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Impeachment, All Down The Line
A speech delivered to the "Impeachment: Our Right, Our Duty" rally in Houston, TX, April 9, 2007.
Whether one believes the impeachment of George W. Bush is a realistic possibility or is simply a vehicle for expressing outrage and educating the public about the crimes of the powerful, any such talk starts with the U.S. Constitution and Article II, Section 4, which speaks of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Few suggest that Bush is guilty of treason, nor is there evidence of bribery -- unless we're speaking of the routine way in which campaign contributions are a kind of bribery, but that's hardly unique to Bush. That leaves us to ponder the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors," which somehow seems inadequate to describe this administration. "High crimes," yes, but these are not "misdemeanors." We're talking about repeat felony offenders.
Scholars debate what the category of "high crimes" might include, but it certainly must include the violation of one of the central tenets of international law -- that no nation-state can attack another unless in self-defense or with authorization from the U.N. Security Council. Bush is guilty of this -- a "crime against peace" in the language of the Nuremberg Principles -- not once but twice, first in Afghanistan and next in Iraq.
That seems simple enough, but it also seems a bit unfair to pick on Bush alone. After all, no single person -- not even the president of the United States -- can undertake such massive crimes alone. Remember that the constitution also includes in the category of impeachable persons the "Vice President and all civil officers of the United States." How deep into the bench of the Bush administration might we go? Cheney and Rice seem like obvious choices; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Armitage would have been on the list before they left their posts. You all may have specific favorites you would want to add.
But I suggest we not stop with Bush and his cronies. If we want to truly change the direction of this country, we should widen the discussion. Who else might deserve to be impeached?
Let's start with the elected leadership of the Democratic Party, which aided and abetted the high crimes of Bush by jumping on the "war on terror" bandwagon and authorizing those illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That makes the Democratic Party leadership complicit not only in the clear violations of international law but also morally responsible for the death and destruction that has followed. Now, even with a congressional majority, the Democratic Party leadership refuses to take responsibility for its part in this debacle and is timid in proposing meaningful solutions.
The complicity of the so-called opposition party brings to mind the last Democratic administration; it's hard to talk about impeachment without mentioning Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the House of Representatives on two charges -- grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice -- but acquitted by the Senate. Whether Clinton's abuse of power and invocation of male privilege in exploiting a younger female employee, along with his subsequent attempt to cover it up, warrant impeachment is a judgment call.
But there is no doubt that Clinton's missile strikes on Afghanistan and the Sudan in August 1998, allegedly in retaliation for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, were unlawful. There is no doubt that Clinton's air strikes on Iraq in December 1998, allegedly in reaction to Iraqi defiance of UN resolutions on weapons, were unlawful. There is no doubt that Clinton's bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999, allegedly to prevent ethnic cleansing of Kosovars, was unlawful.
Finally, let us not forget that for the eight long years of our last Democratic administration, Clinton insisted on the imposition of the harshest economic embargo in modern history, again allegedly to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions. The 5,000 Iraqi children who died each month due to a lack of adequate nutrition, medical care, and clean water could have testified to the high crimes of Clinton -- if they had survived. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, sacrificed by Bill Clinton to deepen and extend U.S. dominance of the Middle East, will have to provide silent testimony.
"High crimes" seems like the appropriate phrase here. Could there be some kind of retroactive impeachment?
It appears that if we were to get serious about this impeachment thing, there could be a whole lot of impeaching going on.
As along as we have moved outside the strict constitutional framework, let's imagine who else we might put on the list. Perhaps we shouldn't stop with government officials. I'm a former journalist and a journalism professor, and it seems to me that maybe it's time that we started impeachment proceedings against the corporate commercial news media. We may recall that journalists were an integral part of the creation of public support for the unlawful invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These weren't idiosyncratic failures of a few rogue journalists, but rather reflections of a systemic subordination to power.
Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who served as a willing conduit for some of the most fraudulent claims the Bush administration used to build support for the Iraq war, offered this pathetic defense of her failures: "My job was not to collect information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency. My job was to tell readers of the New York Times as best as I could figure out, what people inside the governments who had very high security clearances, who were not supposed to talk to me, were saying to one another about what they thought Iraq had and did not have in the area of weapons of mass destruction."
