http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ElFoD_JTx4

Lives in the Balance by Jackson Brown

Ive been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that youve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And theres a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the t.v.
You hear one thing again and again
How the u.s.a. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally cant take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

Theres a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we cant even say the names

They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But theyre never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

.......................................
Maybe some of the solution will be not to buy from the big corporations.

Boycotts

What about the Second Amendment? Maybe our troops need to bring themselves home.

I find it interesting that New York seems to provide much of the political leadership with Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer and now Mario Cuomo. While we can readily agree that oil drives Bush and Cheney in Iraq, we can also attribute the sound of Republican rumblings and Democratic silence on military action in Iran to the Israel Lobby. The bottom line is money and power, the fuel needed to get elected or re-elected. Unfortunately, ex-governor Cuomo who is running for nothing and purportedly beholden to no one, fails to address this fundamental issue. Such timidity will ultimately turn the tide to new leadership and a new dynamic, hopefully before it's too late.

Nice try, Mario - guess you haven't been keeping up on the whole "we're gonna bomb Iran" thing in order to turn the whole illegal Iraq occupation debate moot. Have you actually met any of the Dems working on the Hill? The loyalbushieDems that take impeachment off the table and roll over ever single time the Loonitary Decider says boo? Or do you hang with some sort of secret group of shadow Democrats who actually have balls and a spine in the same body but just haven't figured out how to use them yet?

It's getting very tiring, these so-called leaders who've been doing nothing to fight for our country offering their fantasy solutions and cures.

Perhaps - since the Senate, even with a Democratic majority, have decided to play along and fund this debacle - we need to revisit Thoreau's ideas about ACTING on our non-support of our government.

How about we stop [i]paying[/i] our taxes instead of kvetching about how they're spent?

Time to put our money where our mouths are?

I've said it on a hundred threads and I'll continue to say it because in my heart I know it will succeed. Passive resistance. We must bring this nation to a halt. When the bottom line of tptb is affected, THEY WILL LISTEN! It's all that matters to them. But, IT MUST BE ON A MASSIVE SCALE AND IT MUST BE SOON. YOUR COUNTRY IS AT STAKE..STAY HOME..DON'T BUY ANYTHING..STOCK UP ON BARE NECESSITIES. ABOVE ALL, DO NOT DRIVE..DON'T GO TO MOVIES..DON'T GO TO FAST FOOD PLACES..LIVE MEAGERLY..CUT YOUR ELECTRIC USEAGE TO A MINIMUM. What ther heck, we all need some time off from our insane schedules! The methods are endless. It's non-violent, so they cannot arrest anyone (which is what I suggest many Americans fear). It's passive, so no one REALLY HAS TO DO ANYTHING. It will get results. A small sacrifice for THE PEOPLE TO REGAIN POWER. Can we at the very least DO NOTHING to take back our country????? PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD..IT CAN AND WILL CATCH ON. Does anyone believe this will not work?? Ghandi brought down the British Empire. Nothing has changed for it not to work. They need money..if we don't give it to them, who will. Does anyone have a better suggestion? WE KNOW THE CONGRESS IS NOT LISTENING!!!

I thought Mario was brighter than this article suggests. Clearly the problem is Congress, corrupted, intimidated, and lazy to the bone. They can't even get the Executive to honor their subpoenas! Will they make a stand and drag Harlot Mieirs before the bar?

Maybe, uh...maybe not.

JConrad - you say the Constitution never intended to provide for a Supreme Court as it presently exists. It is ordained as the judicial power of government in Article III and the President is given the power to appoint the justices in Article II, 2. Seems to me it does.

Democracy. It's a nice story. We should try it.

But how?

MountainMike. I had never thought of looking at the current actions of Congress in the way you wrote. "The real problem is that Congress was all to happy to abdicate their constitutional responsibility to officially declare war. Politically speaking, it gives legislators deniability if the war effort goes wrong. The President then becomes an easy target."
I could say a lot of things right now about "our" Congress but I will just write one thought. What you said above, once again, reveals that Congress is not thinking of "we that people" one bit. All they care about are themselves. The people's thoughts and situation is way down on their list of concerns.
One more thing that just occurred to me. When Henry David Thoreau was jailed for not paying taxes in protest of The Mexican - American war, Ralph Waldo Emerson asked him why he was in jail, and Thoreau's repsonse was something like: "The question is 'Why aren't you here in jail?'"

Opps...eyes Googled out !
"This is one reason Bush wants"
"Corporations have been given"

Johnco: In Bush & Cheney's wars, there are no POWs. There are, however, "enemy combatants". POWs have to be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. "Enemy combatants" on the other hand, are subject to torture without benefit of an attorney or contact with their families. Bush is so happy that he gets to be a "War President". It is all he ever wanted and Cheney and Rove made it possible.

Mario is talking about the "war powers" vote being a bypass for Congress taking charge and formally declaring war by Constitutional standards. When LBJ lied to Congress with a staged Gulf of Tonkin attack, William Proxmire was one of only two people in the Senate to vote against war powers. When Bush lied through manipulated intel, Ron Paul was one of only a few Senators voting against war powers.

We need more conscienteous people in Congress like Proxmire and Paul. The real problem is that Congress was all to happy to abdicate their constitutional responsibility to officially declare war. Politically speaking, it gives legislators deniability if the war effort goes wrong. The President then becomes an easy target.

