dr. elsewhere here
For several months now, I've been watching the debates for the BIG set of questions that personally I want to see addressed, the answers to which would have made, and would still make, an enormous difference in how I cast my vote. Assuming, of course, there is a difference in the candidates' answers.
Before Edwards bowed out, he danced closer to the creature than anyone else, but never confronted it. Still, I held at least an inkling of hope that he would at some point bring it up directly and pointedly, but alas, that did not happen. And now, with what is left, I'd say it's up for grabs, and a lot hangs in the balance.
And it's all about this damn Elephant in the Room. This powerful, fat, mean, aggressive, sick, renegade, but exceedingly well-tended monster, and NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT IT.
At least, not in the debates or within the rubric of the Presidential campaigns.
Until yesterday, I was despairing that I was the only one panicking about the situation. But now, Steve Aftergood of NeimanWatch.org has addressed this beast, albeit in much less confrontive terms than I would choose. He poses some important questions to the candidates on the specific issues of torture, surveillance, renditions, and secrecy. However, I would add these questions to the mix, all of them assuming an affirmative response to the first, which is asserted in light of Aftergood's point that Presidential papers are protected for a dozen years after leaving office:
* Will you launch investigations into the many alleged high crimes and misdemeanors, as well as assaults on our Constitution, by the Bush/Cheney administration?
* Will you launch investigations into the many alleged crimes perpetrated by the Republican Party in their openly proclaimed pursuit of single party power in perpetuity?
* Will you take aggressive action in pursuing investigations dropped or ignored by the DOJ while under the direction of Ashcroft, Gonzalez, and Mukasey, particularly as these relate to the US Attorney scandal?
* Will you launch investigations into the loss of our Commonwealth to private enterprise perpetrated during this administration?
* Will you take aggressive action to recover those losses by freezing assets and levying significant financial and incarceration penalties?
* In other words, will you fight to remind each and every citizen of the meaning and purpose of our democracy and its Constitution?
For, after all, I feel this is the least that our next President can do, under the circumstances, to recover our Republic.
Now, I'm aware that this is, after all, the stinking Elephant in the Room, and no one is going to bring it up. I'm not at all sure why, but curious about opinions on that. And don't all of you out there want to know the answers all of our candidates might offer to these questions?
The thing is, our single best bet, still, is to initiate impeachment hearings. The more Mukasey talks (or doesn't), the further along this path he walks us into legal oblivion where everything Bush and his henchmen have ever done or ever will do will be immune from any prosecution. Forget about telecom immunity; they want Royal Immunity!
But the impeachment possibility is no longer so far-fetched. The ball has been in Conyers' court since Kucinich read his impeachment papers of Cheney into the Congressional record last April, and he has been sitting on it out of fear that it might backfire the way Clinton's impeachment did. However, the Congressman actually met with reps from Codepink last week, and stated that he was "on the edge" of taking committee action.
So here's Conyers' contact info:
Call 202-225-5126
Fax 202-225-0072
Email: john.conyers@mail.house.gov
Give the good Congressman a call, and remind him that this is so very different than Clinton's impeachment. Clinton's actions had nothing to do with governance, whereas Bush and Cheney have debased the very concept of governance to a level of depravity never seen in this country, and our citizenry knows that. In fact, the citizenry knew Clinton's impeachment was a sham, and that is why it backfired, not because they turned against the concept of impeachment in the generic.
Moreover, it is our Constitutional duty to excise this vile cancer on the Presidency, to quote John Dean. And we must do a thorough job this time, because we didn't with Nixon, and we didn't with Iran-Contra, and look who took over the government when we weren't really looking.
This big, fat, stinkin' Elephant in the Room.
15 comments:
I support the release of this administrations records on the very first day of the next administration.
Here's why I can guarantee you that it won't happen. Lets say they open all the archives. What's the main crime we'd be looking for? The invasion and subsequent maintenance of the Iraq War. 5.0 million orphans, 1.2 million dead Iraqi civilians, and U.S. losses and injured all add up to a real crime against humanity.
How did that happen, all those deaths and injuries, all that suffering? Lies propelled the Iraq War Resolution which was known to be a fraud based on public evidence at the time. The conduct and consequences of the war were known, including body count and social collapse in Iraq.
Yet majorities in the House and Senate, including a majority of Democrats, consistently voted to fund the war. Everyone voting to do so is complicit in the conduct of the war. There were and are alternatives, like withdrawal. Yet the members of Congress freely chose to endorse the war.
