The Kucinich Impeachment Resolution: Justice Delayed

I feel a long-awaited sigh of relief tonite as I listen live to the speaker of the US house of representatives read into the congressional record the resolution detailing the numerous articles of impeachment introduced by Dennis Kucinich (D-MI) and seconded by Robert Wexler (D-FL).

Regardless of the eventual disposition of this motion, one cannot deny the historical importance of this moment.

On this evening, 2 democrats have defied speaker Nancy Pelosi's spring, pre-election 2006 pronouncement that "impeachment is off the table".

On this evening, 2 Democrats have refused to continue to be complicit in the marching orders of their party elders to enable George W Bush's war crimes by refusing to hold him accountable.

On this evening Robert Wexler, who has been a staunch Obama supporter and adviser, refused to tow Obama's line on impeachment that he made clear almost one year ago:

Obama, a Harvard law school graduate and former lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said impeachment should not be used as a standard political tool.

"I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breaches, and intentional breaches of the president's authority," he said.

"I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction," he added. "We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus."

Illegal war fueled by manufactured propaganda.
Torture.
Illegal wiretapping.
Torture flights.
Secret prisons.
etc etc etc

Just what exactly is a "grave breach", Senator Obama? Could anything be more grave than killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and sending almost 4,000 US troops to their deaths? Torture isn't a "grave breach"?

You call the proper response to that - your duty as a US senator to defend and uphold the constitution - a "circus"?

How dare you?

Very few Democrats have raised their voices over the years to support impeachment as a result of their party putting the politics of convenience and avoidance above principles, basic human rights, and justice.

The Democratic party has failed to take up the responsibility, on behalf of the American people and all of the victims of the Bush administration's war crimes, to ensure that no one is above the law and that those who place themselves there through the creation of a unitary executive theory which holds that the administration is accountable to no one be punished severely.

Similarly, online Democratic party shills like Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos who proclaimed in December, 2006 that any talk of impeachment was "impeachment porn", whose bullying followers did everything they could to drive off impeachment supporters from that site and whose enlightened and so-called "progressive" political commentary about Kucinich's presidential bid amounted to an insultingly grunting "ugh" are also complicit in willfully allowing this administration to get away with what seems like an endless list of criminal activities while imploring salivating fans to send more money now! to a completely useless Democratic party.

And don't even get me started on how the mainstream media has utterly failed the American people on the impeachment issue as well. Dog forbid they should tell the truth and risk losing precious access to their government sources shills.

Integrity is a rare commodity. Too many people have been bludgeoned into complacency.

So, here we all are.

And I say "we" on behalf of citizens in all countries affected by the inaction of the Democratic party to do its job. We Canadians have had to live through and continue to be outraged by the incredible injustices the Bush administration has perpetrated on Maher Arar and Omar Khadr. We continue to lose soldiers in the other forgotten and mismanaged Bush war - Afghanistan. And we have yet to discover just how many of our citizens have really suffered as the result of the policies of this criminal gang and its so-called "war on terror". The impact will be felt for years, if not decades.

History will not be kind to Bush and it won't be kind to the Democratic party which chose to look the other way.

Which side of justice and history will you be on?

And now I'm off to watch the movie "Recount" - the story of the ridiculous 2000 election fiasco that brought all of us the George W Bush dictatorship in the first place. That seems like a ironic end to this nite, n'est-ce pas?
 

Obama on Bushco's War Crimes and Impeachment

During last week's big media focus on Bittergate, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News took his opportunity when he had access to Barack Obama to ask him about how he would deal with the alleged (and I use that term loosely) war crimes of the Bush administration.

Here's his response:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween [sic] really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

I really don't know what could be more "exceptional" than the possibility that the Bush administration committed war crimes. But, when Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table" months before the 2006 election, justifying that stand by saying that the Democrats would just be too darn "busy" if they won back control of the senate to be distracted by something akin to a "witch hunt", most of The Party fell in line. Well, they're were "busy" all right - busy siding with the Republicans and Bush while they enabled him to continue to destroy the country. Obama has obviously bought into that finger-wagging pronouncement, talking points included, and his statement minimizes those crimes by calling them "dumb" policies (which is exactly how he referred to the Iraq war - "dumb"). What kind of serious legal judgement is that?

