Sunday, June 19, 2005

Downing Street and hopelessness

A reader offered an interesting response to my previous link to Xymphora's take on the Downing Street memos:

sorry...Joe..but the xymphora article is crap...

he/she doesn't even seem to know which house in congress votes for impeachment.

and those kind of "everything is hopeless" articles aren't even worth reading
The mistake about the house of Congress is trivial in this instance. The issue of hopelessness is not.

Lord knows my predictions have proven wrong before, but I certianly agree that the current flap will not lead to impeachment. It ought to, but it won't happen. Right-wing control is imply too profound, and one must recognise the realities of power.

Is that attitude needlessly pessissmistic, or merely realistic? The latter, I should say. I usually try to counsel readers to look for positive actions we can take. And I certainly advise giving impeachment the proverbial old college try.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a strong chance that impeachment will happen. But there is little chance that Bush will be removed from office...that I grant you.

But if Bush were to be impeached...as Clinton was...then that could do a lot to hurt the GOP and help ensure Democrats getting back into power (though of course Xymphora is right in that election reform needs to happen first).

Impeachment could also lead to a withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. Today, Condi Rice said that Bush said this was a generational battle in Iraq: a 30 year war.

We're never going to get enough votes in the Senate to remove Bush from office...but we might get more than just the Democrats...and that could do a lot.

I just prefer hopefulness to just plain giving up. Who knows what else could be found out if trials were held? Who knows who else will speak out and blow whistles?

I don't see the point in saying "why bother?"

Anonymous said...

i agree with both joe and ron. whatever would it mean to just give up to 'the inevitable' intimidation of power? it's both cynical and cowardly.

but that being said, it is also important to remain realistic. this is an uphill battle, make no mistake. but, that hill is getting more and more slippery with the slime of repug corruption and destruction of our constitutional principles. the public trend is tilting away from the powers that be, though they don't seem to be noticing at the top. still, others who are actually concerned about re-election are starting to distance themselves from the crud, and if it comes down to a consituency demanding justice, many of these guys will vote the way of the social security logic: um, maybe i better be listening to them what brung me.

not sure what ron meant about bush getting impeached but still staying in office, as there is little likelihood that the proceedings could get away with whitewashing all the facts we now have before us. as for initiating the process, conyers has already intimated that he is considering raising the specter, and it only takes one member of the house to do so. of course, given the complexion of the judiciary committee, what are the odds sensenbrenner would even allow conyers to breathe, let alone speak?

so, it does all appear to hinge on the coming elections, and lots can happen between now and then. not much chance anything will be revealed that will clear these criminals, but gosh, don't be surprised if we are forced to suffer another 'new' pearl harbor (did anyone see that editorial in the boulder daily record a week or so ago that happened to mention just such a thing in a short paragraph near the end?? pretty bold!).

however, ya gotta wonder how many of the now very disgruntled majority would swallow another caper like that.

how did that go? fool me once, shame on ..., fool me twice, ...won't be fooled again!!

maybe we should make that our rallying cry!

Anonymous said...

ps. just ran across this rather staunch rightwing site with this opinion piece on the dsm; if more of this continues to happen (as well as the reports of the business community turning sour on w), this might not be mission impossible.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44852

Anonymous said...

pps. and this, from the european and pacific stars and stripes:

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=28991&archive=true

Anonymous said...

It would be unfortunate to raise the
impeachment issue prematurely and fail.
But 2006 will surely be the Year of
911truth with the five year retrospective.
If the American people knew the truth
they would stream howling to the polls in
11/06 and vote all Republicans out, and
then impeachment in 2007 would be quite
possible. Of course, first we need to
have honest elections. If you live on the
eastern seaboard, it's likely that state
legislation requiring paper-ballot voting
has not yet been past. Go to
verifiedvoting.org and see, and then do
something about it!