When both parties collaborate to conduct a war producing such epic damage to people, which party will allow an investigation?
Opening the Bush regime's papers would be unacceptable to Republicans and a huge risk for Democrats. Regrettably, it's simply not going to happen.
Also important to remember is that this administration has been deleting records for years now, so most of the really incriminating evidence is long gone.
I say just give 'em a cursory trial and send them to the firing squad. We all know they're guilty.
Jamie in Boston
Now Larisa over at "At Largely" has some more poop from Alabami, that's what I talkin 'bout
Flo
michael, i agree everyone voted for the resolution, but i urge you to read that resolution; it does NOT give bush the freedom to go to war, as it required the UN. remember, he insisted the UN had 'done all they could do', and jumped the gun.
several, including hillary, have noted that they were presented with the 'faulty' (read: lies) intelligence prior to that resolution vote, and so were acting on what the admin wanted them to know. there were, admittedly, some on the intelligence committee who were more 'in the know', but they were warned not to disclose.
the truth is, congress was held hostage by a lying, scheming, warmongering administration who would do anything to get their way. and now we've seen what that way is, and what destruction it has wrought, and i don't think there are many americans who would hold congress culpable under these circumstances. at that time, anyone who stood up to that brutal bullying machinery faced very real chances of losing their seats in upcoming elections. now many would find that craven on their parts, but consider what congress might have looked like if all of those who felt their conscience against that vote had done so; we would have had an even MORE repug congress than we got in 02 and 04, and thus also more tide to push back in 06 and now.
as for the funding of the war, the repugs have framed the issue as funding for the soldiers, which hamstrings those in congress to vote properly. the whole thing is such a flaming propaganda mess, all because these guys insist on secrecy and controlling the rhetoric, that i don't know how anyone keeps up with it. nothing they put out there is true, so it's like trying to play chess with someone who makes up new rules at every play, yet you can't walk away because that would be walking away from the people.
i've said it before, you have to choose each step very carefully when confronted with a nasty rattler; you can't insist on principles when they've thrown principles out the window.
so, as i've stated before in these pages, i have always had a certain compassion for most of those in congress regarding all this; they have been and are between the proverbial rock and a hard place. and never forget the damn anthrax scare, which targeted daschle and leahy specifically, taking down innocent lives in the process. and don't forget paul wellstone, either. this gang of thugs are not just bullies; they're honest to god thugs and they play for keeps.
about the archives, if we the people can demand those archives while allowing leniency for the congress (c'mon, we KNOW how little dick and bush have given them; it's all about secrecy from congress and the public!), we NEED to know what went wrong here. because if we bury our heads in the sand on this one, we can expect it to happen yet again, as i said, just as it has from nixon to iran-contra to now. THESE ARE THE SAME FOLKS WITH THE SAME AGENDA!! we have to stop it now or it will continue to grow and fester in our midst.
tho i hear you on your point, that does not release us as the persons responsible for insisting the right thing be done. that's been the case all along; we just have to be more organized, more vocal, and more demanding.
so call conyers. every damn day. hell, every damn hour. every damn one of ya.
Sorry, let's go directly to Horton's piece
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002353
Damn it
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002353
Flo
Christ, here
http://tinyurl.com/2fnl9l
Flo
Indeed, these are all important questions and unless they are answered in the affirmative, we will not return to Constitutional government for many decades, if ever.
The reason no one mentions this elephant is that no individual in a position of leadership or running for a position of leadership in our Republic has any intention whatever of investigating these matters and prosecuting the criminal perpetrators. You can forget Conyers and certainly neither Clinton nor Obama is going to even discuss the possibility.
Believing otherwise is delusional.
This country's permanent government shrank from revealing under trial the various crimes of one RMNixon, because of the inability to compartmentalize the crimes investigated, charged, and tried from other, far more dangerous secrets, that were inextricably intertwined.
And that has pretty much been the pattern, before (the WC) and since.
Ironically, since the Central American countries went through a democratization process, including truth commissions concerning the grotesque human rights violations committed by their prior dictatorial regimes, Americans remain the only peoples in the world who do not know the genocides, brutality and crimes against humanity done in their name down there.