When some Obama supporters at Daily Kos Obama were confronted with Obama's response, (a site whose founder called talk of impeachment "impeachment porn" in 2006 while doing everything he could to chase off impeachment supporters from his site - good little party disciplinarian that he is), some actually defended it by claiming that 1) Obama's life would be at risk if he actually gave an stronger answer and 2) that he'll apparently pull the impeachment rabbit out of his hat if he wins the presidency. Now why does that remind me of the "Is Nancy Pelosi a Freakin' GENIUS??" post, which a lot of people actually bought into, at the same site last year? And how did that work out, folks? Guess who's still gone unpunished for war crimes and his multiple violations of the constitution? Some "Freakin' GENIUS" she turned out to be.

So, excuse me if I mutter a little "pffft" at Obama's so-called promise to look into what the Bush administration has wrought on the American people, the millions of innocent Iraqis and the rest of the world while the Democratic party enabled him and chose to look away. The message is clear: once again the Democrats will be too "busy" trying to be bipartisan (a word which means they don't want to offend the Republicans' delicate sensibilities ie. they'll continue to buy into their fearmongering) if they win back the White House.

During last Sunday's CNN Compassion Religious Test Forum, Obama had this to say when asked about torture:

BROWN: Let's go to Dr. David Gushee, who is the president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

Dr. Gushee?

DAVID P. GUSHEE, MERCER UNIVERSITY: Senator Obama, recently yet another disturbing memo emerged from the Justice Department. This one said that not even interrogation methods that, quote, "shock the conscience" would be considered torture nor would they be considered illegal if they had been authorized by the president.

Senator Obama, this kind of reasoning shocks the conscience of many millions of Americans and many millions of people of faith here and around the world. Is there justification for policies on the part of our nation that permit physical and mental cruelty toward those who are in our custody?

OBAMA: We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period. We don't torture.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Our government does not torture. That should be our position. That should be our position. That will be my position as president. That includes, by the way, renditions. We don't farm out torture. We don't subcontract torture.

That lie is the Bush administration's "position" as well. Both Obama and Clinton have used that statement while ignoring the fact that the Military Commissions Act gave the CIA immunity from prosecution for torture. What are you going to do about that, Senator Obama?

No one who's seen the Abu Ghraib evidence can say that the US does not torture.

OBAMA: And the reason this is important is not only because torture does not end up yielding good information -- most intelligence officers agree with that. I met with a group -- a distinguished group of former generals who have made it their mission to travel around and talk to presidential candidates and to talk in forums about how this degrades the discipline and the ethos of our military.

It is very hard for us when kids, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22 are in Iraq having to make difficult decisions, life or death decisions every day, and are being asked essentially to restrain themselves and operate within the law.

And then to find out that our own government is not abiding by these same laws that we are asking them to defend? That is not acceptable. And so my position is going to be absolutely clear.

And it is also important for our long-term security to send a message to the world that we will lead not just with our military might but we are going to lead with our values and our ideals.

That we are not a nation...

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: ... that gives away our civil liberties simply because we're scared. And we're always at our worst when we're fearful. And one of the things that my religious faith allows me to do, hopefully, is not to operate out of fear.

Fear is a bad counsel and I want to operate out of hope and out of faith.

You can hope and have faith all you like but I noticed, Obama, that not once did you mention the victims of torture. Instead, you talked about the fact that torture doesn't work, that it's hard on America's military and that the US image has suffered. Where's the compassion in that?

I think it's also quite naive to think that America's "values and ideals" are not wrapped up in US military might. If he truly believed that, why has he promised to boost military spending and power while propping up torturing regimes like Israel? It may not be Bush-style fear that he's selling but there's no doubt that he has faith in using the military-industrial complex to fix US problems around the world. Just look at how hawkish he's been towards Iran and Pakistan. That kind of rhetoric is simply a repetition of neocon philosophy - might makes right. Obama may not be singing "Bomb Iran" as openly as McCain, but he certainly won't rule it out. Maybe they could do a duet. Obama's also quite on track for remaking the world in the US image. Just how much more American intervention can the world take?