However, the most blatant issue right now with the war powers given to Bush is the specific language in the document. The objective was to remove Saddam from power. We did that. The document was a legal contract, therefore Bush is illegally extending his war powers beyond the point that we removed Saddam from power.

We could easily say "mission accomplish" then internationalize reconstruction and go home. But-but-but that means we would not be around to seduce the Iraqis into giving our oil corporations control of Iraqi oil fields. All those contracts going for reconstruction would go to other, non American corporations and leave companies with horrific track records for corruption like KBR with no contracts at all. That would mean Cheney would no longer be making millions of dollars off of Iraq contracts through Halliburton.

And the only way we can correct the war powers bypass of the constitution is through our legislators, the same people that are only too happy to have deniability and pass the hot seat on to our president.

It happened the day of "Mission Accomplished", Bush said the war wasn't over because "we would have to release all the POWs", and so it went on.

In a "normal war", when you win you ask for a Surrender Treaty with the Loser. In it you get conditions, such as Armies giving up their weapons, and the population going back to normal civilian life.

The War in this case was never "officially" over, it just moved to an insurgency within an occupation.

Why didn't Bush want to end the war and release the POWs? Then he wouldn't be a "War President". The POWs might tell the UN and others of the bad treatment they got in our hands, and the spin would be harder to control.

The first vote that the Iraqi people took had parties saying "vote for us and we get get America out of Iraq".

We should just declare peace, sign a Treaty with the Iraq government and come home.

The lives lost since "Mission Accomplished" has not been in vain, George W. Bush got his dream of being a "War President" from 9/11/2001 till he leaves office...

We're screwed.

Some democracy.

Sorry Mario, but it's NOT the "president who is keeping the war in Iraq from ending." The Democrats, who voted for and sanctioned this war from the beginning, now continue to fully fund it and to give generously to the Bush citizen surveillance campaign. Furthermore, none of them--except a tiny handful--have spoken out against Bush's latest plans to bomb Iran, proving that the Democrats are as warmongering as the Republicans and have not learned a single lesson from their mistakes in Iraq. If the Democrats--in the majority and facing the most despised and weakened president in decades--cannot step up to the plate and bring us peace, then they are part of the problem, not the solution.

It's never too late. Let the congress write a declaration of War Against Iraq now and debate it. List all of the reasons why we must conquer Iraq. Remember, wars are not humanitarian efforts. Their purpose is to conquer the enemy. Let's see who votes for it and who votes against it. None of this "If we don't give Bush another $50,000,000,000 we aren't supporting the troops" copout. Let's have an up or down vote to conquer Iraq or leave. I vote to leave; I want to know how the congress will vote.

Have to agree with fedupwithpolitics. Witholding funding and enforcing Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution can stop Bush from pulling off the 'holocaust of all holocausts' in Iran and wind things down in Iraq. If the Democrats can't do it then it is time for millions to take to the streets, and time is running out.

A fact of the constitution that has perhaps become "quaint" with Congress is that they can only declare war in the event of an "invasion or insurrection." Did Iraq invade America ? Impossible, even if they wanted to.

But our invasion of Iraq is all about subsidizing the energy hegemony of American Big Oil with our obese military complex and our taxes ! The big trans-nationals want to privatize 75% of Iraq's oil which is why $Billions are wasted every week while getting people killed and making enemies along with outrageous deficit spending, etc. Unfortunately they are wasting more money than the potential oil profits are worth. This is what is called a decadent over-extended imperial empire in decline.

However, it wasn't even proven that Bin Laden actually directed 9/11, but Afghanistan was hit with 55,000 bombing sorties, killing an unknown number of civilians and spreading DU radioactive material throughout their land, water, and air, and all after they helped us push the Russians out of Central Asian oil and gas territory. It could have been an international police action to shut down the Al Qaeda camps, or even through diplomacy. But they wanted a new pro-Big Oil government in Afghanistan. Our treachery is perhaps one of the reasons Turkmenistan is now dealing with Russia for the export of their vast reserves of natural gas that UNOCAL wanted to pipeline across Afghanistan to India and the Arabian Sea for global markets. Good luck getting a pipeline through Pashtun/Taliban terriroty now.

The following contains (Bush tried for war crimes) a valid interpretation of the constitutional crises.

From: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm

"The Defendant as President of the United States and as Commander -in-Chief of the United States Armed forces, was not constitutionally empowered to declare war ;the Congress under the US Constitution was not authorized to delegate to the President of the United States its constitutional power to declare war. Whereas under Article 1, Section 8 , clause 11 of the Constitution of the United States, the power to declare war vests with Congress ; limitations are imposed on the exercise of this power , by Article 1 , Section 8 , clause 15 , which mandates that Congress is not authorized to "call forth the militia " except to "execute the laws of the Union and to suppress insurrections and invasions ". The terrorist attack of 11th September 2001 was neither an invasion or insurrection of the United States of America; Congress could not delegate what was constitutionally impermissible ; prima facie the military attack on Afghanistan was an unconstitutional and illegal exercise of power by the Defendant."

There are huge constitutional issues at work here. Only Congress can initiate a war justified by the terms of the constitution, but on Iraq, Bush drew up the Iraq Resolution and then Congress approved it. Had Congress done it's job the Iraq/Afghan war crimes never would have taken place. Both parties voted to invade Iraq.

