I came out early in favor of impeachment and have done whatever I could for that cause for years. I still think Bush and Cheney deserve not just to be removed from office but to be tried in an international court.But.
The recent antics of the impeachment movement make me want to throw up. Read the responses to this well-written piece by William Pitt (whose progressive credentials should not be in question). And then take a look at the disgusting insults lobbed at this well-researched Kos Diary, written by a lawyer who knows what he's talking about.
Bottom line, I have a hell of lot more respect for Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers than I do for an attention-seeking bitch like Cindy Sheehan. And bravo to Conyers for treating a mob in his office exactly as any mob ought to be treated.
As one D.U. commenter has put it:
I half expect Cindy of Nazareth to declare formally for the Congressional seat occupied by Nancy Pelosi by urinating on and extinguishing the eternal flame at JFK's grave while ranting about how the Democratic Party is responsible for AIDS, crack, The Inquisition, Katrina and Global Warming.The impeachment movement has been commandeered by self-righteous, ill-educated zealots with whom I want no association. They are bullies -- Dittoheads with different politics. Strike that: They have the same politics. The progressive purists and the Limbaugh listeners are united in their hatred of the Democratic party.
In today's climate, one is labeled a Bush apologist or an enabler if one does not march in line with these brownshirts. It's not enough to head in the same general direction; one has to goosestep on cue.
Well, I ain't taking cues from nobody, and certainly not from any progressive purists. I have been watching politics since before many of you were born, and I have never...
ever...
...seen the progressive purists accomplish ANYTHING positive.
All they ever did was try their damnedest to tear down support for Carter and Clinton. I was but a boy at the time, but I can still recall that, back in 1968, a few anti-war protesters yelled "Sirhan power!" That chant represented progressive purity at its most pure.
Before Chris Hitchens switched sides, he was a classic progressive purist. I suspect that most of the Impeachment brownshirts will follow a similar course: Twenty years from now, they'll be supporting whoever will play the George Bush role in that era.
Why? Because political fanatics naturally form mobs. And mobs naturally fall under the control of mobsters.
Those who lose faith in the system -- in the always-compromised mess we call democracy -- eventually start thinking about politics purely in terms of Power and the accumulation thereof. Choose between the path of Moderation and the path of Macht: There ain't no third road. That's one reason why so many Vietnam protesters became Reagan supporters. That's why so many neocons started out as Marxists.
Mark my words: Those cretins shouting at John Conyers will devolve in precisely the same fashion.
Oh, and for chrissakes -- don't think you're going to impress me by telling me that you'll take this site off your bookmarks. As you know, my heart has not been in this work for quite a while, primarily because I feel nothing but contempt for most of my readers. I'm the only blogger whose heart sings when his stats go down. If I wanted to make money from this site, I'd turn it into a forum for trannyism and Pelosi-hate. I'd never miss an opportunity to get on the radio and scream that both parties are the same and Hillary voted for the Iraq war and ran drugs for the contras and something something Clinton Bush Mena something something.
That's what you people want to hear, innit?
23 comments:
I feel for your position as a leader Joseph. I hope I'm not one of the people you dislike even though I usually never bring anyting important/intellectual to bear in the comments.
For me, if impeachment is on the table, I'm sitting at it. If it's not, then I'm still there but wringing my hands under the table. Because I think impeachment is right. At a minimum. Jail time after that would be even better.
I do feel I can trust Conyers and Pelosi, et.al., to do what is right for the country - in a patient and correct manner. And that is the goal afterall.
As an aside, if any one of the Democratic candidates starts to give misleading responses to or about any other Democratic candidate they will lose my vote, period.
Miss P.
Thanks for breathing down your nose at us mobs Mr. Gatekeeper. Here you go again telling people what they can and can't talk about it.
