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Three Cheers For Ned Lamont - Maybe Not When You Know Where He Stands

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Three Cheers for Ned Lamont - Maybe Not When You Know Where He Stands - by Stephen Lendman

Ned Lamont just beat incumbent US Senator Joe Lieberman in the August 8 Connecticut primary election to be the Democrat candidate for that post in November. Anti-war believers and activists are ecstatic as Lieberman is George Bush's favorite Democrat and no wonder. He supports about everything the Bush administration has proposed including the ongoing, out-of-control losing war in Iraq and the one fast becoming more of the same in Afghanistan - both in violation of international law as in both cases this country committed "the supreme international crime" of illegal aggression against two nations posing no threat to the US. The UN Charter allows a country to use force only under two conditions - when authorized to do so by the UN Security Council or under Article 51 that permits a nation to defend itself when attacked. Neither of those conditions were met in the US unwarranted preemptive "shock and awe" blitzkriegs against Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ned Lamont may just be a political-hopeful-come-lately who saw a lost cause in Iraq and knew from his polling data it could be a winning issue against incumbent Lieberman who never met a US-instigated war he didn't love because the wealth and power interests he represents and who fund him liberally want them. Why? Because wars are great for business, which is why we wage so many of them.

But just who is Ned Lamont, and why should anyone think if he's elected in November Connecticut will have a man in the Senate representing them and their interests? Opportunistically, he decided to run as a single-issue candidate and just ordinary guy. But despite the man-of-the-people persona he tries to portray, Lamont is a 52 year old millionaire entrepreneur who founded Lamont Digital that builds cable TV systems for universities and gated communities. He's also a fifth generation Lamont to have attended the elitist Phillips Exeter Academy prep school followed by Harvard and Yale's School of Management for his master's degree. Does that trio of schools sound familiar? Well, almost, because George W. Bush attended the elitist sister Phillips Andover Academy followed by Yale and then Harvard for his MBA.

While no one should judge a candidate by the schools he attended, close attention should be paid to where he or she stands on the issues. So what do we know about Ned Lamont? Although he opposed the war in Iraq and wants our forces brought home, he never said the war is illegal and only said he's concerned they're in harm's way and we should "start" bringing home our combat troops, apparently, in his words, leaving others there "on the periphery" (whatever that is). Lamont's stand on the Iraq war is a bit contradictory as it's in stark contrast to his views about the military. He's been very clear on that indicating he's very much a hawk who believes the US should have the strongest and most unchallengeable military in the world. Left unsaid, of course, is that the US should be ready to use it as a president sees fit, making one wonder if the real Ned Lamont would have been an Iraq-hawk if the US were winning and not losing that illegal war.

What about other Lamont positions. Lest anyone forget, there's another raging conflict ongoing in the Middle East the US is very much a part of. Of course, its the joint US-Israeli holocaust now being inflicted on the defenseless people of Lebanon and Palestine. The US and Israel jointly planned and are waging both wars which this writer has written five articles on since the conflict began on June 25. They're all posted on this writer's blog site - sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Ned Lamont fully supports what the US and Israel are doing in both conflicts despite the fact that both wars are as illegal as the US waged ones against Iraq and Afghanistan and for the same reason. Neither the Lebanese nor the Palestinians attacked Israel (or the US) or threatened to. So once again the US and Israel in partnership are committing the "supreme international crime" of illegal aggression that Ned Lamont thinks is acceptable. Is that what Connecticut voters support, and, if so, do they understand their candidate supports violating the most important of all international laws?

To his credit, Lamont has also voiced moderate views regarding Iran and believes we should engage in diplomacy in our dealings with the country's leaders. But about what exactly? Iran has every legal right to develop its commercial nuclear industry, and there's no evidence it's trying to develop a nuclear bomb or doing anything illegal. He also stated his opposition to the recently passed Energy bill that will give away billions of dollars in subsidies to an array of giant energy companies that happen to be big donors to the Republican party. The tax dollars of ordinary citizens will thus have to pay the tab for what these private businesses rightfully should have to pay for themselves.
But things don't work that way in America where it's capitalism for ordinary people and socialism for big corporations.

Lamont also seems not to understand that the so-called "war on terrorism" is a hoax and makes no more sense than a "war on dandruff" as famed author Gore Vidal has explained. Nonetheless, he wants to fight it by concentrating on homeland security instead of focusing on not attacking other nations so they won't strike back at us in retaliation. He's also progressive in his thinking believing government has no right to tell us how to live our private lives as long as we do it within the law, and he also supports a progressive tax policy in place of the "incredibly complicated" and unfair one we now have.

So what's the bottom line verdict on Ned Lamont from what voters know about him if he's elected. It might be that Connecticut voters shouldn't bet the ranch Lamont will go to the Senate to serve them and not, if he gets there, in fact, do what most other populist-sounding ones do - end up supporting the same wealth and power interests and turn his back on the voters who sent him there. Why shouldn't he. He's one of them. And voters might think back to November, 2004 when Illinois voters elected their great-black hope Barak Obama who promised his constituents everything campaigning and ended up delivering nothing but the "same-old, same-old" broken promises once he became a US Senator. It's not hard to understand why. It's what happens to most of the ones who go to the Congress. Power corrupts them, and the more power they have, the more corrupt they become.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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