It is the responsibility of Congress to prevent illegal wars, via the balance of powers. They gave Bush the power and money KNOWING that he planned to start an absurd "war". The 2001 resolution layng pipe for attacking Afghanistan was a little fuzzy and on the order of emergency war powers following 9/11. But the Iraq war resolution of 2002 was a falsified joint resolution "authorizing" an illegal attack on Iraq in which the President would be commander in chief. Congress actually had intelligence to the effect that Iraq had no WMDs...they knew. Bush could NOT have done it without the complicity of our corrupt corporate Congress.

And Cuomo states: "First, Democrats should make clear that it is the president who is keeping the war in Iraq from ending."

What a steaming pile of political manure !

What partisan Cuomo has ignored (is he not a lawyer, is he moving his lips, is he lying ?) is that ONLY Congress can authorize the use of our tax dollars, or in this case, borrowed money after they have already spent our taxes and looted social security, to fund the occupation. Duh ! they already have 14 permanent bases in Iraq. The democratic clowns who were recently elected to stop the war crimes in Iraq have the power to stop the funding and hence end the eternal occupation. It is their war or war crimes now, every dollar, every death, despite all of the blame being aimed at the incompetent commander in chief.

Demos are not "supporting the troops" by keeping them in a quagmire as targets, they are getting them killed while private contractors and the military complex rob us blind. The voters have been stabbed in the back once again.

Essentially, both Congress and the White House and the Pentagon could be seen as war criminals under international law and treaties. Congress may have also violated U.S. law that requires Congress to abide by international treaties such as the Geneva conventions and U.N. resolutions against wars of aggression.

And why will the Dumos not impeach ?...same reason...they are all part of it and that must be understood. Both parties are feeding at the trough of military corporate complex and Big Oil campaign donations with more elected officials that we know having personal investments in those industries of death. Many are aware are aware of Cheney/Halliburton and Bush/Carlyle Group and the rest of the PNAC corporate/government revolving door neo-con-artists, but we must know how many people in Congress are benefiting from the war crimes , directly or indirectly ?

Betrayal is very high on the list of human horrors. At this moment the Demos have betrayed everyone who voted for them as the party get us out of Iraq.

The future challenge is how to get Congress and the White House to abide by the constitution and international law. Do we really want NYC Hillary to be the next lawless war President ?

opps...typos
"more elected officials than we know having personal investments in those industries of death. Many are aware of Cheney/Halliburton"

It's heartening to see a good number of responders calling Cuomo's self-serving "it's all Bush's fault" what it is, but I hope that a good number of people write letters to, and get them published by, the LAT making the same point.

JConrad -- I think you and the article to which you refer are mistaken is stating that "Congress . . . can only declare war in the event of an 'invasion or insurrection.'" Section 8, Article I, Clause 11 gives Congress the power "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water"; to that end, Clauses 12 14 grant the power "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces." As an entirely separate matter, Clause 15 grants the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions", and Clause 16 to that end grants power "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." There is no prohibition against the Congress's declaring war against a state (or non-state entity) that that has not invaded the US.

MountainMike -- I do not believe that anything in "the specific language in the document" -- i.e., "the war powers given to Bush" by Congress -- either refers to, or limits the grant of power to, "the point that we removed Saddam from power" or states that "[T]he objective [of the AUMF] was to remove Saddam from power". On the contrary, the relevant language of the AUMF states at Section 3 (a) that "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to— (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." If "he determines" that Iraq continues to pose a threat after Hussein was removed from power he is authorized by the AUMF to continue to use the Armed Forces to defend the national security of the United States against that threat. As other posters have said in response to what I find all too typically self-serving and flatly false in Cuomo's piece, with few exceptions the Democrats in Congress in fact voted to hand Bush a blank check with respect to action overseas against Iraq. Bush is not acting "illegally [by] extending his war powers beyond the point that we removed Saddam from power." If there is anything "illegal" in Bush's use of his "war powers" (I think there is a vast amount illegal with such use) the illegality began long before Hussein was "removed from power" and would be illegal today if Hussein were still in power.

Personal to Mario Cuomo -

You see what's happening as clearly as anyone else. Tthe outrageous immorality of Bush's actions; the now-dire dangers posed by public paralysis in face of Bush's sociopathy .

You're a highly visible person. If dissenters like you would only personally take some dramatic actions to oppose Bush, many others - Establishment progressives and average citizens alike - would arguably become more confident to act on their own; become emboldened to follow your example. I personally don't need to be inspired by you, to fight the disease of neoconservatism. But there's clearly a public paralysis going on, and others do need such inspiration.

If I were in your position, Mario, I'd personally confront Bush enablers especially among the Democrats; like Hillary Clinton, for example, in a public setting with media present; I wouldn't hesitate to ask her WHY she is pussy-footing with an illegally-acting Administration (to put it mildly.) I wouldn't hesitate to ask NY state legislative leaders to let me address the NY legislature on the maddness that's going on, under Bush and a craven congress, etc., etc.

I'd use my high media visibility and public credibility to do everything I could to start a firestorm of civic protest, demanding that Bush back down or be made to back down by congress.
Knowing that at very least this could help create a heightened public awareness; and atmosphere in which Bush could no longer act as though he answers to no one.