You probably won't post this but who gives a shit anymore. People are beginning to understand that this site serves no purpose other than running interference for political crooks and cons of the Democratic flavor who WILL NEVER get anything done in this country other than taking it in the backside for their Republican tops. Dems got us into Iraq by being weak in the knees and not voting against the war and they are keeping us there by being weak in the knees and NOT IMPEACHING THESE FUCKS.
Thanks for nothing you Putz.
Yeah, right. I run interference. I'm a Gatekeeper. I get these HUGE pay-offs. That's why I'm facing eviction.
Alex Jones doesn't have to worry about eviction, methinks.
This is how most of my reader comments would read without moderation.
Well, one can be an intellectual gatekeeper.
I'm just surprised you have the energy to post after so feverishly building extravagant straw men. No doubt, those that favor impeachment are all lunatic fringe-types worthy of your derision and have no sense of history like you do, after all, you're the only person to have lived through...some of it.
Your site has value, but your sense of all-knowing superiority could stand a bit of "checks and balances". No opposition is a monolith, nor are those you favor. All movements are built of coalitions. Stop thinking in terms of black and white regarding your enemies (and potential friends).
You've become silly.
If you can change your mind about supporting the right thing to do because of fear that you will be counted with people whose methods you disagree with then your support probably wasn't worth that much to begin with. You bitch about "trannys" because they claim that the government did 9/11 and then say "We see increasing signs that he is considering the "false flag" terror option, under which he will assume dictatorial powers.". So you think that people that believe 911 was a government false flag operation are these wacky insane lunatics, but you, well, gosh, you're not saying that the government HAS conducted a flase flag terror attack, you're just saying that they WOULD. Maybe you should take a break and actually figure out where you stand before you keep criticizing people who already have. Just a thought.
I think you need to take a vacation. You sound like your cracking up.
Stranger Danger, stupid fucks like you are the reason why I see no purpose in going on. Over and over I hear the cry: "Support the trannies! GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Forget about reason or fact or proof or evidence -- what's important is THE MOVEMENT!"
Well, you see, I can't do that -- because there's this little thing called SCIENCE, and it ain't on your side. Do you think for one second that I am going to foreswear science just to make you people happy?
Your letter presumes only two options: 1. One must believe in the pseudoscience one gets from Alex Jones and Jim Fetzer or 2. One must stand damned as as supporter of Bush and the official story.
How many times must I say it? READ DANIEL HOPSICKER. SEE THE FILM "911: PRESS FOR TRUTH."
There is a third choice. The tranny movement was deliberately created to blind people to what really happened.
Oh, anon -- are you trying to tell me that Cindy Sheehan and those shit-heads in Conyers' office were NOT silly?
Sign your damn real name, as I do. I dare you. Because I want to prove the point -- in 20 years, the Pelosi-haters and the Conyers-haters will be supporting whoever is the Ronald Reagan or George Bush of that era. It has happened before and it will happen again. Mark my words.
Oh, and before the trannies write in to repeat their catechism, I would ask them try to understand a few things. First, look up the word "Catechism." Second, understand that I HAVE heard it all before, and you have not one unfamiliar word to tell me. Third, try clicking on that little ad I made -- the one with the twin towers. Read what you see on the other end. Also, look up the "Implosion World" investigation. You might learn something.
Stupid fucks like me? For your information Mr. Cannon I actually don't believe that 9/11 was perpetrated by the government. Enabled, almost certainly. But that's not the point. There are more productive ways of dealing with people that have drifted off the path of rational thinking than attacking them. Like for instance, and I'm just spitballing here, ignoring them to talk about something more important? And if there was some confusion about what my point was, when I said "Maybe you should take a break and actually figure out where you stand before you keep criticizing people who already have." I was talking specifically about the impeachment activists. But feel free to insult me again if you feel the need to do that. And seriously consider taking a break and getting your head together, cause you really sound like you are losing it.