For all of this Obama campaign talk about "change", what's obvious is that the status quo will remain very much in effect if Obama wins the presidency. He has a point when he complains about the distractions that have taken the focus off of the real issues but the fact is that all of these sideshows have probably benefited the candidate since, when it comes to matters of foreign policy and domestic accountability, Americans would just be in for 4 more years of hell no matter who wins.

It appears that the only place Bush administration officials may ever face responsibility for what they've done will be in a foreign court - and that can't come soon enough.

In the meantime, Obama won't have to worry about being tarred with that "witch hunt" moniker and that's just fine with him and the Democratic party.

Related:

"We'll make you see death"; A harrowing account from a man the CIA handed over to Jordan – smuggled from prison on tiny paper – exposes U.S. complicity in torture.

ACLU: Secret Bush Administration Torture Memo Released Today In Response To ACLU Lawsuit (4/1/2008)

US torture - when can the prosecutions start?

Top US general 'hoodwinked' over aggressive interrogation

Torture Questions Hover Over Chertoff

Minneapolis citizens calling for Bush arrest at GOP Convention
 

Dennis Kucinich: Good News/Bad News

First, the bad news (for those of us who appreciated the wider dialogue Dennis contributed to the Democratic presidential race): Dennis will be dropping out of the race on Friday.

But, here's the Good News™: He announced on the floor of the house today that he "plans to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Bush on Jan. 28 — the day of Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speech."

Accusing the administration of lying about the need for the war in Iraq, Mr. Kucinich said he did not need to hear the president’s assessment. “We know the State of the Union,” he declared. “It’s a lie.”

He also fired a volley at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California who has maintained that impeaching Mr. Bush is not on the table for Congressional Democrats. “If impeachment is off the table,” Mr. Kucinich said, “truth is off the table. If truth is off the table then this body is living a lie.”

Amen. And that's exactly what it's been doing by refusing to pursue justice for the American people through impeaching the president of 935 lies.

Dennis' announcement:


Ever since the Democrats regained their dominance of congress, we've heard excuse after excuse about why they won't impeach these war criminals. Enough is enough.
 

'LSD: Lame, Spineless, Democrats'

Flashback, 2002: The Perils of LSD: Lame, Spineless, Democrats, Tom Stephens

A plague has seized the Nation. It emanates from Washington, D.C., and is spreading wherever People try to come to grips with the abuse of power there by the most dangerous government corporate money can buy. Symptoms (particularly among People committed to real democracy, social justice, and non-violence in our relations with others) include barely controllable rage, enormous frustration, organization of third parties, and ultimately a sense of total scorn for mainstream electoral politics as anything other than a personal career. The name of this malady is Lame, Spineless Democrats (LSD). Friends don't let friends enter the hallucinatory, pseudo-powerful world of LSD and its pushers in the Democratic Leadership [sic] Council without strong mutual support.

Thanks to leading Democrats who misplaced their spines, their passion, their intelligence, and their guts, the Republican Party seized total power over all three branches of the United States Government in the 2002 mid-term elections. With Republican control of the Senate we face federal courts packed with ultra-right wing ideologue judges (enjoying lifetime appointments) for at least a generation. It has been said that for evil to triumph it is only necessary that good People do nothing. The national leaders of the Democratic Party, the Tom Daschles, Dick Gepharts and Joe Liebermans who have been trying to win elections for 20 years now by beating the Fat Cat Republicans at their own corporate bribery game, let America and the world down. These uncertain trumpeters failed to grasp one very simple and fundamental fact about the type of electoral "democracy" that prevails today in America. If you let your political opponents define the key issues and control the timing of which issues will dominate the agenda, while you avoid providing any clear answers to their inflammatory and flagrantly misleading rhetoric about "freedom," "security," and "evil," you will get your ass kicked. Duh.

Some of the names have changed - today it's the Harry Reids, the Nancy Pelosis and, still, the Joe Liebermans - but the results are the same: lame, spineless Democrats caving to Bush's agenda just as they've done again this weekend.

LSD, circa 2007:

The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.

The 60 to 28 vote, which was quickly denounced by civil rights and privacy advocates, came after Democrats in the House failed to win support for more modest changes that would have required closer court supervision of government surveillance. Earlier in the day, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session into its scheduled summer recess if it did not approve the changes he wanted.