This is what we all wonder about, when we look Hitler's rise to power in democratic Germany: Why didn't enough decent people stop the maddness in in time?

Please don't tell me that the likely Democratic election sweep in 2008 will put everything aright. If Bush isn't neutered now, the sequalae of his policies won't be any more manageable then than now - but you can be sure the sequalae will be far worse. Maybe fatally worse, for the US anyway.

Imagine if you, and Gary Hart, and Al Gore, and scores of other out-of-office, well known progressives REALLY started to organize among yourselves to do this dissenting with louder voices, more directly challenging actions.

Don't you think that would have SOME effect? And don't you think that, at this point in time, SOME effect is better than the useless milque toast Establishment dissent going on now?

What is stopping you and other high profile progressives from protesting with whatever drama it takes to stop a madman president, and to help de-hypnotize a gutless Democrat congress?

You, and other out of office progressives like you, are in a unique position to help jump start organized dissent amoung what obviously is a politically paralyzed population.

Or are you wating for Bush to attack Iran? And what will follow from that: guaranteed retribution attacts on the US by more Jihadists, and finally declaration of martial law in the US, at which point your voice will become as silenced as the average person's is now meaningless?

Given the dire and worsening situation, what more justification do you American progressive big wigs need to act call the neoconservative coup d'etat down, and to call on the citizenry to join you?

Thanks for you post, in any case.

I am glad to see Cuomo speaking out against undeclared wars. But I agree with those commentators who rightly say that the problem has nothing to do with political affiliation. Democrats in Congress could have prevented the Iraq war in the first place, and surely now have sufficient power in Congress to shut down the war by cutting off or conditionally limiting further appropriations for the war. Further, the recent 97-0 Senate vote essentially finding Iran guilty of committing acts of war against the US in Iraq demonstrates a bipartisan willingness at least to tolerate (if not encourage) a military assault on Iran whenever the President sees fit. I encourage other commentators to read Pat Buchanan's several recent articles warning against our next imperialistic war in Iran, for a demonstration that our current national policy of "wars without end" is not a partisan issue.

the big challenge is how to gain control of congress via the election process. we need Clean Elections; ie, full public funding of elections. this will keep the big corp out of the mix and allow more proletarian candidates to afford to run for offices. where this has been put into effect, the results are good.

so while asking all candidates specifics on their positions about the war and isreal's colonialism, people need to push candidates on Clean elections. there needs to be a groundswell from the public on this issue and the battle will be huge. corporations will not go down quietly.

Bombing Iran

In view of the absurdity the schemes to bomb Iran while planning to provide arms to this volatile region, and the history of other ill conceived policies of this administration, one can only conclude that the arms merchants and other special interests are instrumental in its conception.

After tolerating the actions of this theocratic administration, guided by special interests for over six years, Americans must assume blame for the resulting destruction.

TARMARQUE, Clean elections would require a willingness to enact new election laws by lawmakers who hold office now, plus their willingness to make sure any new laws are enforced. A majority of seated lawmakers who benefit from system now in place never show the will to do this, and it's not probable they will unless they're effectively threatened. Barring that, seated legislators just make cosmetic reforms that keep all the old loopholes for money's influence in place.

Voters who want clean elections will first have to get involved in politics at much more basic levels. They will have to make sure that only those pre-nomination candidates who take this issue seriously can open their mouths on other issues. But how is that accomplished?

In this political culture, there is the deeper cultural problem that campaign finace reform has to overcome: If you don't have a lot of money and influence to begin with, it's almost impossible to organize your fellow voters at the outset.

It's almost impossible, unless you're a gifted organizer who's willing to turn your life over to the goal.

Are you willing and able to do this?

Godluvya if you are.

Good thinking, Governor, as usual. But what about Congress's clear Constitutional power over budget. Once they make it clear that only Bush's stubbornness and willingness to ignore the Constitution are keeping the war going, why can't they just say no more funds after a certain date except to redeploy all troops back home? I think that is what a majority of our people want them to do. If Bush then refuses, maybe the military will act to end the war. Generals aren't going to keep troops in Iraq if there are no funds.

Hector:

"There is no prohibition against the Congress's declaring war against a state (or non-state entity) that that has not invaded the US."

Constitutional law is very complex. Although Congress and the White House have waged various wars and engaged in war crimes of their own design, that does not mean is it legal or Constitutional. Was it legal to bomb Laos and Cambodia ? The quoted passage you refer to is a strict interpretation of the Constitution as written. The situation is out of control at the present time.

Another example of deviation is that the constitution never intended to provide for a Supreme Court as it presently exists being essentially an improvised government entity created by arbitrary political agreement and governed by so-called precedent.

Congress must abide by international treaties the U.S. has agreed upon according to the Constitution which precludes wars of aggression. Wars of aggression are also banned by international law.

The Supreme court has claimed that Congress may violate international agreements, as a legal maneuver limited to U.S. law, by passing over-reaching laws of its own after the creation of the international agreement. But, this would not hold water in an international court of law.This one reason Bush want nothing to do with international courts.

And as we know the Supreme Court at present is nothing more than a political puppet of powers and Presidents who appointed right wing extremists. They appointed Bush as President without the Florida vote even being verified. They are arbitrary and somewhat lawless. The Supreme court has no right to meddle in Constitutional law or avoid international law, although they do. Check out the history of the Supreme Court and you will find it's creation was more or less a political whim or mistake.