Karen DeYoung, senior diplomatic correspondent and associate editor of the Washington Post, and also author of Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, was unusually honest in describing this process: "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said." She explained that if contrary arguments are put "in the eighth paragraph, where they're not on the front page, a lot of people don't read that far."
When reporters from two of the most authoritative newspapers in the United States concede that in the course of doing their jobs -- playing by the commonly understood rules of the game -- they will be little more than delivery systems for the propaganda of the powerful, it seems that contemporary corporate commercial journalism should be impeached for its failure to fulfill its role as a check on concentrated power.
From corporate journalism we might look at the corporate sector more broadly -- the corporations that profit from building the weapons of war, the corporations that profit from the contracts to rebuild after a war, those that provide private security, and those that win the right to exploit the resources of the subordinated societies. Lockheed Martin, Haliburton, Blackwater, ExxonMobil. Perhaps there should be corporate impeachment hearings proceedings.
Follow the logic and it's clear that no matter how much this president might deserve impeachment, he is only one person in a system that is fundamentally indefensible and unsustainable. People at many levels are culpable and complicit; there is plenty of responsibility to go around, assessed with an eye toward people's power and place in the decision-making structure, of course.
But we all have some role in this. That extends not only to the powerful but to all of us who are citizens of the United States, citizens of the empire. Many of us work hard in progressive political groups to try to make the world a more just place. But the reality is that those of us living in the empire do -- at least in the short term -- get some material benefits from that empire, from that system that gives to the First World (especially the United States) a disproportionate share of the world's resources. No matter how much we struggle, the fact is that the vast majority of people in the United States live at a level of consumption that is unsustainable. We indulge too often in our lust for the cheap toys of empire.
Have we done enough, as citizens who live in a relatively open democratic system, to change that? Have we struggled enough? Have we been self-critical enough?
I won't make a judgment about that for anyone else. But I know that, for myself, the answer is no. I have not done enough.
So, should I be impeached as a citizen of the United States who is not living up to the moral and political responsibilities that come with the unearned privilege I have by virtue of living in this society?
It's easy to target the most manifestly evil among us, those whose moral and political judgments cannot be justified by any theological or philosophical system. We should critique those people in power and hold them accountable. We should use the political tools available to us to try to create a better world.
But we also might pause and hold ourselves to the rigorous standards that are going to be necessary if we are to create a world that is consistent with our principles of justice, a world consistent with nature's demands for sustainability, a world beyond empire.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org . His latest book is Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.
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40 Comments so far
Show AllMr. Jensen,
Much of what you say is valid and important indeed.
However, we can't forget that day-to-day decisions most of us make generally affect our selfs, our family, and people we associate with, etc, whereas, the office holders (particularly those in the "white house", but big-time corporate gurus also) by definition make decisions with much more widely applicable effect (thousands, millions, even billions of people).
We all know this, and I say scale matters big time. At this moment, I think the people need to most seriously consider impeachment and then take steps accordingly.
Just my 2 cents.
Ken
One other comment: Impeachment should not only be viewed as a way to prevent more wrongs by misguided leaders, but also as a recognition that offenses have occurred against the will of the people and to the detriment of the people.
This recognition is important because it presents the real possibility of attempting to make amends and remedy the past wrongs. And, even if that is not possible, at least, the recogniztion is an acknowledgement of the wrongs and an inference that things should be better.
Impeachment is no doubt disruptive, but sometimes temporary disruptions are necessary.