The boy king had a tantrum and the Democrats let him have his new toy. It's only a 6 month temporary measure, they said, as they gave more power to the most corrupt AG in US history - Alberto Gonzales.

The poor house Democrats can't stand the pressure either, but it's the politics of the situation - not the civil rights - that they're concerned about.

With time running out before a scheduled monthlong break and the Senate already in recess, House Democrats confronted the choice of accepting the administration’s bill or letting it die. If it died, that would leave Democratic lawmakers, who have long been anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August fending off charges from Mr. Bush and Republicans that they left Americans exposed to terror threats.

They look weak on security because they keep buying into Republican talking points that portray them as being just that. If they had any actual courage, they would have told Bush to screw himself and would have all gone home.

There was no indication that lawmakers were responding to new intelligence warnings. Rather, Democrats were responding to administration pleas that a recent secret court ruling had created a legal obstacle in monitoring foreign communications relayed over the Internet. They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they were likely to resurface before the end of the year.

Democrats have expressed concerns that the administration is reaching for powers that go well beyond solving what officials have depicted as narrow technical issues in the current law.

“They have got us in a vise,” Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said as she left a Saturday afternoon meeting where senior Democrats were debating how to handle the issue in the final hours before recess.

No, Louise - you put yourselves in that vise. And make no mistake, you've given the Bush administration carte blanche again to illegally spy on your countrymen - a crime Bush had previously admitted to that should have spurred his impeachment (along with the many other criminal activities he and his administration have been up to) but your party has conveniently, for this war criminal president, taken impeachment off the table. Honestly, what the hell is wrong with you?

Just what does the Bush administration have on these Democrats? Some of us out here would seriously like to know because there just isn't any other way to reconcile this continual pandering to a megalomaniac of a president who would would prefer to be a dictator - which you are enabling him to be.

Democratic lawmakers have been deeply suspicious that the Bush administration was seeking a broader and more controversial expansion of surveillance authority by making changes that were vague on important issues. Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the administration-supported bill would allow wiretapping without warrants as long as it was “concerning a person abroad.” As a result, he said, the law could be construed as allowing any search inside the United States as long as the government claimed it “concerned” Al Qaeda.

Are you an American thinking of e-mailing me, a Canadian? Well all Gonzales has to do is claim your e-mail somehow "concerns" al Qaeda and bingo - your communications will be under surveillance - as will mine. Think that's far-fetched? Just look at what they did to Maher Arar. You can't trust these Republican bastards with any power.

Just what will it take for the Democrats to realize that? An illegal war? No. Torture? No. Bush burning that "god damned piece of paper" (as he refers to the constitution)? No.

And just when will the majority of Democratic party fans - too many of whom believe that "winning" actually solves anything - actually wake the fuck up and realize that their party is nothing but Republican-Lite?

Have they even seen the latest poll numbers outside of the little orange bubble that they live in as they all hail their Democratic leadership at their YearlyKos convention this weekend? (It's true: willfully ignorant partisanship kills brain cells.) Democrats OUT: Apply directly to the forehead.

You really might need to read this twice to believe it if you're once of those brainwashed partisan hacks:

Oh this is hilarious. I thought Bush’s approval at 34%, Democratic Congress 14% was funny, but the new numbers from the Zogby poll are ridiculously low.

Nelson Muntz said it best.

The survey said:

Survey shows just 3% of Americans approve of how Congress is handling the war in Iraq; 24% say the same for the President

Bush’s Iraq policy has 8 times the support the anti-Bush policy of Pelosi-Murtha-Clyburn-Reid-Byrd.

And it gets worse: 94% of Democrats polled absolutely detest, loathe and hate how the Democratic-led Congress is handling the war in Iraq.

Yet the Democrats think the way they can increase their poll numbers is to roll over and play dead whenever Bush puts pressure on them?

3%??

Does it get any more insane than this?

With these Democrats, you can count on it.

Related: ACLU Condemns Senate for Passing Spy Law Changes

“We are deeply disappointed that the president’s tactics of fearmongering have once again forced Congress into submission,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “That a Democratically-controlled Senate would be strong-armed by the Bush administration is astonishing. This Congress may prove to be as spineless in standing up to the Bush Administration as the one that enacted the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act.”

