New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey is easily the most dogged critic of Vice President Dick Cheney in the House of Representatives, and Hinchey has not exactly been soft on President Bush. So it comes as no surprise that Hinchey, a passionate progressive who stood up to the Bush administration when most of the Democratic candidates to replace Bush were cowering in corners of the Capitol, is preparing to introduce House versions of Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold’s proposals to formally condemn the Bush administration “for falsifying its justification to attack Iraq, mismanaging the subsequent military occupation, and egregiously abusing the Constitution.”
Hinchey is working with Feingold to develop language for censure resolutions that the ardent critics of the administration hope will quickly attract broad support after their introduction next week.
The first resolution from Feingold and Hinchey is expected to cite Bush and Cheney for making intentionally false statements about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and for misleading Congress and the public into believing Saddam Hussein had ties to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. In addition, it will score the president and vice president for failing to plan for the occupation of Iraq, distorting the reality on the ground as it deteriorated, and overstretching the military in order to maintain the administration’s mad mission in Iraq.
The second resolution is expected to suggest that Bush, Cheney and other senior administration officials have blatantly disregarded the rule of law. It will focus on the administration’s illegal NSA warrantless surveillance program, its extreme policies on torture, the abusive use of presidential signing statements, the politically-motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys and the failure of the administration to cooperate with congressional inquiries.
“The American people have reached a breaking point with this administration and they are demanding that Congress step up and hold the president, vice president, and others in the executive branch responsible for their actions,” says Hinchey, who has been sounding the alarm about Cheney’s wrongdoing for years. “While President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to operate as if they are leaders of a monarchy, Congress should censure them and make it clear to this and future generations that their actions are entirely unacceptable. If Congress does not act to formally admonish this White House then the future of our democracy will be placed on a slippery slope in which other presidents may point to the actions of this administration as justification for further abuses of the Constitution. Congress cannot allow such abuses of power and law, which is why Senator Feingold and I will soon introduce these censure resolutions.”
Feingold, who first proposed censuring Bush more than a year ago, has struggled to gain support from fellow Democrats in the Senate for any kind of demand for presidential accountability. So he was clearly delighted by the willingness of Hinchey to step up as an ally in the House.
“Congressman Hinchey has been a strong voice in opposition to the President’s policies in Iraq and in defense of the Constitution,” says Feingold. “I thank Congressman Hinchey for his willingness to stand up to this administration for its misleading statements leading up to and during our military involvement in Iraq, as well as its attack on the rule of law. I am working with Congressman Hinchey and others in crafting these censure resolutions condemning the damaging actions of this administration. Censure is about holding the administration accountable. Congress must be on the record repudiating the administration’s misconduct, both for the American people, and for history.”
The censure resolutions carry no formal penalty. Unmentioned in the Constitution or in the procedural rules of the House or Senate, a censure vote would not even have the authority to compel the president or vice president to respond to Congress. Yet, a rare rebuke from one or both houses of Congress would put Bush and Cheney on notice that they must either change their approaches in the final 18 months of their tenure or face an even stronger push for their impeachment and removal from office.
An honest review of the records of Bush and Cheney leaves little doubt that impeachment is warranted, and 14 members of the House have now signed on as cosponsors of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to impeach Cheney. But for a Congress that has shown little taste for the serious work of upholding the Constitution, the censure resolutions offer what Feingold refers to as “moderate” response to administration wrongdoing.
Censure of Bush, Cheney and their underlings by the House or Senate would be meaningful. It would confirm that America has reached a too-long delayed “accountability moment.” And, assuming that Bush and Cheney continue to respond to any congressional challenge like belligerent school boys rather than sworn defenders of the republic, it is highly unlikely that a renewed push to censure Bush and Cheney will undermine the burgeoning grassroots campaign for impeachment. Only if Bush and Cheney were to acknowledge their wrongs, change their policies and finish their terms as the model officials they have never been would a censure drive push impeachment off the table.
Demands for censure and impeachment ought to be seen as complimentary. They are both expressions of the desire of enlightened members of the legislative branch to begin holding errant executives to account.
Hinchey is right when he says that, “History must show that Congress stood up to this administration and formally condemned it.”
Ultimately, history may ask less of Congress than the American people. The people are already expressing a desire for more than a formal condemnation of Bush and Cheney. Fifty-four percent, according to a recent American Research Group poll, want the vice president impeached. Support for impeaching the president hovers just below 50 — and the anti-Bush, anti-Cheney numbers have been rising, rapidly, in recent months.