The overwhelming and corrupting power of modern corporations is also a violation of our original constitution, as well as the intent of the founding fathers who understood the abuses of the old royal charters very well. Corporations have been outrageous power and legal standing by various Supreme Court decisions. In many ways the Supreme Court is an end run around the Constitution.

Some "experts" in Constitutional law would agree with me and some would not as political forces re-invent the wheel every so often.

The essential message of my post is that Congress has completely abandon its constitutional authority to manage war and we now have an imperialistic White House that is out of control. We are in the middle of a huge dilemma as a result.

Cuomo is a lawyer and knows more than he is telling, thus we have yet another Demo betrayal of public trust. He is playing partisan politics with a war that belongs to both parties.

Our democratic constitutional republic is well on it's way to being completely dismantled. Unless there are political changes we are headed for a strange new world. Some would say we are already living in a corporate fascist oligarchy funded by the common taxpayers.

Mr Cuomo, will you now take the next step and back the Moratorium? Please?

www.iraqmoratorium.org
The THIRD FRIDAY of every month beginning Friday September 21st
Join with millions to:
• Wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands
• Buy no gas on Moratorium days
• Pressure politicians and the media
• Hold vigils, pickets, rallies, and teach-ins
• Hold special religious services
• Coordinate events in music, art, and culture
• Host film showings, talks, and educational events
• Organize student actions: Teach-ins, school closings, etc.

So familiies already living pay checks to pay checks, trying to feed and clothe the kids, paying for their medical and dental costs, child care if they're lucky, keeping the car in repair so that they can get to work so that they can live pay checks to pay checks and keep paying the rent or mortgage are supposed to just hole up. Fat chance.

Yes we know CONGRESS IS NOT AND HAS NOT BEEN LISTENING. Yes I agree - start the boycott of everything but essentials. A boycott surely not be less effective than writing to Congress. Everyone has been a disappointment -both Clintons, Gore, Kerry, Schumer, and now, that old favorite, Cuomo.
They all have given up their liberty, their freedom to act morally as they watch us suckers suffering.
Remember our early patriot who said -"Give me Liberty or give me Death! Are they so cowardly that they would not die for freedom?
Those politicos are so afraid - do they think they will be done in by some out-sourced hit man? They make the rest of us seem like giants!
YES YES Start a boycott. We cannot be afraid. We need to Unite and Fight.

Too late. bush has taken all powers in his hands and has in effect proclaimed himself our emperor.The Senate and House are locked in partisan deadlock , the Corporations control the national representatitives . Bush will override the 18nd(? only 2 terms for president) amendment and we will vote in a rigged election again and in 2012 after being reelected ,he will become President for life.With all powers. The House and Senate will continue to rubber-stamp
democracy of the people will survive at the county and state levels. we will elect reeves ,dog catchers and tax assessors and local judges.
On an international level the USA will continue to fight for and promote (MARKET) democracy that is the right for American corporations to do business unfettered in any country.Pax Americana like Pax Romana will in effect be many proxy wars on all continents to keep in line those who do not agree with the PLAN.It will be based on state terror as in the past 60 years.(we will bomb you to the stone ages!!!)Americans will continue to say the pledge of allegiance and possibly most people in the world hence continuing the mythology of the Republic which died in 2001.

cruxpuppy:

" you say the Constitution never intended to provide for a Supreme Court as it presently exists. It is ordained as the judicial power of government in Article III and the President is given the power to appoint the justices in Article II, 2. Seems to me it does."

Yes, but I qualified my statement by saying "as it presently exists" and I went on to call it an "improvised entity". I am not a lawyer but I have hung around them enough to understand the language game.

A book could be written by someone who knows much more than myself and still not reach a final conclusion. The point is that the Supremes are now incredibly powerful and that degree of power was not written into the Constitution. That power mutated again and again over time. The original court was not very active. And it could be argued that today they are more "political" in a partisan manner than ever before.

Here is one early tidbit from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

" One of the most significant periods during the history of the Court was the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall (1801 to 1835). In the landmark case Marbury v. Madison (1803), Marshall held that the Supreme Court could overturn a law passed by Congress if it violated the Constitution, legally cementing the power of judicial review. The Marshall Court also made several important decisions relating to federalism. Marshall took a broad view of the powers of the federal government—in particular, the interstate commerce clause and the necessary-and-proper clause. For instance, in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause and other clauses permitted Congress to create a national bank, even though the power to create a bank is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. "

New "precedent" is created all the time. The founding fathers would probably start another revolution if they were around today.

Changes via the court brought about by powerful special interest groups have changed the nature of our democracy. Sometimes the court has recognized citizen "freedoms" and sometime not. Many critics of the present corporate state feel that when the Supreme Court expanded corporate powers and rights (on several occasions) that the republic was drastically undermined. The new court has given "the corporation" even more power with recent decisions. Is this right, is it wrong? I say when the court hurts the majority, it is wrong and not consistent with the type of democracy the Constitution attempted to create.