The legislation that passed would allow for the intelligence agencies to intercept – without a court order – the calls and emails of Americans who are communicating with people abroad, and puts authority for doing so in the hands of the attorney general. No protections exist for Americans whose calls or emails are vacuumed up, leaving it to the executive branch to collect, sort, and use this information as it sees fit.

“It seems that political cover is more important to our senators than the rights and privacy of those they represent,” added Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The administration is on the verge of reviving a warrantless wiretapping program even broader than the illegal one it conducted before.

Video: Olbermann - Is Gonzo gonzo?

Let's hope so.



Related:
Cheney Hails His Pal Al

And what does Nancy Pelosi think about impeaching Gonzales?

In the first question of the morning, Pelosi was asked if she supported a proposal by Washington Rep. Jay Inslee to impeach beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The Speaker looked down and rubbed her temples wearily. "I would like us to stay focused on our agenda this week," she said. Today the entails finalizing ethics and lobbying reform. Tomorrow it will mean expanding children's health care and boosting Medicare benefits. By the end of the week the House will likely pass an energy bill and legislation will be brought to the floor that reins in the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

Pelosi's no fan of Gonzales or his bosses. "The Administration wants the Attorney General to sign off on what can be collected," she says of the wiretapping proposal. "Absolutely not."

She is greatly disturbed by the lawlessness of this Administration and its contempt for checks and balances. "I take an oath to defend and protect the Constitution, so it is a top priority for me and my colleagues to uphold that." [not when it comes to impeachment though. -catnip] She notes the vigorous oversight hearings held by committee chairman like John Conyers and Henry Waxman.

But Pelosi sees impeaching Gonzales and his superiors as a distraction from the ambitious agenda she has crafted for the House. "If I can just hold my caucus together," she says, "I can take them to this progressive place."

Oh just go home, Nancy.
 

Sheehan and 45 Other Protesters Arrested in DC

Cindy Sheehan announced a few weeks ago that she would give house speaker Nancy Pelosi until July 23rd to put impeachment back on the table or Sheehan would run against her as an independent. During protests at Jonn Conyer's (D-MI) senate office today, Sheehan formally announced her candidacy.

She and 45 other protesters were also arrested (pics here). You'll see that outspoken Bush administration critic and former CIA officer Ray McGovern was arrested as well along with Colonel Ann Wright and Cindy Sheehan's sister, Dede.

Sheehan was taken into custody inside Rep. John Conyers' office, where she had spent an hour imploring him to launch impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Conyers, D-Mich., chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where any impeachment effort would have to begin.

"The Democrats will not hold this administration accountable, so we have to hold the Democrats accountable," Sheehan said outside of Conyers' office after the meeting. "And I for one am going to step up to the plate and run against Nancy Pelosi."

Sheehan and about 200 other protesters had walked to Conyers' office from Arlington National Cemetery. She said Conyers told her there weren't enough votes for impeachment to move forward on the issue.

Forty-five of Sheehan's fellow protesters also were arrested. Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said that after they are processed, the arrested activists could each pay a $50 fine to be released.

"Impeachment is not a fringe movement, it is mandated in our Constitution. Nancy Pelosi had no authority to take it off the table," Sheehan told her group of orange-clad activists before they began their march from the national cemetery.

That "we don't have the votes" canard has angered many online Democrats who have reminded their party leaders that when impeachment investigations began against Nixon, the Democrats didn't have the votes either. It's an empty response to a hugely important concern of the majority of Democrats (and millions of Americans) who want hearings to begin now to investigate the wrongdoing crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration.

Sheehan has been completely marginalized at Daily Kos (as she was again on Monday during the protest) and no longer posts at that large Democratic (party comes first!) blog hub (which has become an unbearably thuggish snake pit), but she obviously doesn't need their support to keep up her fight anyway. She's doing just fine.

She relentlessly continues (in spite of all of the venomous criticism she's received) to be the public voice of outrage against the Iraq war and this criminal administration. She gets out there and puts herself in peril in order to act on behalf of all ordinary American citizens who have been so gravely affected by Bushco's policies and many are thankful for the face she's given to the right to dissent.