But a formal condemnation, in the form of censure resolutions, ought not be dismissed as a compromise or a deviation from the one true path of impeachment. Getting members of the House and Senate to sign on for censuring Bush and Cheney forces them to start thinking about the administration’s lawlessness, it gets them on the record for accountability and it narrows the gap for the leap to impeach.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’”
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
Just respect the majority’s desire to impeach!
“our democracy will be placed on a slippery slope in which other presidents may point to the actions of this administration as justification for further abuses of the Constitution.”
I’ve been saying this for a LONG time.
Censure? Far too little, far too late.
Cheney and Bush simply don’t care what anyone says. The Project for the New American Century is rolling full steam ahead. What’s going to stop it?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6134
Just as it would be gratifying to see Dick & Bush impeached, it would be somewhat troublesome to live under Martial Law. The chances of them saying “Oooops, sorry America”, and offering their wrists to the cuffs of the arresting officers seem pretty remote to me. Surely, it can be assumed that they have prepared a contingency plan for such a situation (possible impeachment proceedings) and any joy in seeing them legaly confronted with the consequences of their misrule might have to be tempered with the consequences of whatever measures the take to protect themselves.
18 months is a long time to wait (and who knows what further damage they will do in that time), but either the preparation for impeachment proceedings is done with care for the danger that these people pose or else it might be a better bet to endure their term to the bitter end and then rebuild what they wrecked as they fade into the murk of history.
Yankee Doodles - I entered this before on another thread in answer to your post - so here it is again.
I agree. It’s usually the case that the only choices are between the best available and the worse. Refusing anything less than the perfect is ridiculous - there’s no such thing as perfect, it’s only a dream, an ideal. But it’s still the enemy of the good. Lots of people on this blog seem to want only the perfect, but the Dems are probably the best we’re realistically going to get, and although they’re not perfect, they’re as good as we can get. And they’re not Republicans either. The Republicans are much worse.
As we say in Texas “git a rope and hang the bastards”. Hang Connecticut yankees twice.
QUOTE FROM JOHN NICHOLS:
Yet, a rare rebuke from one or both houses of Congress would put Bush and Cheney on notice that they must either change their approaches in the final 18 months of their tenure…
END QUOTE
Bush and Cheney couldn’t give a damn about some rare rebuke. They would just flip it off.
No one wants to talk about this, including John Nichols…
But what signs has John Nichols (or any of you) seen that would make him or you think that Bush and Cheney plan to leave in 2009?
Bush uses “The Decider” and “My government” language in his speeches.
Does that sound like someone who plans to leave to you?
Also, why would they put a dictatorship in place and then leave? Does that make any sense to anyone?
Frankly, I don’t see them going anywhere at any time.
Instead another inside 9-11 type job, declare martial law, cancel the election and Bush/Cheney announce:
“For reasons of national security and because we do not feel it is proper to change ‘leadership’ at this time we will remain in power in the White House.” (or something to that effect). HOT!
And the enabling Congress led by Republicrat Nancy Pelosi stands up and cheers them.
Think it can’t happen? Put NOTHING past these people, considering all they have done since 2000 and what they did to get into the White House in the first place.
erma: I’m not worried about their actions so much as America’s inactions.
Tragically, all of you seem to miss or deliberately avoid the obvious, although Bladerunner is assuredly, to my mind and tactical/strategic knowledge,
on the right track:
The American peoples, through their own “elected” representatives, are guilty of the wrongful deaths, rape, dismemberment, torture, poisoning of the innocent peoples of Iraq as well as the willful and deliberate destruction of the infratructures of that sovereign state.
No one is FORCING your sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, to serve criminal interests. They are doing this of their own volition due to their own abject ignorance as citizens or their own abject cowardice in the face of the enemy of the people, extant law, and the “nation” it represents.
Period.
There is no debate for there is no gainsaying the truth;
all talk of “censure” or “impeachment” is mere window dressing in order to suage your entirely guilty as well as criminally cowardly souls from the facts of your criminal existence as parasites of the planet, at any cost to others.
The so called “cabinet” of your rogue state regime (by UN definition) as well as every single member of your bogus “Congress” of paid lackies to corporate criminal enterprise who voted to afflict the innocent in order to protect the material and profit interests of their constituency (no, I do not mean you the citizen), are guilty of the prima facie facts that the stated crimes above truly are.
The ONLY legitimate, honest course of action by a society of citizens is:
1. the immediate capture, inarceration, trial, and rendering of justice upon the heads of those who will be convicted by the facts.
2. the immediate cessation of all hostile acts of any nature by the rogue regimes mercenary forces.