I did mention that Congress has the right to break international treaties by passing laws of their own, but that "right" was granted by the Supreme Court and not the constitution. Here is a quickie on that from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

"According to the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, Senate-ratified treaties such as the U.N. Charter are "the supreme Law of the Land."[28] Obligations under international law that the US has agreed to, such as the prohibition of a war of aggression, Geneva Conventions, prohibition of genocide, UN Convention Against Torture, and others under ratified treaties, are legally binding under US law.[29]

In a 1957 decision, Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), the Supreme Court ruled "when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null."

In the case of Iraq, both Congress and the Whitehouse took it upon themselves to start an illegal war of aggression against a country that not only did not attack the U.S. but posed no threat. They do such things simply because they can, they have plenty of weapons paid for by the taxpayer, but if the warmongers were hauled into the same Nuremberg court that tried the Nazis, certain people might hang.

Like I said, it is out of control, in general.

And as Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, " No generalization is worth a damn - including this one."

Holmes thought law should serve society and develop accordingly. He also liked the idea of "judicial restraint" meaning judges should avoid letting their personal opinions impact their decisions. Right now we have a Supreme Court that was of the opinion George Bush should be President depite obvious voting fraud.

Tired, but hope this helps as is not too vague.

If it is his war powers granted by the AUMF that gives him unlimited war making latitude, then congress must simply amend/rescind that Act to require congressional approval for troop escalation or territorial expansion (to Iran, etc.) and/or declare the mission complete. We cannot allow it to be used as the authorization for endless war. The decision to pass AUMF is understandable given mainstream thinking at the time. Now mainstream thinking reflects the opposition to warmongering.

How about the Democrats calling for Bush's resignation and prosecution for his war crimes?

How about the Democrats promoting International Criminal Court membership for the US so that Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld can be tried before the court?

How about the Democrats stating that they will not support mass murder or illegal occupation or crimes against humanity any longer, be it financially, logistically or morally?

What a load of crap. If your Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress and your President takes it upon himself to go to war, then his action is UNconstitutional and therefore illegal.

Question for you is: What do you do with someone who acts unconstitutionally and illegally?

From the look of things, you are allowing him to flout your constitution and therefore you are implicit in this illegal act.

Question is: What do we do with you?

Answer: Allow you to continue you way of life and sink further in your own quagmire.

urthsong..I'm totally open to suggestions. We all have to get out there and help each other. Come live with me on ten acres in northern Fl..I'll do my best to help you. This is the way it will work...support your friend, relatives and neighbors. Change is always difficult. We have to work together.

Having read all this start to finish I find one comment that pretty much says it all..........

colleen September 3rd, 2007 12:36 pm

We're screwed.

Some democracy.

1. JConrad — Thank you for taking time (and thought) to respond to the comments that cruxpuppy and I have made to your original post. I hope to write again later today to respond more broadly to the points you've made. But for now I'll just say that "the quoted passage . . . [I] refer to" is not actually "a strict interpretation of the Constitution as written" — it IS the Constitution, and more specifically it is Section 8, Article I, Clause 11 of the Constitution. The reference to "Insurrections and . . . Invasions" addresses the action of the Congress under Clause 15, which addresses not the declaration of war but with "calling forth the Militia". Even in Clause 15 the reference to "Insurrections and . . . Invasions" does not state the sole purpose for which the militia may be called forth; it is rather stated in addition to the power to call forth the Militia "to execute the Laws of the Union." In any event, complex though I agree constitutional law (indeed, ALL law) is, I don't believe that there is an argument with merit that the Congress is forbidden by the US Constitution to declare war in the absence of invasion or insurrection.
As to the nature of the Supreme Court, the place of Marbury v. Madison and its progeny in the constitutional scheme of the US, and the relationship between and among treaties, statutes and the Supremacy Clause, I hope to do justice later today to your comments.

Almost none of the commenters noticed that Cuomo's article is actually aimed at Bush-Cheney's plans for Pakistan and Iran. Why bother to read when you can kvetch about your favorite subjects, whatever they may be?

Preventing acts of war against Iran and Pakistan may not be high up on the list of hobby-horses in the liberal netsphere, but it's something Reid and Pelosi might actually be able to accomplish, with enough encouragement from the public.

According to John Dean in his book "Worse Than watergate", he states on page 148, by "summarizing technical wording" that "Congress wanted a formal determination submitted to it either before using force or within forty-eight hours of having done so, stating that the president had found that (1) further diplomatic means alone would not resolve the 'continuing threat' (meaning WMD) and (2) the military action was part of the overall response to terrorism, including dealing with those involved in "the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 22, 2001. In short, Congress insisted that there be evidence of two points that were the centerpiece of Bush's argument for the war."
Since the required "determination" was never presented, it appears to me that both Congress and Bush abdicated their official responsilities and both should be held to account.

Hector:

Thanks, this is an interesting thread, goo exercise for the old brain. Sometimes I go trolling with tempting ideas for the sake of creative debate. Hyperbole can stimulate discussion as well as generalizations.

You posted very interesting and somewhat bizarre words defining a very popular political theoretical construct. Some call such manipulations of language (by the politicians, not you) spin which is twisting words to obscure reality or dupe the public. Hitler had one of the best spin machines of the early 20th century. He used it to kill.

" There is no prohibition against the Congress's declaring war against a state (or non-state entity). "

The "non-state entity" is the wild part, and would excite any sociopath strung out on Prozac.