She and all who protested with her today did their duty as citizens - refusing to sit back and wait for the Democrats to take action - any action - to hold Bushco responsible for at least something...one thing...is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Their refusal to do so is shameful.

Cindy now blogs at ImpeachBush.org. Please support her efforts.

(By the way, some Democratic party members are so desperate to believe that their leaders will do the right thing that they just make shit up about their "brilliant", "genius" leaders and try to sell it to others who, apparently, are quite willing to buy it. That's quite pathetic to watch. They ought to do much more than to tell each other fairy tales so they can actually crack that dangerous state of denial. It's bad enough that Bush lives in that world. It really is something to see members of the so-called "reality-based" community falling for that kind of self-deception too.)
 

Quote du Jour: Impeachment

Jimmy Breslin via Newsday (the entire editorial is worth a read):

Say impeachment and you'll get your troops home.

That's where the disconnect is as far as the Democratic leaders go. It's either/or. They won't impeach. They won't defund the war. Perhaps if they squeezed the Bush administration hard enough and actually began holding impeachment hearings, Bush would stand up and take notice, but the Democrats are too afraid to even try.

Meanwhile, one of the "liberal" heroes of the left blogosphere, Russ Feingold, just wants to give Bush a slap on the wrist by censuring him. You'd think that toothless gesture would be something even the rest of the Democrats could get behind, but no:

Feingold's own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors.
[...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Feingold's proposals showed the nation's frustration. But Reid said he would not go along with them and said the Senate needs to focus on finishing spending bills on defense and homeland security.

"We have a lot of work to do," Reid said. "The president already has the mark of the American people — he's the worst president we ever had. I don't think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that."

They are incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

Spineless, spineless, spineless, and nothing but a dereliction of duty as the Democratic party seems to have taken an oath to protect itself rather than the US constitution.

As for Feingold's intentions with his censure resolution:

This is an opportunity for people to say, let's at least reflect on the record that something terrible has happened here," said Feingold, D-Wis. "This administration has weakened America in a way that is frightful."

Yes. Let's "reflect". As thousands more people die in Iraq. Let's "reflect".
 

Impeachment: The responsibility of the citizens

Via Bill Moyer's Journal, July 13, 2007:

JOHN NICHOLS: --back in 1974, after Nixon had resigned, and said, "We must continue the impeachment process." It's-- it is under the Constitution certainly appropriate to do so. And we must continue it because we have to close the circle on presidential power. And the leaders in Congress, the Democratic leaders in Congress at the time said, "No, the-- country has suffered too much." Well, this is the problem. Our leaders treat us as children. They think that we cannot handle a serious dialogue about the future of our republic, about what it will be and how it will operate. And so, you know, to an extent, we begin to act like children. We, you know, follow other interests. We decide to be entertained rather than to be citizens.

Well, you know, and Bruce makes frequent references to the fall of the Roman Empire. You know, that's the point at where the fall comes. It doesn't come because of a bad leader. It doesn't come because of a dysfunctional Congress. It comes when the people accept that-- role of the child or of the subject and are no longer citizens. And so I think this moment becomes so very, very important because we know the high crimes and misdemeanors.

The people themselves have said, if the polls are correct, that, you know, something ought to be done. If nothing is done, if we do not step forward at this point, if we do not step up to this point, then we have, frankly, told the people, you know, you can even recognize that the king has no clothes, but we're not gonna put any clothes on him. And at that point, the country is in very, very dire circumstances.

According to the latest American Research Group poll on impeachment, only ~46% support beginning impeachment proceedings against George Bush: 69% of Democrats; 13% of Republicans and 50% of independents.

Only ~46%.

“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.”
- Adlai Stevenson

There is no doubt that the paternalistic aura of the American presidency, in which the president is viewed not as someone elected to serve the needs of the country's citizens but to forward his own agenda on behalf of his party with a "father knows best" approach, has continually relegated the citizenry to the role of subservient children. And, as has been seen with every power grab, every law the Bush administration has flagrantly and so brazenly broken, too many citizens accept what they seem to believe is their ultimate fate.