3. the immediate retraction of all mercenary forces from Iraq.
4. the immediate delivery of a constant flow of supplies and necessities for the survival and rehabilitation of the peoples of Iraq and the continuation of same until such time as the Iraqi peoples have been, according to themselves (those living OUTSIDE the “Green” Zone) recompensed for the Hitlerite wrongs commited against them.
5. the immediate cessation of ALL forms of aid to the rogue state “Israel” until such time as that colonially installed anathema to equality and justice returns the rights and properties of the innocent Palestinian Arabic Semites in their entirety.
6. the immediate demand for full access inspections of their WMD´s in order to force that nation into compliance with UN statutes or face…..sanctions. Because, because, it is worth it.
7. the immediate supports given for a free and fair national election to be held within one year in Iraq and monitored/marshalled exclusively by acceptable UN monitors in order to ensure that the Iraqi peoples are able to hold such without the criminal influence of foreign interests.
In closing, anyone claiming to be an American citizen who still attempts to pretend that they believe that a “Congress” that has to date not once fulfilled it´s mandate from the people with regard to the ongoing crimes against humanity, not to mention the so called “Constitution” (what, precisely, is this document now worth?) will enact measures against one of their own because they have a sense of honesty and justice is either an abject fool or a criminal liar.
Bush is nothing more than another illiterate errand boy from Texas, doing the bidding of his daddy´s corporate masters. Removing the clown will not stop the circus.
W.hole E.arth E.quality P.arty…coming sooner than you think to a criminal near you.
Heads up all, Yankee Doodles is a Republican disguised as a Democrat trying to confuse everyone.
John Nichols
“Only if Bush and Cheney were to acknowledge their wrongs, change their policies and finish their terms as the model officials they have never been would a censure drive push impeachment off the table.”
Sorry but wrong. Nothing should push impeachment “off the table”, and the problem with censure is that it would be used to try to do so whether or not Bush and Cheney became model officials.
It’s like saying a serial killer should be rewarded with a strong reprimand and parole if he agrees to become a model citizen. That doesn’t answer the question of justice for those he killed. Just as censure doesn’t answer the question of justice for the 3,700 Americans nor the 650,000 Iraqis that have died, nor all of the other egregious violations of the Constitution and international law due to the illegal actions of Bush and Cheney
Lobo Gris
Bladerunner:
We’re on board. National Strike now a repeating subject on the Unknown-Arts blog
–Moses
www.unknown-arts.org/politics
Fruity ‘n Peachy July 30th, 2007 4:51 am
QUOTE:
both sides can be right about their various views as well.
END QUOTE
What? Surely you didn’t mean to make this “middle of the road moderate” fence-sitting, don’t offend anyone type of mealy-mouthed statement. To me, that sounds like a statement that some spineless jellyfish Bill Clinton (always trying to please both “sides”) type Dem in congress would say.
For example, if “one side” says that the useless Dems are not Bush-Enablers/Repugs and the other side says they are and then gives some examples by showing the Dems’ “YES” votes for Bush since 2000 according to you both sides are somehow correct?
That’s nonsense. Both sides are not right.
“We” who post here can only go on what someone says here and I personally call it as I see it based on what they say here. I would do the same thing in person.
Some people will call him/herself a “progressive” (and people can call themselves anything these days) but that doesn’t mean they are a “progressive” any more than Hillary is the “progressive” she lied and claimed to be at that last debate.
Personally, I just tell it as I see it and if you don’t like reading certain things in posts then scroll past those posts. No one is required to read anything on here.
“The censure resolutions carry no formal penalty.”
Then they are hardly an adequate response to a Constitutional crisis, hm?
For decades, the Democratic leadership has been afraid to be outflanked on the right. Harry Truman and Dean Acheson thought they could be even more anti-communist than the red-hunters, but loyalty oaths didn’t help Truman, any more than jumping into Korea helped him avert the charge that the Democrats had “lost China”. Despite that, LBJ did the same thing, but there was an articulate and organized left that had grown up in the previous decade to combat him. Bill Clinton’s main lesson from his antiwar & post-Vietnam political career was that you have to have some military action constantly going on, or you won’t be elected, re-elected, or funded.
I think the Beast is just trying to scare the Dems back into line, because neither Bush nor Cheney has the courage to commit their crimes overtly. If they wanted to declare martial law, they’d've done it when they still had a majority of the people on their side. Mere censures rae too late, but they reached their high tide even before the stolen ‘election’ of 2004. They are bluffing, and only impeachment will demonstrate to the world that Bush & Cheney are out of cards to play.
