troop levels by 20,000. And like the Republicans, the party has shied away from the Iraq study group's suggestion of changing the U.S.'s role from that of combat to a more advisory role. This suggestion would have been the perfect plan to embrace since they would appear to be fulfilling their promise of changing course and at the same time the Democrats would avoid looking soft on the terror issue. But, they seem to have dropped the ball on what could have been a clear example of what separates Republicans and Democrats. By the way, there is talk among the Democratic party to actually increase the defense spending  in next years bill. 

For other international issues, the rank and file of the Dems also support NAFTA and CAFTA along with the other sectors of globalization. Despite popular belief among those in the mainstream press, the everyday citizen of third world nations are not benefitting from these policies. According to several sources including the Global Watch Group, http://www.globalwatchgroup.org/news/index.html, the globalized market reduces the living standards of the vast majority of citizens in third world nations. Remember, many were farmers before companies like Monsanto forced numerous family farms world wide to fold. These policies also reduce access to natural resources, increase potential warring situations and so on. So it is odd that the Democrats who like to betray themselves as being on the left of the Republicans would support policies that would make a habit of allowing western companies to pollute or cause a major disaster in one these countries, think Union carbine here, which causes the deaths of thousands of people, then at the same same time claim that they are helping to improve living standards.

Then there are the are domestic issues.  It wasn't so many months ago that the Democrats voted with the Republican party to cut habeas corpus from the U.S. court system. As of now the FBI or the Bush administration can label anyone an enemy combatant and their families and friends would never hear from them again. Such changes in the law should send a chill up our collective spines since the foundation of what made our judical system a true Democracy has been seriously compromised to the point that it now appears to be something far less appealing. In fact this new draconian law which now  sits one the books looks more like what you would see in Turkey or Iran. So how could the Democrats vote for such a bill? The prevailing answer is that they knew it was going to pass any why so there was no need to go against the grain. But, there is the moral vote to not vote for such a bill that just seems far more important.  

In the interest of time, I'm going to end this piece here but, for more on the Johnson story, you can check the link bellow. Until next time.           

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1166129836960.wmv

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Posted to ProBlogs.com on Monday, January 01, 2007
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