A "war on terror" has been declared. Somebody in a think tank smarter than Bush probably designed that phrase. Now even "liberal" news pundits put that illusory concept into their writing. We now must "support the troops in the war on terror", which means we must support wars of aggression for the rest of the century with the lives of our youth and our taxes.

Will the Supremes put the words "non-state entity" into legal precedent? I would not be surprised. I trust you are not here to introduce that language on the web along with legalistic arguments.

How do you declare and fight a war against an abstract noun ?

Of course we were also informed that there are about 50 nations harboring terrorists. DUH !

That means, by the current crazed interpretations of war powers and U.S. and international law that the President or Congress or both can simply declare war on ghosts, ( Bin Laden may very well be dead)
or imaginary enemies manufactured by politicians (and often created by past foreign policy) and the corporate media...such as Iraq about to deliver a "mushroom cloud" to the United States with aluminum tubes full of yellow cake being moved around in mobile labs manufacturing chemical weapons (according to Powell and others). Scary stuff, we better hit them with bunker busters loaded with depleted uranium so the next generation will have cancer or birth defects and not make any more WMD's.

The vague external enemy is an old fear-mongering technique for getting poor soldiers to die for rich masters of war and the public to pay for the corporate imperial wars. Interesting thought there, they have prosecuted some of the Nazi corporations in a limited fashion. Hitler did not do it alone, he had backers like Bush.

Why don't they just say, we want to attack and occupy Iraq, kill a million people, destroy their country, and divert a $Trillion tax dollars (and counting) into private hands via the military industrial corporate Congressional media complex ? That would not go over very well, most American are decent people, so they create deadly spin that in fact kills people.

I am not really up to debating Supreme Court precedent on a technical level, but my point is that the court has taken it upon itself over time to redesign the interpretation of the Constitution for a variety of purposes. If they had just held tight to the principle of not going to war unless we are attacked we would have avoided a lot of problems.

But, it is the nature and history of our racist imperialist nation to engage in wars of aggression and then spin the story.

Sound similar, the Native American genocide was to civilize the savages while killing them and stealing their land and resources ? Now we are engaging in "Operation Iraqi Freedom". I suppose sending millions of people to heaven is one way to set them free while stealing some of best oil fields in the world.

Got to run and these posts are not scripture, but live opinions.

JConrad,

H.J. Res 64 which led to attacking Afghanistan was more than a little fuzzy. It was unconstitutional. Afghan was not even mentioned. Here is what it states: "That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons HE DETERMINES planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,. . .". Bad idea. Only one brave member of Congress voted agaist this resolution.

Then there is that unresolved issue of US covert ops that were most certainly aiding the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Hecter: Link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iraq_War_Powers_Repeal_Act_of_2006

There was an effort in Congress to repeal the war powers act in 2006 based on the rationale that we were at that point of not waging war. We were occupying a country, something not authorized under the War Powers vote.

Vfor911

Quite true. I was being facetious with with a very deadly issue. I am more into prose/poetry than text, so I tend to improvise with language.

Both resolutions were arguably unconstitutional and criminal. Over a million have died as a result.

This War Crimes Tribunal web page is worth the entire read if you missed it:

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm

We are living in very strange times with the present Supreme Court in place for their lifetimes as interpreters of the Constitution and Federal law.

Example: Clarence Thomas came out of the corporate sector as a lawyer for Monsanto who made agent orange and is now mired in litigation over their genetically modified seeds.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=monsanto

colleen September 3rd, 2007 12:36 pm
We're screwed.
Some democracy.

Well, actually Colleen we have never had a democracy, one of the most abused and confusing term used by Democrats throughout the years. We had a Republic once but that has been replaced by an Oiligarchy installed at the behest of the American Aristocracy.

We are only 'screwed' if we continue to lay on the floor getting buggered wondering why we're getting buggered. We can always choose to get up and stop the madmen from doing any more buggering but do we? Seems to me we would rather complain about things that never were than actually get up and do something.

In the immortal words of Howard Zinn "no changes for the good of the people ever came about by the government granting them. They only come about when people stand up and demand them."

When I said that we must unite and fight - I meant we should find ways to tear down those forces that are working against the rights of the people to determine the direction we go.
One of the worst forces is that corporations were designated as "persons" by various erroneous actions of the so-called "supreme" court. The court is not "supreme" -the people are!
Our elected members of the congress are supposed to represent the needs and desires of the "people".
The people are human beings and amendments to our constitution refer to us - the human beings who are the citizens of the USA.
The worst action that has taken place in our history is the moment corporations were declared as "persons" and so amendments such as the 14th which recognized American slaves as "persons", as US citizens, and other amendments that have been enacted to recognize the rights of women, for example, have been usurped by corporations who claim all the rights designated to U S citizens who are actually persons - human beings.
The step to take is to UNITE AND FIGHT to declare that Corporations are NOT PERSONS.
The slogan of the Women's Internationsal Federation for PEACE and FREEDOM is
"Slavery is a legal fiction the makes a person property - Corporation Personhood- a legal fiction making property people"

Contact WIFPF.ORG and find out how this can be and is being done. It needs to be done on a local level, town by town.

WE MUST UNITE AND FIGHT THIS ABUSE.

PEACE.
LOUISE WATERSTON

Boycott, protest, lobby..
there IS something less challenging and difficult..

try VOTING OUT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE who has voted for/condoned the UNCONSTITUTIONAL actions of YOUR government and violated THEIR Oath of honoring AND obeying the rules of the said Constitution.

