Good letter to the editor on Democratic/citizen dissent

OPINION | Saturday, December, 10, 2005
Carolyn Karr: Dems standing up for people, opposing Bush's plans

snip...

Caserta further asserts that "remarks of the Democratic leadership serve only to divide our nation in a time when America needs to be more unified than ever before." This is familiar mantra of Republicans: Those who dissent from the Bush world view are seeking to divide us, or at worse, in the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, they are treasonable.

Caserta, as well as many Republicans, has an inordinate fear that opposition, dissent and disagreement will cause our democracy to crumble. But what are Democrats to do when you have a party in power that cares more for private gain than the public good?

What can a citizen do when the present incumbent in the White House takes us into a poorly planned war based on hyped, cherry-picked intelligence and has no strategy to get us out of the quagmire? What can the Democratic Party do when Republicans focus like a laser beam on corporate welfare or allow those same corporations to jettison pension plans for millions of people? What can Democrats or citizens do when the party in power supports torture and blithely dismisses civil liberties?

You dissent -- that's what you do. You oppose. You speak out, loud and clear. And that is what the Democratic Party is doing and has always done when society's sense of social justice and well-being are under assault.



http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051210/OPINION/512100308/1034