Beowulf July 30th, 2007 2:09 am ——
incredible post! the actions you outline are to my mind the only way to make amends for this ongoing catastrophe.
There is a response to Bush Cheney wrondoings, lies, disinformation, corruption that is in the Constitution. It is called impeachment. I don’t think there should be compromise on this. If ever an administration needed to be REMOVED, it is this one. I don’t understand what censure would accomplish beyond proving once again that the Dims are basically sell-outs, weak if not powerless, and willing to compromise, even when that is least appropriate.
High Crimes? Misdemeanors?
What will we do, what will we do? D-oh!
A bandaid.
Compared to why Clinton was impeached, isn’t this outrageous that it is given a pass when more of the population supports impeaching Bush than ever pushed for Clinton?
Congress needs the boot too.
What Balderdash Yankee Doodle the Repigs undid the New Deal in about 100 days with the contract on America so Congressional action is possible as shown by the bad guys. The Dims could defend the Constitution, impeach Bush and Cheney, stop the war, give us national health care, give us a living wage, and work towards sustainable energy if they wanted to by working the media to gain popular support, filibusters, proposing legislation and debating it and re-proposing legislation until it passed, etc. The Dims are lame on purpose on behalf of their corporate masters (err contributers to their campaigns).
As I saw insightfully here yesterday Dims=Bush’s enablers period, end of story. If they weren’t they’d be trying harder.
Bladerunner;
You’re on top of it, to be sure. I have seen your posts for many days now, even your asking people on a particular thread what they thought about it, with no responses that I saw (of course people will participate without responding to the post). Well, happily, there are a few responses here. I must say, your idea is the best and most practical suggestion I have seen for what would be a truly powerful wake up call to the powers that be. It would also be an equally powerful wake up call to the American people and people everywhere, however different in nature, as we would all be so energized and empowered by it, it would be beyond words. What a change it would bring about!
To everyone else I say; if you do not participate in Red White and Blue Flu day on Sept 10 and 11, you will be proving that you are just talkers and therefore just as much to blame as Bush and Cheney themselves. Silence and non-action are complicity. Bush said to Americans citizens and to the world; Your are either for us or against us. What’s it gonna be everyone? Are you just talkers and thereby ‘with Bush’ or not? The strike WILL WORK. It will. So if you don’t do it, for ANY reason, you are just part of the problem.
Sept 10 and 11th National Strike!!! It will work, believe it!
I think that we the people need to put pressure on our representatives to take up HR 333, it is a start. To this end I have written to my representative urging that he add his support to this bill, and I have written to my local papers but I would like to do more. I would like very much to try to organize others in my district to pressure our representative, but I am at a loss of how to do so efficiently and effectively. Can anyone point me to any organizations that are providing support for the type of grass roots action?
Censure falls into the colonizers great talents of delay and obfuscation, thus
I agree, Beowulf’s is a good post, and I agree “talk” of impeachment is mere “window dressing”, HOWEVER…
action: demonstrations, teach-ins, petitioning Congress in the name of impeachment is the way to amend our “cowardly souls” and usher in Beowulf’s steps 2-7.
As the People’s military has been usurped by the Transnational colonizers the People’s power rests in what remains of the Constitution, the structure of US Government and their vast majority of numbers along with morality and justice - what other power source is there to remove the occupants of the White House?
The vast majority of numbers is being organized into resistance in the name of impeachment (as a stepping stone to steps 2-7),resistance to be heightened and carried out:
Sept. 10-11 by the Red, White and Blue Flu movement, and
by the Encampment and March Sept. 22-29 in DC:
http://mecawi.org/Sept.%2029%20Call.html
and by the continuing awakening from our cowardly souls to the manifestation of the humanly glory that is and can be…
grit teeth, breath, smile, call to impeach, repeat…peace be with you…enjoy the dance.
“An honest review of the records of Bush and Cheney leaves little doubt that impeachment is warranted, and 14 members of the House have now signed on as cosponsors of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to impeach Cheney. But for a Congress that has shown little taste for the serious work of upholding the Constitution, the censure resolutions offer what Feingold refers to as “moderate” response to administration wrongdoing.
“Censure of Bush, Cheney and their underlings by the House or Senate would be meaningful. It would confirm that America has reached a too-long delayed ‘accountability moment.’”
This piece by Nichols is the definition of “tortured reasoning” at its worst. (Moderately, of course.) How sick and deluded has our commentator class become, even so-called progressives, that they bother with this kind of noise? We don’t need an “accountability moment.” We desperately need substantive change.
IMPEACHMENT NOW, while we still have at least a bit of a chance.
claudius, you mean Yankee Doodles is Hillary Clinton?