All in my humble opinion,
Ken
"I've got a little list. Not one of them would be missed". -- Poobah in "The Mikado"
The ant that beholds the human being is in no position to cognitively imagine its psychology; and by analogy the human being is like that ant in seeking to fathom the Divine. JUSTICE belongs to "the Lord." I believe in karma. It is impossible to countenance so many wrong decisions being taken that are directly and indirectly responsible for so much care-less carnage and not have faith in a higher justice. The courageous among us who care about the greater good dedicate ourselves to altruistic action. And much that we attempt to do is countered by those whose sole concern is profit for self. The seer Edgar Cayce spoke at length about the fall of Atlantis and what took it down. There are striking similarities, so even if left-brain thinkers prefer to read this analogy as a cautionary tale (rather than a potential fact of mankind's history), that's fine. Cayce's work was published in the l950's and l960's when genetic engineering was more myth than actuality. He stated that many Atlanteans would reincarnate in America and bring their genetic technology with them. Whereas the Bible relates to a great flood, so does the material of Plato and he believed in Atlantis. The images of creatures that are part human and part animal according to Cayce derive from actual genetic meddling of species done by our ancient counterparts. The violation of the genetic code, itself mandated towards both a physical and parallel SPIRITUAL evolution, was one factor that turned "the elementals" against mankind. Kind of reminds me of all those bees disappearing, ones we count on to pollinate our cash crops. The second point Cayce stressed was a huge divide, a chasm that formed in society between the individuals who only cared about greed and their own immediate interests (He called them the children of Belial) and those who genuinely worked for the greater good (He called them the sons and daughters of the law of one.) I lean towards mysticism, always have, and given that time is NOT linear, our years pass in accord with the earth's revolution around the sun; our own sun is in orb around another central sun, etc. EVERYTHING circle and indeed comes full circle. We may not have made linear progress in the conceit called civilization... we may be repeating what the Atlanteans set into motion by returning their own means and divided ends. How much is fate, how much free will? NO ONE knows.
I agree, Ken. We need to impeach the whole lot of them...NOW! It's horrific to imagine the damage they can do if we leave them in office for two more years.
If the Democrats don't show any more honor, integrity or intelligence than the Repubs, Americans will start considering their options.
Maybe it is time for good third-party and independent candidates to step forward.
Take a look at:
"A much needed new path: Time for independent and third-party candidates to emerge, transcend and unite?"
PopulistAmerica.com
http://www.populistamerica.com/a_much_needed_new_path_for_2008
Great article, but I disagree that there is no evidence of treason here.
A good working definition of treason is "a crime that undermines the offender's government". One good example of this is the usage of American military power in a manner which hurts our country to benefit another--in this case, Israel, who (as reported by Seymour Hirsch) is "chomping at the bit" to attack Iran, and who wants our military there so that, presumably, they may continue their policy of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and taking their land without threat of serious reprisal.
Another good example of treason is the use of the same military to benefit oil companies, once again, against the country's best interests. There is no real question of either prong here: These military adventurisms in the Middle East do NOT benefit us, and they DO benefit the oil companies who have been able to force a grossly unfair "production-sharing agreement" down the throats of the Iraqis, and lust to do the same thing to the Iranians.
"None dare call it treason"? WHY NOT??????? The gang of thieves and criminals who have usurped the office of the Presidency are traitors, and should be treated as such.
I have to agree with alamac. Help me out here people, how is a war of aggression based on lies, the killing of over half a million innocents and the theft of "the prize" (oil) not treason? Oh yea, it was democracy they wanted to bring to Iraq...because they said so. What's it gonna take for justice to be served? This administration is playing us, and using our military to carry out their agenda. Words may dispute this, but anyone can see what's really goin' on.
I think Robert Jensen undercuts his argument somewhat by conflating our actions in Afghanistan (whose Taliban government lacked international recognition, except for a mere 3 countries) with Bush's criminal war against Iraq. Most liberals I know think that going after Al Quaida in Afghanistan was justified. If one is making an argument for impeachment, it's best to stay on point.
The war on Afghanistan was just as illegal as the one on Iraq--regardless of what "most liberals" say. AlQaeda is not a government, and the Taliban offered several times to turn bin Laden over to a neutral party--and several times Bush & Co. refused. They wanted that war as a prelude to Iraq.
AMAN, Alamac This administration is made up of tyrant's who should not only be impeached but tried as war criminal's
One can always argue that we are all guilty of something. But that truism does not in any way relieve those committing "high crimes and misdemeanors" from prosecution.
To think otherwise means we have no need for an impeachment clause at all.
The fact that Bill Clinton may have been guilty for crimes not prosecuted does not relieve Congress from their present impeachment responsibilities.