When John Kerry's subcommittee investigation into Contra cocaine running got too close to proving that fact, he was shut down not only by Republicans, but by senior Democratic party operatives and allegedly liberal media types (who supplied the ridicule laugh track). When Clinton and Janet Reno had their chance to go after, reveal and prosecute the crimes committed in the so-called IraqGate affair, they took a quick pass, for whatever reason. Robert Parry thinks it was an effort to get better bipartisan cooperation (if so, it failed miserably). Others note the background fact of the permanent government, and the semi-impossibility, evidently, for the overt official government to do much if anything at all against those permanent interests.
This reminds me of the advice VP-nominee Sen. Lloyd Bentsen gave his running mate, Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis: 'Mike, the S&L debacle issue is not a winning issue for the Democrats.'
Instructively, although the S&L disaster was among the greatest thefts committed against the American people to that date, and a large percentage of the losses provably the result of insider crimes, the number of prosecutions was minimal to almost non-existent.
Is this the dreaded 'not a dime's worth of difference between the parties' slander that so ires our esteemed host?
No, and yes. Not that there isn't a significant difference, but that neither party is willing to buck the permanent government agenda, or hold its agents accountable for the manifest crimes they have committed in pursuit of that agenda.
...sofla
The Siegelman case proves that anyone can be indicted and likely convicted on a frame-up with trivial charges. Siegelman was indicted by the Bush DOJ in late 2005; Democrat Dr. Cyril Wecht was indicted in January 2006 by DOJ for misusing public funds (like for sending an employee to the supermarket to buy kosher hot dogs). In December 2006, the next (Jan 2007) House Judiciary Committee chairman, John Conyers, was confronted with evidence against him of the same kind of wrongdoing that Wecht had been charged with. The matter was settled in-House.
I figure that Conyers agreed to a perverse quid pro quo but his conscience is intact: had he begun impeachment hearings, he would have had to defend himself against federal charges and formal House ethics issues, rendering him useless as chairman. Presently, his committee wants to unmask the US Attorney scandals. If those attorneys and their bosses can be ruined and made to pay for their malfeasance, it might deter future zealots from undermining our justice system. At that point, Conyers can feel secure and can proceed; but there won't be enough time.
9/11 wrought a 'change' that is permanent. No POTUS or Congress will ever return us to our privileged sense of safety. All of our democratic assumptions about a free and open society have to be weighed alongside the everyday news events; it's sad and frustrating. The worst of it is that we were unlucky (and to blame) for having GWB in the WH at the time.
More women in Congress and everywhere there's a sacred trust means no one would have their pecker in their pockets or get their hearts and minds to follow by getting them by their balls.
Impeachment is too good for those thugs while it drains election and re-election energies and resources.
We need a Democratic POTUS and Democratic super majorities in Congress. I don't think we can achieve that and also go through impeachment hearings and proceedings. Yeah, I'll trade impeachment, and conviction even, for ending the war and occupation, Medicare for all, free higher ed, and some repairs to some bridges and a few cities. First, do no harm. Then revive and after, reform.
In David Mamet's play "November" (now playing in NYC), a Native American VIP threatens the POTUS with 'hate crime' accusations during their phone conversation, and Mamet's POTUS responds:
"I’ll tell the Secret Service to come by and put you on the piggyplane to Prybschych fuckin Bulgaria with a priceless view of the Bumfuck Mountains, ’cept you will not see them, being encased in sixteen cubic feet of concrete, ’til the flesh molts on your body and falls in a tidy pile around your fucking, fucking 'terrorist' ass. Now you talk."
whoa, aitchD, that mamet quote is pretty chilling.
and of course we all know this goes on with these guys, which is precisely why we need to cut those in congress a bit of slack. i'll say it again, i honestly do not know how i would have handled things had i been in congress thru this presidency. you have to pick your battles, but there have just been so damn many of them, and so many that are of such great magnitude, how would one do it? i just don't know.
scott horton has a great quote in his new post (thanks to flo for that heads up and link!) about how you can judge a country by how the leadership treats its opposition.
well, there has been so much rabid clamor for just hanging these beasts, but we truly must keep our wits about us and not devolve to the very depths of the enemy we so despise. hence my sharing of joe's resistance to the uber-progressive rants; they are so counter-productive, and so damn undemocratic. everyone, even these dolts, are innocent until proven guilty, just as all those poor detainees who have been so reviled.