REGARDLESS of PARTY.

It is OUR(YOUR) duty to elect those who represent you....in this CONSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC...NOT!! a "democracy".....and to keep them from going astray(ie VIOLATING the rules)..by VOTING THEM OUT.

Keeping the elected officials that MAINTAIN THE EMPIRE AND MILITARY INDUSTRIAL Complex in office....that is not their fault....

Our freedoms and liberties that are NOT "GIVEN" or "GRANTED" to each of us by the State or Government or that piece of paper that W dismisses out of hand ARE DWINDLING DAILY and one more 9.11-like event or the impending COLLAPSE of the FederalReserveNotes "Dollar" and those few left will dissappear..

Some of these posters railed on Mr. Cuomo(and other luminaries) for not doing enough from their visible locations in society.

That is true...but then....are YOU doing enough from YOUR postition???

Time is short..go tell your friends and neighbors...

Chris in SCal
ronpaul2008.com

Yes, Chris- but you know how disappointed we have been with those we elected. They either lied or were prevented from attaining the goals promised.
Ron Paul will helpless as the lone savior until we make the large corporations less powerful.
One step in the right direction will be to take away the "PERSONHOOD" claimed for these created entities that enjoy rights of citizens, but accept non of the responsibilities.

Peace,
Louise Waterston

MountainMike:

Thanks for the heads up on attempts to reform the existing War Powers Act.

For anyone interested, here is a decent url on the 1973 War Powers Act that was supposed to prevent another Vietnam !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

As things stand right now, Congress and the White House could declare war on Mickey Mouse for having unnatural thoughts about Minnie Mouse. Justice Roberts of the Supremes would then fall to the floor in convulsions speaking in tongues declaring the war to be holy.

Rush To War just hit our video store. The extra interview with Joe Wilson is especially good as he is an old pro and hardly a peacenik and explains just how sick things have become.

How many old er people are here?
After every debacle comes the fixers and the naysayers, yet a very large part of what was wrong is never taken off the books but the personalitys change and it has now reached a point once again fo9r the fixers to step forward and say they have the answers.
That it is always members of ne party orthe other who is going to fix it but had been party of the problem in first place never seems to matter and Cuomo is a very large player in the parts of government that do not actually legislatte but tell legislators what to legislate.
Today talking of Constitution when for the last 60 years both partys have been sidestepping it, with the populaces overall agreement, is nothing but another spinmeister for it6 was nto the Constituion that was at fault but the people who manipulated it for their own advantages, the American public.
Killing people in other lands is an act of war, no matter if it is by congress's women and men approving coverts killing nuns in El Salvador or causing killings in the Balkans and Africa, lest anyone forgt we are killing people in Phillipines and African Horn today and financing a covert operation afgainst Iran and many other poor countries.
Cyomo does not mention the powers now granted to Homerland Security, the Patriot Act., and that internal security of US is now under Military Command, directly tied to Execuitive Branch not Congress, and in the ACts themselves including FISA and The War PowersACT have made Constitutional Rights of the people a moot point if the Executive Branch decides to suspend them for any national Emergency.
The Cuomos do not care about Constituonal Right s they are players in the Powqer Elite and no matter how oppressive the Governemtn became towards "WE THE PEOPLE" he would still walk within that power structure.
Every man or woman in office today "KNOWS" that we are no longer governed under any form of Constitutional Laws, jhust as we who are not part tf the power structures realize we are powerless to change them unless and only by direct action to overthrow them and that we as a society is an act we cannot and will not never condone.
Yes the powers are talking that we now need a time of "Reconcilliation" so the people can once again have a say in power but, THEY ARE THE ONES WHO WERE IN POWER THAT GOT US TO A POINT OF DESPERATION AND NOW WANT US TO RESTORE THEM TO POWER WHILE THEY HAVE NOT SURRENDERED ANY OF THE POWER USURPATIONS THEY TOOK FROM, ONCE AGAIN, "WE THE PEOPLE".
I remember a time when a President was gunned down upon an american street and grown men women and their familys all cried openly in public; that was a tiuem when suddenly people knew that within governemtn power there were people not foreign but domestic who would indeed stop at nothing, had the power to cover over truth, and after a long war later we alowed those in power to pretend they had reformed themselves.
Today we find the mistaek of those actions have now come home to slam an forgivign people inot abject submission by the so called Reformed power Brokers.
When cuomo hangs in Public and many more of the shadOW government then and only then can we begin to talk of restoring once again the Rights of "WE THE PEOPLE", but not until then.
In other words we are screwed bruised and tattooed as slaves to the system they installed.
The reason for so many "Relocation Centers", a highly paid military force with so many foeign nati0onals within it and private security while spying upon American populace continuwesd is nto fear fo external enemies but internal political enemies, those who still think there is a Constitution to be rescued.
Give it up and join the New World Order with the likes of Whimps and mean spirited people such as Cuomo, Hillary, Bill, Ron Paul, MC Cain any elected or butt kissing staff and party members and everyone whose whole lives has been given over to being a Politician and serves the unelected who run country.
Politics is power and greed for the individual aand borders, moral and legal, can be shifted by them to suit their immediate needs.
Yes mail Cuomo; and tell him to piss off!