The Nation magazine ran a couple impeachment related articles in the past 4-8 weeks (sorry I can't be more specific). One of the articles made a good point in that the antiquated US system has no equivalent of a "vote of no confidence." A call for impeachment would cause the entire debate to spiral down to crass legalese and technicality (of course he's a crook -- look at all the presidential signing statements/exceptions he's seen fit to make), rather than competence as a leader. Or structural problems in our government. His administration has largely set itself up above the law of the land, creating law-free zones whenever it has the chance. One way to avoid breaking the law, for those who are powerful enough, is to simply set oneself above it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signing_statement.
I don't recall what that author concluded, but it's clear that we need some significant modernization in our form of government. Special public elections, a vote of no confidence, something. Our nation is too large, too complex, too powerful, to be run by madmen who "abide by the law" (or weasel their way above it).
Nothing prevents George W Bush and Richard B Cheney from facing the impeachment they deserve than this ill-informed comment from Robert Jensen:
"Let's start with the elected leadership of the Democratic Party, which aided and abetted the high crimes of Bush by jumping on the "war on terror" bandwagon and authorizing those illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That makes the Democratic Party leadership complicit not only in the clear violations of international law but also morally responsible for the death and destruction that has followed. Now, even with a congressional majority, the Democratic Party leadership refuses to take responsibility for its part in this debacle and is timid in proposing meaningful solutions."
Mr. Jensen is obviously not familiar with the wording of the Authorization to Use Force legislation that was voted into law in October 2002. At that time the Democratic leadership was correct to give Bush the authority to make the decision about removing potential WMD possession from Saddam Hussein and to back it up by the threat of US military force. They voted to let the Decider decide "IF" it was going to be "peaceful means or bloody conflict" to disarm Saddam Hussein of WMD. Three months later war was NOT NECESSARY because Saddam Hussein submitted to strong and intrusive UN inspections. Hussein held up his end of the bargain. Our President did not.
We all know the decider chose bloody conflict while never fully explaining why the peaceful means of UN inspections that ensued the authorization, were so abruptly ended by Bush and why the invasion instead was in our national security interest. Therefore Kerry and other Dems that voted for Bush's opportunity to be able to decide, have every right in the world to criticize Bush's decision as wrongheaded, foolhardy and such a huge mistake.
Jenson's mistake is the negligent watering down of Bush's decision to invade Iraq after he promised Kerry and other Dems that he would exhaust all peaceful means before going to war. That Bush promise is the Bushies biggest lie. If they knowingly 'Fixed the Intel' to fit a predetermined invasion strategy, sufficient to carry that lie forward, then Bush and Cheney deserve impeachment and impeachment alone.
We should not water down their crimes by throwing the ones that were lied to - into the mix.
I believe Bush fixed the intel. That is why he deserves impeachment and the loathing of the American people he knowingly snookered into war.
I, too, read the article in The Nation about our need for a "vote of confidence" in this country. I would love to see a "vote of confidence" referendum on ballots at the state level. It wouldn't have official clout, but it is the only option we have to be counted.
Following up on Jensen's media comments, one of the few hard-news sources to reject explicitly the lazy, unforgivable obedient repetition of official sources (spokesmen and anonymous for balance) is the NewStandard, http://newstandardnews.net/
And yeah, on the treason and high crimes thing, isn't trashing the Constitution treason?
In my opinion, attempts to drag in the Clinton administration or the corporate media into partial responsiblity for this Iraqi disaster seems somewhat of a cop out on Jensen's part. By nature, when the details surrounding the edvidence for a war are very sketchy or grey, average people are going to trust that their elected leaders are telling them the truth about the danger or threat to our nation's security.
Let's be honest, pro-war propaganda can be so deafening that it's very hard to weed out the facts from the fiction our government rhetorically shoves down our throat to make its case. If only for the sake of being fair, there is an element of trust that has to come from the public and Bush betrayed that trust, and him alone. Bush is the self-proclaimed "Decider", and he bares all the blame for betraying our trust and the Congress's trust, first, by "cooking the books" on the intelligence and then by disengenuously going to the UN to make everything look neat and clean for the record. Bush and his cronies needs to be held accountable for Iraq and people need to stop wimping out on his behalf.
First, impeachment for those who violated the law.
Second, repairs and reparations. Our system is dented not broken.
Third, public hangings of the traitors who led the US into a war for profit.
Spike - I think we have to have a trial before we get out the gallows.
Then, off with their heads!