I will be participating in the Red/white/blue flu. I will not fill up my car prior, because for those 2 days I will only go places I can walk. I would like to add to this and suggest we do it every month. It takes a while for people to become informed of something like this and many will be unaware in Sept. but would have particpated if they knew. This doesnt seem to be ending any time soon and I hate to think nothing much will have changed by “the holidays” but I think this not buying would be most noticeable at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Wouldn’t it be great if all who wish them impeached, would forego Christmas buying this year?
And if everyone that wants impeachment would wear orange on Fridays. Imagine 54% (way more I am sure) of the people on Fridays in orange. It would make a statement.
I support HR 333 100% but I would go for censure as a start! Step 1.
Dennis Kucinich 2008, 2012
Talking about the flu…
I have experienced three of them in three different countries…it’s a sight to behold.
These are poor countries with nasty armies, with no adhesion to order—on an ordinary day the experience mostly is how things don’t work…and yet I have seen the word travel, without benefit of internet, that on a specific day, there will be NOTHING done…the business sector becomes absolutely paralyzed. There are no taxis—the banks can’t open, telephones don’t work, kids don’t go to school, even the airports are shut down. It is totally awesome. Everyone is prepared for no water, no electricity. Hospitals and fire companies work with skeleton crews, A couple of years ago, in protest against a Spanish corporation that has been given a franchise over vehicle inspection…more than a thousand commercial vehicles were driven to the main road in the capital and parked, and left empty—no traffic could move… as soon as one car was towed off another would be left. I have looked on in amazement, always thinking that this sort of thing could not happen in the United States…and I have wondered why, and have come to the conclusion that there are too many of us over-conditioned to follow the rules, and meet expectations. Latins, you see, don’t see “authority” as father figures, or as the voice of god. The down side of course is that on ordinary days no rules are followed at all…what moves you through any process is your human connections—not the steps of a preconceived process.
Gringo ideas of order and process only lead to great frustration: anybody absolutely anybody can be a Conyers—from a clerk right on up. Your file CAN get “lost “. In contrast, if there is a sign, or a process in the States—we will follow it—we follow our systems and life is “orderly”, we like rules and we internalized them and we are absolutely helpless when someone steps outside of them and breaks the agreement, or changes the game.
An example, at an anti-war rally in D.C.—protestors where being gathered up and put in buses, apparently most of the protestors having been put on the buses immediately considered themselves “out of the game” and sat meekly in the buses and stared stunned and disapprovingly at two who just got off the bus and went back to the demonstration—there was no one to stop them at the back door of the bus…there are unconscious rules even for protesting…
One person, Conyers can stop an initiative, by the rules of custom. Cindy Sheehan presents him with a million signatures and gets arrested. It is an example of two instances of the “power of the individual” and two games… and Conyers has the lead…where the energy has to go is to Detroit—not a nationwide red blue flu—a red blue flu in Detroit—the power of the government, of Conyers (which he can, by proxy, wield by arresting Cindy and the others) comes from Where? Ah, Detroit home of unions and disenfranchised voters…home of the car…flu might travel really fast there. How do people in Detroit poll on the “I “ word? That and other “I” words, like imagination, inspiration, irreverence… what a heady brew? Pelosi? She is not listening to her voters… Imagine tables everywhere in the streets in her city… oh please arrest my table…imagine soooooo many tables with absolutely nothing on them…
asker;
great post, absolutely great. everyone should read it again - carefully.
while i wouldn’t put it past the bush/cheney regime to do anything to keep power, I think that history should have that footnote of, at least, censure to tell future generations that this was a rogue administration that took over America for awhile. God save America from the Republican lie machine. Scratch a liar and you have a thief is how the saying goes…
erma July 30th, 2007 12:52 am
Your assesment of the situation is most correct. There will be no election in 08.
Back in June when I suggested a massive march on DC along with a national strike, most people ignored me or said I was nuts.
Now, when it’s too late, I see this idea of “red, white and blue flu cropping up. I see people calling for 3 million to march on DC and shut it down.
It probably wouldn’t have worked back in June or July either. But now, with the latest of the kings’ royal decrees in place (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6134) these actions would merely save the neocons the trouble of fabricating another false flag “terrorist attack” in order to declare martial law. All that’s required is a “catastrophic emergency”. Guess who gets to decide what qualifies as catastrophic?
non_sequitur@q.com
I am concerned over the hyperbole of a post. The reason being that if you are not one of the players, why should you tell others what to do? It is the old adage about sportwriters, they can’t play but know how everyone else should, and sportswriters take no risk. I say this in relation to a post on this thread which I think is 90% right on.
