Have things really gotten that bad? → U.S. citizens aren’t rising to the challenge → no functioning opposition party

And here’s a cantakerous phrase or two from the left, thanks to the lovable Alexander Cockburn:

As now constituted, presidential contests, focused almost exclusively on the candidates of the two major parties, are worse than useless in furnishing any opportunity for national debate. Consider the number of issues on which there is tacit agreement between the Democratic and Republican parties, either as a matter of principle or with an expedient nod-and-wink that, beyond pro forma sloganeering, these are not matters suitable to be discussed in any public forum: the role of the Federal Reserve; trade policy; economic redistribution; the role and budget of the CIA and other intelligence agencies (almost all military); nuclear disarmament; reduction of the military budget and the allocation of military procurement; roles and policies of the World Bank, IMF, WTO; crime, punishment and the prison explosion; the war on drugs; corporate welfare; energy policy; forest policy; the destruction of small farmers and ranchers; Israel; the corruption of the political system; the occupation of Iraq. The most significant outcome of the electoral process is usually imposed on prospective voters weeks or months ahead of polling day — namely, the consensus between the supposed adversaries as to what is off the agenda.

Encouraging to me is that the anti-war movement seems to be leaving their own Bizarro world in which the Democratic Party is a party of peace. Justin Raimondo reports from ’s anti-war rally in Washington (links his):

“There are a lot of people here who are wondering, where are the Democrats?” said Tom Andrews, the director of the Hollywood-centric “Win Without War.” This past weekend, the entire Democratic Party leadership fled town, including party chairman Howard Dean — once the Great White Hope of Democratic war critics — Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and even Russ Feingold, who is positioning himself as the “antiwar” presidential candidate. Knight-Ridder reports the Democrats are “wary” of the antiwar movement, as well they might be considering that it was Bill Clinton who signed the Iraq Liberation Act — the legislation that originally authorized action to effect “regime change” in Baghdad — with the enthusiastic support of top Democrats.…

A recent military appropriations bill authorized spending for the construction of permanent bases in Iraq, and the Democratic leadership voted for it. Indeed, if anything, the Democrats want to spend more money on “nation-building” than the Republicans, and are ready and willing to hike taxes in order to do it. This, mind you, would be awfully unpopular, among grassroots Democrats as well as Republicans: 77 percent of all Americans would disapprove of having to pay more in taxes in order to pay for the Iraq war, according to the NYT/CBS poll, while 55 percent don’t want to give up recent tax cuts to foot the bill.

We can’t depend on the mis-leadership of the Democratic Party to get us out of the quagmire. They were in on the Iraq disaster from the beginning, with the Democratic Leadership Council consistently hewing to a hard line, and the Democratic party neocons generally riding roughshod over pro-peace grassroots activists. The convention that nominated John Kerry was a display of unabashed militarism and me-tooism, during which anyone caught with antiwar signs or even buttons was summarily kicked out the door (as happened to Medea Benjamin).

There are signs the antiwar movement is waking up to the Democrats’ perfidy, with Cindy Sheehan going after Hillary on account of the New York senator’s support for the war (which Ms Clinton describes as “a noble cause”). Far from advocating withdrawal, Senator Clinton has more than once suggested we need to send in more troops. At the San Francisco demonstration, as I noted on the Antiwar.com blog, an entire contingent organized by Code Pink drew attention to Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi’s consistent support for war funding and other measures that would prolong our presence in Iraq. Awareness is growing, but we need more than that. We need action.