No evidence of treason?
What do call squandering a nations wealth, honor and people for one's own personal and political gain? High crime for sure, but wouldn't it also be treason? If I knowingly took the power entrusted to me and use it for nefarious aim, would that not be treason? Isn't that what they have done? Osama binLaden could be sitting in the White House right now and do less damage.
We can hang it up if we don't take this to the limit. Impeachment should be the first step. After which this group of thugs should be tried at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. And it wouldn't hurt if we got on our knees and begged the world's forgiveness for being so God-damn stupid!
If we're suppose to be a nation of laws and if we allow those that are in charge of legislating and enforcing them to break the very laws they took an oath to uphold what is there left? The Constitution will be no more than what g. w. bush said it was, "... nothing but a God-damn piece of paper."
Good on you, NotfooooldbyW! You are absolutely correct about the vote in Congress that authorized W to go after Saddam Hussein.
As for you, Mr. Jensen. I suppose you hold all those people who worked at Enron responsible for the reprehensible behavior of Schilling and Kenneth Lay.
And you probably would sue all the people on a bus that hits your car, even though the driver is the only one on drugs.
You can take that comparison literally.
Jensen may be a closet Bush apologist. Just the transparent non-segue, "if we want to widen the discussion" sic "change direction" let's talk about a "retroactive impeachment" of Clinton amounts to a re-focusing way beyond crying over spilt milk. And his lack of any perspective even in hindsight causes one to wonder, "exactly what is this guy's agenda?" That every administration has had blunders and excesses of their use of power, doesn't justify this Bush/Cheney fiasco!
U know
This discussion has been awesome. If only it could be a rally call!!! If only....if only.......Tick..tock.
Ken
Jensen wastes a lot of people's time while he bravely comes out in favor of...nothing. He may think he's telling us something we don't know when he talks about shared guilt and diffuse morality in America. No matter. Our so-called president has earned impeachment on a heap of theories, and so has our so-called vice president. Never since 1792 has a chief executive (sic) deserved impeachment this much. The fact that he hasn't been impeached yet is an indicator of how far this country's national government has fallen. Its decline, however, does not detract from the advisability of impeaching these two neoplasms--even if they had a week to go in their terms of office (sic), they still would need impeaching.
I think some of you are missing the point of Jensen's speech.
Yes, the structure of our government is illegitimate, yes, the Bush administration has taken the corruption of public office and disregard for the laws of man to new and creative heights--I don't think you'd get much argument from Jensen on those points.
That acknowledged, if you look behind the scenes of our governments' addiction to murder, theft, and fraud you'll find a submissive and complacent populace enabling and empowering the criminals who occupy the highest offices in the land every time the cash register rings.
We've been killing brownish natives in the pursuit of wealth all over the world for more than a hundred years, and the only reason we started so late was that we hadn't yet finished killing the brownish natives of our own land.
Bush and Cheney? Same shit, different day.
Why do we put up with it? Well, because until recently, we reaped some real benefit from the imperial system. You didn't think our standard of living was a result of God's special love for us, did you? Whatever economic prosperity Americans have enjoyed has been, and will continue to be, the fruits of cruel and merciless empire.
The real reason that discontent is sweeping across this nation full of sleepwalkers is the loss of many of those imperial benefits. The real crime of the Bush gang, the Triangulators, and the Reaganites has been their refusal to share the wealth. An America full of men and women working good jobs with quality health care and decent schools for their children--don't forget cheap gas--would be an America ready to bomb the shit out of just about anybody, casualties be damned.
What Jensen is telling us, and which some of you seem to resent hearing, is that we're never going to successfully reform our government's behavior without reforming our own. As long as progressive Americans continue to work to politically curb imperialism without refusing the economic perks that only imperialists enjoy, we will continue to be citizens of the empire, and naked hypocrites to boot.
fomajes: Excellent comment. I particularly agree that reformation is necessary and I think we should be introspective with regard to our own behavior.
Also fomajes seems to have challenged folks (and maybe even h/self) by claiming that if we are not "refusing the economic perks that only imperialist enjoy, we will continue to be citizens of empire, and naked hypocrites to boot". Well, I posted the first comment to this article and so in the spirit of healthy discourse I have a hard time not responding to something like fomajes's "challenge" (at least that is what I'm going to call it).