Beowulf writes:
“The so called “cabinet” of your rogue state regime (by UN definition) as well as every single member of your bogus “Congress” of paid lackies to corporate criminal enterprise…”
The use of the word “your”, no matter how legitimate his/her arguments are, separates him/her from the community. As an American, even if s/he voted for someone else, but still holds American citizenship, the correct adverbs are: “we”, “us”, “our”, “mine”. Beowulf, these are hard adverbs to own up to and to use when what you have been brought up to believe in, trust and have confidence in, continually disappoints, and angers you. In fact, they give you “cred”, and avoid misconceptions. After all CommonDreams is a world wide place, and anyone from anywhere can speak here.
Saying this and generally agreeing with your arguments and position, I for one would like to know that even in your disagreement with the United States and our “leaders?”, you are an American citizen and therefore will have to share in the responsibility of the position you are advocating our country.
Don’t give anyone pause to doubt your cred by using the hyperbole and misusing your adverbs. Keep on posting, you touch truths.
The above article, like virtually all non-trivial subjects these days, immediately points to the larger question: are the Democrats really capable of defending the Constitution against the Republican gangsters?
Though Nichols & The Nation are once again fanning hopes here, due reflection on the question shows that the Dems are unquestionably incapable of this. They’re organically incapable of serious opposition, because they’re joined at the hip with the Republicans. The best they could possibly manage would be shallow & inadequate gestures. “Censure” would be such a gesture, & it will be surprising if they even manage that.
If one traces the series of crises in American politics from Nixon to Iran-Contra, to the Bill Clinton impeachment, to the stolen 2000 election, to the complete peeling away of the democratic facade under Bush, one sees a “graph” of the political system. The graph illustrates a steady decline in the system’s ability to respond in accountable fashion to assaults on constitutional principles.
In 1974, the system was still somewhat healthy. It managed to remove Nixon from office, though his worst crimes were not part of the indictment against him, & though his successor outrageously cut a deal to pardon him. This was the “best” the system could do. In every subsequent crisis, the Democrats became more & more enfeebled, to the point where they rolled over on their backs with scarcely a whimper for a coup d’etat in 2000. Since that time, they’ve offered precisely zero opposition to dozens of Republican (or more properly, “bipartisan”) crimes.
For those who wish to see the situation as it really is, Principle Number One is the recognition that the Democrats are not in any honest sense an “opposition.” One must be intellectually vigilant against efforts of Dem Party apologists of various stripes to divert attention from this basic truth. This is a party that was barely able to depose Nixon (who, though a criminal, was a sweet angel compared to Cheney), and since that time has become utterly crippled & useless as an opposition force. Today, disgusting cowards like Reid & Pelosi are actually defending the likes of Bush & Cheney from impeachment!! The only “enemies” the Democrats have the guts to go after are the Cindy Sheehans! What a record! The Dems fund the war, protect Bush & Cheney, and crack down on Cindy Sheehan!
If we want to preserve hope for constitutional democracy in the US, impeachment is absolutely essential. One of the great positives of an organized general strike demanding impeachment would be that it’s non-violent civil disobedience outside the framework of the corrupt & irretrievably broken 2-party system. People must face the reality that trusting the Democrats to “do the right thing” is a guarantee of bitter disappointment.
As scary as the thought is, NonSequiter is correct.
Let’s say that the American people do wake up and come to DC on Sept 29th. OK, maybe only 1,000,000.
If you’ve been to DC, you know that the best way to get to the Mall will be the DC Metro, if you don’t have a bus. I mean who’s to say that Cheney/Blackwater/Howdy Doody, wouldn’t pull a Tokyo on the DC Metro.
The odds of finding out who did it, even if the deck wasn’t stacked would be rediculously high.
Since we seem to agree that nothing is beyond the ken of this administration and that truth is fiction and fiction is truth, and the hands of the media are ties to the apron strings of the admisnitration why not
Here’s Howdy Doody’s upcoming broadcast from Camp David at 9:00 pm September 29:
“Today, when so many of your fellow Americans came to Washington to exercise their rights as American citizens to express there views about the war, and the adminstration, the very rights that we have sacrificed over 4,000 sodliers to, to give other countries, the cowrdly acts of terrorists did not spare them as thousands were killed by Al Quaida and their allies in the Washington Metro today.”
“I may not have agreed with what the demonstartors came to do and say, but I say that the actions taken by our enemies, the terrorists, show without doubt that they do not care who they kill and main. The enemies of freedom do not understand how we in the United States can allow such massive demonstrations in our capitol. I am sure, the terrorists would not allow them in their capitals.”