The fact that the new pseudo-mother of the Democratic party, Nancy Pelosi, and her senate mate, the kindly, soft-spoken Harry Reid have refused to initiate impeachment proceedings on behalf of party members who clearly wish otherwise also illustrates the parent/child dynamic that so pervades politicians in leadership positions. Although it's not as if Democratic party voters weren't warned when Pelosi made it blisteringly clear prior to the election that impeachment was "off the table". The moment she made that assertion was the moment there should have been a huge, public revolt against the Democratic leadership, but the idea of finally reclaiming congress (as if that meant much of anything, as we've seen with the Democrats' absolutely dismal performance since that happened) was more important than standing up as citizens to reclaim their country.

When your leaders tell you they will not work on your behalf or when they have the power and refuse to use it, the job of a citizen is to hold them accountable. That applies to all leaders. That has not happened in a very public way amongst the American citizenry and it's doubtful that it will in any meaningful way.

If the Democratic leaders had actually done their job and started impeachment proceedings when they gained subpoena power, perhaps the evidence they could have brought forth to this point would have convinced more than that 46% of citizens overall who are now in favour of impeachment. One would think, as I certainly do, that Bush's own statements about how he knowingly broke the law in the case of the secret CIA prisons and the illegal wiretappings of American citizens (not to mention the illegal Iraq war) would have been enough for a massive groundswell of support for impeachment. Apparently not.

Of those citizens who do favour impeachment, their voices are simply being ignored - especially the 69% of Democrats in that poll who favour the proceedings. But, at the same time, perhaps the citizenry isn't making enough of an effort to be heard. One only has to look at the amazing protests held in other countries when a leader goes astray. It's as if, and is likely the case as Nichols pointed out, that they have foregone using the power they have after being treated like and acting like unruly children who are just a nuisance to democracy. After a while, you believe that any effort is just futile when you're subjected to authoritarianism.

Add to that the fact that at the largest so-called "progressive" site on the internet which exists to get Democrats elected - Daily Kos - kos, the owner, stated last December that talk of impeachment was "impeachment porn" and that those who have supported impeachment there have continually been bullied into toeing the Pelosi/Reid party line that impeachment would just take time away from the other "important work" the congress has to do (which, as we've seen with their failure to force an end to the Iraq war with anything resembling strength, has been a lost cause) and it's no surprise that Republican/conservative-style authoritarianism has been accepted as being the norm by far too many citizens - across the political spectrum. The "children" must be controlled. Barring that, they must be silenced.

The Impeach Bush site is planning a September 15th protest in Washington as a follow up to their protest earlier this year in March. But two protests in an entire year are just not enough either to rally more widespread support among a citizenry that Nichols characterized as preferring to be "entertained".

It is very likely that the Bush administration members who should be investigated for impeachment: Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and anyone else suspected of deserving such punishment - will walk away scott free in the end. That failure will rest on the shoulders of all Americans: that the most blatantly criminal administration in America's history was never held to account for the crimes it perpetrated on its own citizens who chose to enable it rather than to confront it - and that the failure to demand justice on behalf of the citizens of other countries who have also been the victims of those crimes will certainly not be forgotten.

If you want your country back, take it.
 

Impeachment On: Apply Directly to the Congress

Information Clearing House calls this video clip "How to create an Angry American". I call it "How to create an Angry World".

Quote du Jour: Pelosi - Bush Not Worth Impeaching

Nancy Pelosi explains why she won't move to impeach Bush, via Mike Stark's diary at Daily Kos:

I made a decision a few years ago, or at least one year ago, that impeachment was something that we could not be successful with and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and their short-comings, and the President is... ya know what I say? The President isn’t worth it... he’s not worth impeaching. We’ve got important work to do... If he were at the beginning of his term, people may think of it differently, but he’s at the end of his terms. The first two years of his term, if we came in as the majority, there might be time to do it all...

You, Mrs Pelosi, have no greater duty than to uphold the constitution. If you don't think impeaching Bush for his crimes is "important" enough for you to deal with, you should resign.
 

Pssst...Democrats...Elect This Guy in '08!

Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City, Utah speaking at the antiwar protest at the Pentagon on March 17, 2007.