Joe, For what it's worth, I don't have you bookmarked; you're a shortcut on my desktop, where you'll remain as long as you're putting up with this. I stumbled onto your blog during the Bush bulge business and have visited pretty much each day since. As a college prof/administrator, I don't have much time to check all the blogs, so I use you as a wise guide. I've been reluctant to endorse the impeachment drive(though clearly warranted), simply because it seems to me a dangerous political move. Cindy Sheehan, for all her bravery, has become a liability. Although we should not try to silence her (as if we coule), she seems to me to misunderstand the stategies of the democracy game--which, surely, is first do no harm to your cause. Thanks for your sanity.
Joe,
I strongly agree with you that Cindy Sheehan's actions yesterday were absurd. A lot of people have lost someone in a war, an accident, from a disease or illness, and don't go to the lengths she has recently.
However, I do feel you've gone a little overboard with your picture.
I fully support impeachment. Besides the obvious reasons why it is justified, let me throw out one nobody mentions...the masses need something better to talk about than Paris Hilton, and impeachment could become a popular spectacle to tune into.
I believe you support it as well...and you're just pissed right now because "the whackos" often seem to be the only people left-of-center that get publicity.
It's downright sad. Today, the AG of the US lied, dodged, rope-a-doped, all under oath, and it hardly received a whisper on local news, and front pages for some main news sites such as MSBNC and CNN don't mention a thing right. Perhaps "the people" are getting what they deserve, but it's still sad.
Cheer up bud...at least the 9-11 woowoos haven't popped in today.
Since discovering your site during the 2004 election fraud, I have valued your insight and perspective. Sorry you're so down about the quality of your reading audience.
There is a a psychological phenomenon whereby people have greater sympathy for a single suffering person than for a large group of similarly afflicted people. Cindy - as the bereaved, crying mother looking for answers -humanized the war in a way that statistics fail to do. Unfortunately, she got off message too often, and allowed herself to be caricatured by the media, to the point where she has lost the essence of her emotional appeal - her unnuanced, plain grief epitomized by the simple, unanswerable question, "for what noble cause did you send my son to die?"
Joe, love the site, and I agree with you on impeachment - I think that it would be politically problematic to impeach Bush and leave the country without a commander-in-chief at a time of war. Not that the vacuum created would be a detriment, but I suspect that the GOP would have a field day ("The Democrat party has abandoned the troops by removing their leader").
Like I said, Joe, I love the site, and will read it as long as you continue to blog.
hmmm, yes of course. I see. Sit ins are baaad. Progressive movements have NEVER employed such dirty fucking hippie tactics in the face of overwhelming odds before. Who the hell do they think they are, Rosa Parks? They should just shut the fuck up and sit where they are told. And getting arrested is soooo trashy. Who the hell do they think they are, MLK? They should stop being so impolite and wait until George Bush bombs Iran back to the stone age, then maybe Conyers and Pelosi will do something. And expecting their elected representatives to do their Constitutional duty as well as respond to the wishes of their voters? Where the fuck do they think they are, America?
Having heard Cindy Sheehan speak on TV, I don't think she considers herself to be a "progressive purist" or categorizes herself along any particular party or political ideology lines. She is simply loudly and as conspciously as she knows how trying to stop the war and oust the people responsible for it, and she has a right to do so. More power to her, IMHO She is politically "non-aligned."
I also would not get overwrought with her proest methods or the reacton by Rep. Conyers. An arrest for disorderly conduct may have been exactly the kind of response Sheehan sought to provoke to get maximum attention to her cause. Conyers merely facilitated that aim.
"Disorderly conduct" in connection with a political protest is hardly such a serious offense that it will cause a permanent blight to a person's reputation and employability.