“Many of the demonstrators, I’m sure, think that Cheney’s administration is doing the wrong thing, fighting the worng battle and not doing enough to maintain our way of life. The action today shows that we of the Cheney Administration are right, we are correct, we do know better and therefore will continue to pursue our policy.”
“To those of you who chose not to come to Washington today, take heart. Your Vice-President and I hear your silence, we know that your are behind us, and while you share my grief because of the incident in the DC Metro, your unwavering faith in our current course give me the confidence to go on.”
“To the parents, friends and relatives of the dead and injuried in today’s incident, I grieve with you. Those you knew and loved were betrayed by an enemy. As in the past, I guarantee to you that I will hunt down and find and kill those responsible for this reprehensible act, no matter they may be hiding.”
“Even now, we have contained, in RFK Stadium, known Al Qaida and terrorist syumpathizers that were among the demonstration today. Please know that in the coming days, justice will win out.”
“Thank you and goodnight, and may God bless me…uhh..the United States”
Fear is a horrible thing: FDR was right. Those of us who are going to DC on 9/29 can scare ourselves, and the fact that we can even contemplate such outrageous actions…well this isn;t the USA I was brought up in.
fatfreddyscat
http://www.worldcantwait.net/
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=702&Itemid=209
History will regard some as heroes and others complicit.
come on you people…impeach or strike!…the world would love you for it!
After six and a half years we hear from the Democrats? The party that rolled over on fraudulent elections. The party who joined in the passing of the “Patriot Act” The party who said nothing on the attack on Iraq,or the disgrace that is Guantanamo,or Abu Grahib. The party that sat happily while Bush and Cheney did all they could to stop and then hinder the 9/11 iinvestigations. The party that ignored the yellowcake/Plame/Wilson affair. The party that continues to ignore the use of napalm and phosphorus bombs by US forces. The party that has done nothing to shorten tours of duty for the military.
The idea of having an “opposition” sitting in the house is to provide alternate views or policies.
These elected officials have done neither. They are supposed to represent their constituents. They haven’t. They are supposed to hold the government and president to the constitution. They haven’t.
Now with the next election looming and polls saying that Americans want impeachment this is what the democrats get up and bleat about. It rings a bit hollow.
If they do not impeach and criminally charge the president/vice-president they are effectively saying that they do not recognise the constitution. That they do not recognise the will of the people. That they are - by any standard - not fit to govern.
If they do impeach and charge the administration, that should not give them a free pass to the white house. One gesture cannot undo the wilful neglect that these “representatives” have been guilty of during all these years. I am delighted that Ms. Sheehan has decided to challenge Ms Pelosi for her failure to act, I hope that more Americans will do the same with their “representatives”
Finally, if you should be discussing this administrations incompetence with anyone who tries to tell you that “nobody can tell what is actually going on in Iraq”, or that “it’s those evil terrorists that are delaying the reconstruction”, ask them to imagine a perfect scenario. Where the most powerful government in the world only had one city to return to normality. Not in a politically difficult part of the world, nor a city that is hard to get to, a city with a common language and culture. A city served not only by secure airports, but highways that were safe to travel. How hard could that be?
And how hard would the democrats work to ensure that the administration did all that was possible? Ask the residents - and former residents - of New Orleans.
There are several points to consider carefully…PRIOR…. to initiating concrete steps regarding 910/11:
1. Those perceived/invented to be the “organizers” will most assuredly be arrested, incarcerated, possibly disappeared w/o trace, and “charged” with any number of “offenses” against the “security” of the state… because the regime will be forced to take steps against any action that willfully and deliberately challenges the rule of corporate tyranny posed as “the will of the people”.
–see to it that leads are set to….members of the enemy establishment!
–see to it that leads are set to….bogus operations!
– see to it that an inordinate amount of … bogus information…is developed and “grown” in size as the time approaches, all across the nation.
(See how that works? Is he here, is he there, they seek him here, they seek him there,…that darned Scarlet Pimpernel…
–see to it that the enemy is led to see itself forced to enact…measures…that will prove to be unfounded by events (or non-events) as the local case may be!
2. The corporate representative will see to it that the event is offset by deliberate acts of violence conducted by in all likelihood wage-slave spooks for hire, again, for obvious reasons.
– see to it that the peoples own guards are present precisely in order to capture, alive, those agents of the enemy while in the act, etc.!