(as often as i share your sentiment, jamie, we really cannot even entertain that sort of rhetoric; it smacks of the same sort of lack of decency we hear from racists and homophobics, though i am well aware of the patently obvious differences.)
tho i don't think aitchD's assessment of conyers is totally accurate. please read the link i posted; he IS 'on the edge' of going forward with impeachment, and i think he simply needs to be convinced that it won't backfire. as for the 'threat' of a criminal investigation against him, that would end up looking SO retaliatory that i think his ass is pretty well covered. and even so, i don't know who is just under him on the dems side, but there are several strong dems who would be up to taking over as chair.
SO CALL HIM!!
in any case, i'm not entirely convinced that we should hold off on impeachment. if we do, the thugs will all just slip away. again. this cannot happen, because they are already scheming for a comeback in '12.
dr. elsewhere, John Conyers isn't my district's representative, he represents People from another part of the world; I'm sensitive to protocol and decorum, and I don't think he should be responsive to me and my demands as a citizen. But I will call him and noodge him according to your suggestion if you can point to any flaw or misrepresentation in sofla's triple-A+ accurate summary and analysis of the past 35 years. I want Mr. Conyers to live out his life with the grace he has earned, not having to defend himself or explain things. Besides, I don't think the Democrats believe their 2006 victories were mandates or antiwar successes. They know they squeaked in on account of Republican voters' staying home because of Pagefuckergate. Wait and see what's in store for the Republicans who haven't resigned or will stand for re-election. You only need a dozen jizzy scandals to put the bad taste in the redstaters' mouths, and they'll stay home. What would you do in your neighborhood on Election Day if you were a Republican, and all your friends at the church or high school or fire hall know that you're either going to vote for a disgraceful scumbag or a Democrat? They'll stay home in November. And we won't even need to hear about the worst kinds of horrorshows (which no one would believe). They'll be available upon request, though, pending Howard Dean's analysis of his data.
Hey, Mamet's "November" is a mild satire compared to his "Spartan" movie.
Dr. Elsewhere & Joseph another great post! Job well done!
It’s interesting that my ex-wife’s family always said that they were part of “The World’s Largest Criminal System” and it happens to be for good reason. However frustrating and aggravating to the rest of us, it’s about time something happens. With what I know, and this comes from having more than 30 years in this mess, please be assured I’m noticing a positive twist for us to this problem.
Our Government was a multi-party system but that has been replaced by two groups, one wanting the Constitution and one NOT wanting our Constitution. Hillary and some others refused to sign with a group supporting our Constitution. Obama did! The family says there has been a Coup in place for decades setting up for a day called “The Change”. As told, “When “The Change” happens, you’re either with us OR you’re not!” I was warned. “Those who aren’t with us will be put in one of the many prisons (their term for Detention Camps) scattered around the Country.”
They briefly explained what happens next, but it’s too scary for me to talk about however history explains well what happened in the past. Reading about [“the White House Coup”+1933] explains that the same group (only larger now) is involved, that I know, this time. My ex-wife’s family is among many other families shipping in huge amounts of drugs. The drug sales fund the “Black Op’s” in support of the Coup. The drug system is huge and complex for good reason.
“When” happens to be an important question. The family wasn’t very detailed but they did say that it will start when our economy collapses. What starts this collapse, according to them, will be a collapse in the Mortgage/Financial/Banking area supporting building and loans.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
aren't you all thrilled that I put impeachment "back on the table" a few months ago? Along with prayer, in a magical act,(a "conscious" act, with a ceremonious intention combined) it rests on the table and willnot be ignored.
So Pelosi's power is nullified, and Kucinich sees and hears from angels and is the only purist on the stage. (now off but he will not be silenced)
Regarding "The Change", I'm including more information which some you may find interesting....
Rule by fear or rule by law?
Lewis Seiler,Dan Hamburg
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12584
Search Term -> railcars+shackles
http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/camp.htm
http://www.issuesandalibis.org/campsd.html
http://americanholocaust.homestead.com/
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread148875/pg1
SHACKLED BOXCARS
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/03/281821.shtml
THE FACTS-GUNDERSON PRISONER BOXCARS WITH SHACKLES-A REPORT
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/02/310410.shtml
http://www.usacamps.blogspot.com/
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/2/USA_concentration_camps.htm
Bushco/Halliburton "ENDGAME"-Martial Law/Detention Camps/Railcars/Shackles
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2849107
It's important to remember that I spent more than 26 years in a family who has a direct part in huge scale drug distribution linked to the 50 jet planes connected to CIA/DEA/FBI/911. Starting in the late 70s with laundering Drug and Gun Running money straight into property using big Banks with Mortgage Fraud schemes to hide ownership for those involved.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
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