Joe, I don't know who to respect, believe or suspect, but I do know I read your blog first before going to others that say usually much less in much longer sentences. At age 70 I have voted all over the 'liberal' spectrum, from Peace and Freedom to Socialist Worker's Party to straight Democrat, but always with the notion that the Dems cared for the masses and were the antidote to the republican me-first attitude. Agrarian Populism can't win today or my Oklahoma roots would push my sympathy in that direction (if there were that sort of candidate). To choose between the repuglicans-continuing their raping of our constitution and Democracy-and the Democratic Party with Pelosi and Reid.....It's a no-brainer. Sometimes progressive purists seem to shoot themselves (and us with them) in the foot. Now, to me, is one of those times. Keep expressing your views and I'll keep reading you first.
I wish everyone would calm down and stop the name calling.
Can't a bunch of people have a discussion about the motives and the consequences of actions of political figures without labeling them evil or angel?
"but I can still recall that, back in 1968, a few anti-war protesters yelled "Sirhan power!" That chant represented progressive purity at its most pure."
That was at the "National War Council," the last above-ground gathering of the Weathermen.
At that rally, Mark Rudd said “It’s a wonderful feeling to hit a pig. It must be a really wonderful feeling to kill a pig or blow up a building.” Jeff Jones said “We’re against everything that’s good and decent in honky America. We will burn and loot and destroy. We are the incubation of your mother’s nightmare.”
To describe them as progressive "anti-war protesters" is a real distortion.
Your exactly in the same mood I am right now Joseph, but we need ex-Reaganites like Sheehan to keep that impeachment meme going, I think it will bring more of them over.
BUT, these are the same types that ended up bringing us the prison-industrial complex, runaway corporations and our authoritarian state we enjoy today IMO, which I can never forgive them for because they do flop back and forth from one end of the political spectrum to the other at the drop of a hat.
I use my dear old Mom as a political gauge, she does the same damn thing, whatever the MSM is pushing so goes Mom, until recently.
I started dropping little unheard-of-to-her facts whenever she would spout off an MSM talking point.
One time a while back she came home from church and started telling me that Saddam was the anti-christ, instead of saying who told you that I said; What if it turns out that Bush is ?
That went over like a lead balloon at the time until I showed her that picture of the halo around Bushs head with the Presidential seal in the background. ;)
But one thing to her credit I will say about her is that she has never voted on the "R" ticket no matter what the MSM or God tells her, she IS an old FDR Dem.
Just some thoughts to let you know you are not alone.
(you can edit this part off if you like)
I'm about ready to lose my second house, I got hurt (spinal cord) at work in California in 2002, got totally fucked over by "the system", luckily I found a buyer for my house at the last minute with enough equity left to buy another in Fla.
But I had never figured on them burying my records of my injury (after I had split CA.)to the point that I can't get any disability, no other doctor will even look at it for fear of being sued. I have 4 kids and they do not give a flying fuck.
I feel ya bro on your predicament. Floridiot
Thank you, Joe!!!!
I went on a similar journey to the one you took, And ended up in the same place.
Cindy Sheehan seems to be under the influence of some kind of weirdo quasi-libertarian mindset. Dems are the party of slavery is but one of their talking points she parrots. The income tax is unconstitutional is another
Sorry, forgot to write this in the post just before :
Russia, at the time of Hitler
was a part of the Soviet Union.
At least as much as some States of the currently "United States" are...
So glad our American founders weren't like some of you effeminate hand-wringing Dem weanies.Always waiting around for the Democratic party which usually ends up doing nothing but faciliting more disaster at the hand of the Rethuglicans. It's very telling that the leadership of the Democractic party just happens to be a bunch of facilitating females of the "don't rock the boat, come to mommy" variety. Pelosi, Hillary, etc.
I have nothing againt female leadership. I do have a problem with Democratic facilitators of Republican crimes who serve no other purpose than to calm the fears of American thumbsuckers who can't come to grips with the fact their country is run by criminals who NEED TO BE PUT IN JAIL!
I'm still with you, Joe. Don't let the bastards get you down.
Joe, you lost me when you called a gold-star mother an "attention-seeking bitch". Your blog has been fairly uninteresting for a while, but now you've lost what little credibility you had left.
Have fun marinating in your venom. I won't be back.
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