3. The corporate whore, commercial media, will see to it that the event and it´s perceived organizers are shown to be “unamerican”, “betrayers” of “our” troops (if they are “ours” what are they doing participating in rape, torture, and murder of the innocent instead of protecting us from the enemy within who is rapidly attempting to thwart our attempt to establish/maintain an egalitarian democracy?), and “supporters” of “Al Qaeda”.
– corporate whores, by definition, are a dime a dozen on any streetcorner and, again by definition, are character-flawed from the get-go. Use it. To the fullest extent imaginable.
4. The corporate whore will make certain the event is given as little press coverage as possible, again, for obvious reasons.
–give exclusive rights to Al Jazeera, CommonDreams, (as possible EXAMPLES) as well as other, selected international free-press outlets for all interviews, etc. All others must get their info from them. If they don´t? Use it against them. If they do? Use it against them. It is more than time to smear the corporate whore with it´s own excrement.
Those are just a few points of what are, assuredly, some of the fairly certain results of the event. There will be others.
This note for “Baltocaveman” as well as others who probably have similiar initial perceptions of the statement “Baltocaveman” refers to in my earlier text:
A.
I use the vernacular “you”, “your” et al due to the fact that I do not pay taxes to known criminals intent on removing what remains of those highly lauded yet rarely enacted precepts such as the U.S. Constitution. I live in voluntary self exile rather than allow my citizenship to be smeared by the stench of known mass murdering corporate criminals, or my pitifully few tax dollars to be used in the willful genocide of innocent people…for the private profit of known criminals. It is how I can continue to tell myself that I am, in fact, a proud, as well as honest, American citizen of planet Earth.
B. I use the vernacular “you”, “yours” et al due to the fact that I would rather (and happily do) live in abject material poverty (by western standards)isolated from my own culture, kith, and kin than take a single dimes worth of support of any means from known mass murdering criminals and their accomplices pretending to “representatives of the peoples will”. It is how I can continue to tell myself that my citizenry is not in any way dependent on the services of a rogue regime of mass murdering criminals.
The issues that confront us all as citizens of the planet have as many responses as there are souls, so my approach is not appropriate for all citizens, to be sure. I just took some of the means at my disposal and am using them, among others, to their fullest extent.
I hope this clarifies my verbage to the extent that we all can continue to cooperatively pursue tactical/strategic avenues of approach to the enemy.
Enough.
The issue is global, and means are at hand for all citizens of the planet to entirely halt the crimes being commited….in our names….against our will….by taking those local, rational, unexpected steps available that they can wherever they are.
The national shutdown is an excellent idea whose time has finally come. For best results I strongly suggest that instead of merely parading in front of corporate regime stooges for hire in WADC (whose JOB it is to receive your anger, frustration, and calls for impeachment precisely so that their masters, the actual leaders of the corporate cabal of mass-murdering criminals for private profit can be insulated from public exposure…), that the actual primary locations of those criminals also be targeted for mass shutdowns….until the troops are recalled, WADC made safe for the rule of the peoples will, AND the criminals apprehended & incarcerated pending trial by a Peoples Tribunal (for there is no rule of impartial law as all have been able to see clearly for themselves at this late stage of our development) for their crimes against the peoples, the precepts, and humanity as such.
This for Mr. Ritter:
As a once serving officer of the corporate criminal regime, you more than most should be eminently aware of the inherent risk of presenting the enemy any opportunity to offset troop morale and unit cohesion. I know for a fact that you have first hand experience of this from your previous service against other innocent peoples…
Consequently, I think it unwise at this stage to publicly question the statements made concerning the deliberate non-action of Conyers by one of our citizenry´s foremost proponents of the rule of impartial law and the equal rights of all humans. Conyers made promises, once elected he reneged, and now he consequently is villified by those he betrayed, or is perceived to have betrayed.
Any comment to your “constituents”, John? Right here on Common Dreams?
I didn´t think so.
For the simple reason that the overarching majority of those pretending to be legitimate representatives of the people in what may have been perceived to have been the Congress of the peoples of the United States at one time, are in fact paid stooges to criminal corporate interests who will say anything, promise anything, profess to anything, and deliver…nothing… once elected, for they are in fact not representatives of anything other than their own sadly mistaken conceptions of what makes their own short lives “successful”.
There will be no peace until justice is rendered. The world watches and waits for the American people to lead, and we shall, for it is among ourselves that the leadership of the criminal cabal resides and has its headquarters, and it is among ourselves that the worst offenses against humanity are being continuously commited.
The social war for the planet is obviously long since begun.
W.hole E.arth E.quality P.arty…coming sooner than you think to criminals near you!