I think significant changes are going to be necessary. I can say I have changed recently to try to more align my lifestyle with what I'm hoping to teach my two daughters and with what I'm trying to learn so I can do better than I have (I'm not trying to preach here, but I think it is good to stay awake and keep learning as much as possible!).
Anyhow, the money will be less, possibly much less, but I'll do the best I can to make sure basic needs are met for my family. Meanwhile, I'll have much more time for learning (I hope).
Ken
Ken, you're absolutely right about the challenge--it's a challenge for every conscientious American to take up, and my throwing down the gauntlet certainly wasn't meant to imply that it's a challenge I've overcome.
My wife and I have embraced a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity and have found it to be mostly incredibly rewarding but occasionally discouragingly difficult. We homeschool our four children and live (with our collie) in a small apartment that we've rigged up to be as efficient as possible. We choose our work with an eye towards locally sustainable economy, which obviously limits our income-producing potential severely. Still, the trade-off is worth it. We may not drive the fanciest cars or live in the poshest of neighborhoods--and there are definitely days that both look attractive--but we have been able to take turns working and staying home with the kids and we enjoy wonderful relationships with four young people who are primed to change the world with their creativity, compassion, and love.
Buying used, local, and fair trade and freecycling whatever we can are also a big part of how we're trying to transact our lives on planet Earth, and building community through local currency and barter (a la Ithaca Hours and BerkShares) is in my sights for the future.
Like you, Ken, I'm not preaching, just trying to give a little shape to how one family is trying to break the chains of a "market" economy.
The solution is evolution, and the evolution of Western society is already well underway--but that's no reason to not throw our full weight behind the wheel to push it along as fast as we can.
Good luck to you, Ken, and to all fellow drivers of evolutionary change!
Yammer, yammer, yammer. Some of you people are either voluntarily moronic or plants for the CFR. We can impeach Bush and Cheney without having hands as clean as Gandhi's. We're under no obligation to embrace poverty before we impeach these creatures. See, impeaching them is only a halfway measure because their string-pullers will remain at large, but it is a totally appropriate measure. You geniuses who claim we're unworthy to resort to impeachment are quite silly and don't rate serious treatment. There are plenty of things to agonize and nit-pick over without settling on this.
Riiigggghhht.
Impeaching Bush and Cheney will end all of our troubles.
I forgot.
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno, Fomajes, impeachment won't do that. On the other hand, even just pushing hard for impeachment may be useful in dissuading the outlaw administration from attacking Iran. Or had you forgotten about Iran because you're too damned busy being enlightened and evolved? You are free to connect up with the real world any time.
Iraq, Iran, whatever. Bosnia, Panama, Vietnam.
World geography has always been my strong suit.
You're not going to prevent America from destroying and enslaving nations that accidentally possess some resource or another that our captains of industry covet until you stop buying the products that those resources and those industries produce.
Maybe that sounds impractically enlightened to you, but that's the plain and simple truth.
The votes that you make with your dollars are the only votes being counted anymore. They may be the only votes that were *ever* counted.
If you're still thinking that replacing this presidential team with another is going to make any meaningful difference, you haven't been paying attention to over 200 years of American history.
It's not too late...
Dear Fomajes,
Stop trying to bowl me over with your qualifications. I may be substantially more qualified than you.
I continue to maintain that impeachment is appropriate here, regardless of how effective it may prove to be. The weaknesses in the American political system makes it possible to shoehorn people like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush into positions of high responsibility. We nonetheless are obliged to correct the most grievous consequences by means of impeachment. This occurred in 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned rather than stand trial. Bush and Cheney are far worse than Nixon ever dreamed of being. For the life of me, I can't see why you are so opposed to cleaning the kitchen and taking out the garbage. Don't you have any self-respect? Would you invite people over for dinner with your house in such a horrid state?
Hmmmmmm: maybe you would.
Forgive me.
By all means, spend your time seeking impeachment.
Just please don't stop there.
Dear Fomajes,
You may not think to check this thread or whatchamacallit again, but in the event you do...
