I recommend you read or watch the interview. The type of members we're going to get in Congress next year is far more aggressive and ideological than the ones we elected in 2006. Jeff Merkley for instance has come out against Obama and Senate Democrats on FISA and filibusters, and over 60 candidates have endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the war in Iraq, including Merkley and Grayson.
Democratic leaders, who tend towards a bipartisan approach to solving problems, are going to be in for a shock from the left. People like Grayson aren't just going to speak out, they are going to organize within Congress, something the current progressive caucus doesn't do. That is in fact both their quickest route to power and what they believe in.
Alan Grayson: I'm Alan Grayson, and I'm the Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida's district eight. And I'm the attorney of record in every single case now pending in Federal court involving war profiteers in Iraq. These are cases in which I represent whistleblowers. The Florida civil rights association named me Humanitarian of the Year for my work in this regard, taxpayers against fraud named me lawyer of the year, and I've been featured in Vanity Fair magazine, in media like CBS evening news, 60 minutes, and even Dailykos, imagine that.
I'm running because I'm fed up with the government mismanagement, the Bush administration's shameless pandering to war profiteers. I think they set out on a deliberate course to make this war good for the people who were their friends. And I want to try to hold them accountable when I'm in Congress. When I'm in Congress... the Bush administration's worst nightmare is going to be me with subpoena power because I know everything that they've done, and I'm going to hold them accountable for it.
Matt Stoller: But wait wait, let me just interrupt you there, the Bush administration's gone in 2009.
Alan Grayson: Oh but all the people they set up as the new kings and queens of America are still around. What Eisenhower said, that we need to fear the military industrial compex, has become true because they have manufactured a five year war that they want to perpetuate for a generation or even a century so that they can keep lining the pockets of their friends, the war whores.
Matt Stoller: So, people are going to say, let bygones be bygones, or let's have some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, what do you think needs to happen?
Alan Grayson: We don't need truth and reconciliation, we need punishment. We need people to be held accountable for all the mistakes that they made that have screwed us up in this war and screwed us up in this economy. The economy is falling apart, the chickens are coming home to roost. You cannot spend $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America for a war that never should have taken place in the first place.
Matt Stoller: But be specific, what do you mean by punishment?
Alan Grayson: We'll put people in prison. We'll take away the thing that they care about the most, their money. They stole, they hurt the troops, they killed people, they hurt the taxpayers year after year and they've destroyed this economy. They're not going to get off scot-free.
Matt Stoller: Who's 'they'?
Alan Grayson: The people who have been running this government and their assistants who have been running companies like Halliburton. Think about it, we have a Vice President who was the head of Hallburton, who got a $23 million parting gift from them when he became Vice President. And he was the one who instigated this war and made Halliburton the largest army contractor in existence.
Matt Stoller: But wait a minute, Democrats, not a majority of Democrats, but they just immunized the telecom and cable companies that were wiretapping. Why would they hold any of these war profiteers accountable?
Alan Grayson: I can only tell you what I'm going to do, what I'm going to try to do. I'm going to be just one of four hundred and twenty five, but everybody understands that the country has to move in a different direction. And I'm the one whose going to say this is the direction I think we should be moving in. We need to hold people accountable, no more corporate welfare. No more people who think they can benefit from other people's sadness, their disabilities, their problems. That's not going to be feasible any more in the new America. In a new America, all boats will rise, and we'll judge things, as Darcy Burner just said a few minutes ago, by what is good for everybody, not what's good for the friends of George Bush.