I agree fully with you when you say we of America need to rethink and reprogram our lives and ways of doing things. I myself am in the process of doing it. But you and others like you must realize that some of us are incapable of the extremes in lifestyle adjustments that you are. We do what we can. For me it's been using compact fluorescents, and refusing to buy an SUV, and recycling assiduously. I have health maintenance problems that make it impossible for me to live on locally-produced foods, or to live in a rural setting. I may try to generate some of my own electricity. I am totally opposed to biofuels that subtract from the world's food supply. I limit my car driving, altho I'm not in a position to give up cars entirely. If public transit is re-established and made a serious concern again, maybe I will give up cars.
But if the US attacks Iran, we may all have to make some major adjustments fast. The US economy is walking on banana peels, and attacking Iran would be another distraction -- also one more demonstration of US military power to scare the shit out of the rest of the world: Take our dissolving dollars and let us keep piling up debts and deficits. But the whole flimsy thing may be about to collapse. I'd rather not see it collapse because of more, wider, increasingly brutal warfare. This is why pressure on Bush and Cheney at home, as in the form of impeachment campaigns, is needed. They must not think that it's OK with Americans to set fire to the whole fucking Middle East.
You know, this is what I say.
Here I am in a small neighborhood trying to mind my own business. Trying to lower my impact so that I can better fit in with the surrounding ecology.
But now I find out today (4/13) that a developer wants to come into my neighborhood and build townhomes. Hey, build the homes -- I have no problem with this. What I have a problem with is that it was not communicated to me, and so now, here I am finding out presumably after the fact.
Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe I just heard a rumor. I hope so because if someone wants to come into my neighborhood and do something disruptive like build townhomes in a single family residential neighborhood, don't you think they should discuss this with all of the people in the neighborhood first and foremost? I do.
Well, whether they want to or not, they will be communicating if I have anything to say, do, or sense about it. You know what I mean?
Ken
Somewhere between 650 thousand and 1 million Iraqis of all ages and of both genders, have been killed since the US invasion. Multiply that number by about 10 to get a conservative estimate of the number of people crippled for life. The bastards in the Bush regime and both party's of congress are all guilty of crimes against humanity. They either made it happen, or permitted it to happen.
If causing that much needless suffering is "legal" , then the legal system is rotten to the core.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote up Articles of impeachment for the Bush regime years ago. http://impeachbush.org
Also, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (the wisest/sanest candidate for president) is working on pressing for impeachment too: http://kucinich.us/
Go Dennis!
OK,
I know no one's probably checking in in the message thread anymore, so yeah, I'm kind of talking to myself, but sometimes in helps to put the ideas out, so to speak.
Anyhow, it occurs to me today: "Older folks, (you know the ones who fought the "big one", WWII), they have sensed WAR. They lived it every day, and in their minds, they did it to get where we are now." (God bless them, so to speak.)
Well, here we are, and U know what? I bet some of them older folks are starting to recognize that all the things they fought for are now in jeopardy. I sure hope SO.
Because I think if any impeaching is going to happen, it is going to have to start in earnest from the old folks.
COME ON PEOPLE. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222
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OK 2,
So my mom tells me she talked with some of her friends about impeachment. No one seemed interested in pursuing this. They are thinking: Lets just wait it out.
My concern is then as far as the rest of the world "sees" it, the USA really doesn't care, and so, why would they ever think the USA is ever going to care. I could understand this way of thinking. That is why I think impeachment needs to be pursued -- lets have a fair hearing with everything out in the open, and then let the people decide.
Ken
The thing to remember is that Bush/Cheney are NOT the legitimate office holders they claim to be. They stole 2 elections, and we all know it. High crimes and felonies started before they ever took the oath of office.
Everything they've done since the first Wednesday in November, 2000 threatens to expose us as a nation of greedy, scared, hypocrites. And, if we leave them in office after this Alberto Gonzales fiasco, on top of everything else we know took place on thier watch, we may as well own up to it. It's time to impeach them and turn them and their cronies over to an international war crimes tribunal at Nuremburg. And take another look at the 9/11 episode. That hole in the pentagon wall looks awfully small unless a model 757 made it.
Here is what I say.
In my opinion, Mr. Cheney has committed impeachable offenses. So lets go. Impeach him. This is a start towards remedy. We need remedy.
Ken