Impeachment goes mainstream, and a modest proposal

The Dems know that every naughty thing that Bush only increases their margin of victory in November of '08. Plus, the cruel fact of the matter isthat they'd actually like to have all those new and dark powers that Bush has gathered unto himself.

Justin,

Firstly, I enjoy reading your posts and would ask you the following :-

Do you really believe that Bush will go quietly and relinquish those powers to a Democrat?

IMO We are heading for a full blown Dictatorship.

that vid is the best seen yet
unfortunate as it has to be

and despite my being a canadian (not much longer tho)
i would recommend this video be sent to everyone

see it now....

Originally posted by Intheshadwos
Do you really believe that Bush will go quietly and relinquish those powers to a Democrat? IMO We are heading for a full blown Dictatorship.

Yes, I do think that he will go quietly. Here's why:

In spite of whatever ambitions he has, Mr. Bush is the hood ornament of a political party that does not embrace Federal primacy. By contrast, the Dems have a long history of espousing Federal primacy and the notion that Government knows better than you do. His ambitions may very well make him hungry for the kind of power he wants, but he won't have the backing to get it. Hillary, on the other hand, will have the ambition and the party backing.

The propositions made in my published work have not changed. It's not Bush that we have to fear. It's the 'regime' that comes after him. They will pick up the tools left behind and they'll use them in ways that will scare us. The simple truth is that Pelosi and others are letting Bush skate so they can have legitimate access to many of the new precedents that he has set. They know what he's doing, and they'd like a chance to do some of that dark mojo, too.

Let me bring up one last point. It does Bush no good at all to sieze power if his party is in the...minority. The Dems, on the other hand, will enjoy a decisive majority after 2008, and they'll have a President at the helm who won't think twice about using the tools of a very powerful Executive to stay in office. That was my opinion express in work (2004), and it hasn't changed.


[edit on 21-7-2007 by Justin Oldham]

Originally posted by AceWombat04
It is my understanding, as someone above posted, that this would constitute bribery and that bribery for the purpose of influencing the political process is illegal. It may even be illegal to propose such a thing. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know. It is my understanding that organizing and planning to influence the political process through monetary gifts or donations, whether public or not, and whether well meaning or not, is illegal.

The "modest proposal" is a citation of Jonathan Swift's famous satirical essay, in which he suggested that Englishmen eat Irish children to solve the Potato famine. This proposal is pure hyperbole, meant only to underline the difficulty of our current position.

Its intention was rhetorical: in no way do I mean to propose anything illegal, and it certainly should not be construed that way. It speaks symbolically, as Swift's does, substituting the Irish symbol of the potato for the good ol' US dollar.

Just as the idea of paying a doctor to drink a glass of children's vaccine is not to be taken seriously, I don't think, and certainly do not encourage, anyone to seriously expect that such a proposition is offered as anything more than as satire.

I'm sorry if I did not make that part of the post more obviously satirical, but then satire relies on its effect for the utter seriousness with which the patently absurd is proposed.

Today I ran across the National Review Online Forums, where the editors posted the following:

Readers are really into Cheney being president for awhile. Suggestions for Acting President Cheney include

Bomb Iran.
Commute the sentences of those border agents.
Fire Mike Chertoff.
Tell Harry Reid to ... well, you know...
Pardon Scooter.

UPDATE: An e-mail:

Three hours wouldn't be long enough to actually bomb Iran, given the necessary flight time. But ICBM's can be there in about a half-hour.
In addition, I think President Cheney should have a target practice session out by Rose Garden...

Well, here we have the editors of a major opinion journal encouraging Cheney to commit a first strike with ICBMs and wage thermonuclear war against Iran in his three hours as temporary President.

The larger point of the exercise of Constitutional rights to preserve and defend the Constitution is what is important; we the public have an obligation to our government of oversight that has atrophied through our own negligence and indifference.

Jefferson and Lincoln counseled the public about our crucial duties in seeing to it our government remains accountable and upholds the constitutional contract. If we continue to ignore those duties, we will continue to see our rights eroded, and it is our own fault, because of our apathy.

Originally posted by johnsky
Humor set aside. I'm very worried about you guys.

And your concern is aprreciated...Humor set aside, I'm serious about that.

Originally posted by johnsky
...all we can do is ensure our own governments don't fall into the same sinkhole... or at least try.

I recognize that you're aware of what we're going through now & still seek to learn from "current" history (Yes, by the time anything hits the media outlet, it's already history), and strive to prevent repeating the mistakes of history. I think you've been successful in the quest to Deny Ignorance.

Justin, I may have not been aware of the specific reason that Impeachment was taken off the table, but I just knew in my gut that it was some kind of stalling tactic so that the "Power of the Monarchial Crown" in Government remains intact & the Centralization of Power would continue. This only indicates to me that time is running out for the People to act! The major problem is that not enough People are "waking up" in time to see that Sword of Damacles hanging over our heads.

Originally posted by Intheshadwos
Do you really believe that Bush will go quietly and relinquish those powers to a Democrat?

My own answer to this is, "no, he won't...at least not willingly." It's my firm opinion that Bully Boy Bush & His Corporate Crony Gang will "orchestrate" some new emergency to justify Bush to declare Martial Law...Before the elections! But Justin has pointed out that, without backing, Bush will probably not want to give it up; So, he'll wind up getting whacked & use the PR to replace him with someone who's smart enough to fully utilize what Bush set up.

For every dictator who sits on a throne, there'll be a hundred others who scheme to replace him...With Extreme Prejudice.
Machaivelli, eat your heart out....

[edit on 21-7-2007 by MidnightDStroyer]

Originally posted by TXMACHINEGUNDLR
He has done a good job..

I'm not even touching that, except to point out that the majority of the country,
on both sides think otherwise.

Get over it Bush is here to stay, and I say thank God.
He is not going anywhere.....

Until January of 2009, you're correct, he will up until than remain president.

Of course if he tried for anything else, most of the country would declare war against him
and anyone who supported such unconstitutional crimes.

[edit on 7/22/2007 by iori_komei]

Originally posted by TXMACHINEGUNDLR
He has done a good job..

The job so far:

The 2000 "election,"
$2.3 trillion missing from the Pentagon budget reported by Rumsfeld on Sept. 10, 2001,
September 11, 2001,
after nearly a two-year struggle, dragged kicking and screaming to set up a commission to investigate 9/11,
the "Patriot" Act, over a thousand pages of rights abridgments passed less than 2 weeks after 9/11,
the Cheney energy task force,
the Enron shakedown of the State of California,
the Pentagon office of Special Ops,
Iraq,
Abu Ghraib & Gitmo,
false claims of WMD and nukes to justify the war,
false claims of connections between Saddam and Al Quaeda to justify the war,
later saying he had never claimed the above to justify the war,
Plamegate,
CIA secret renditions,
politicizing science,
NSA wiretaps,
Total Information Awareness,
Presidential signing statements & the unitary executive,
the FEMA national police force,
Katrina,
$8 billion in $100 bills airlifted on pallets to Iraq that vanished without a trace,
the torture provisions of the Geneva Conventions trashed,
Orwellian "free speech zones,"
suspension of habeus corpus,
hiding the vivisection of the Insurrection Act and posse comitatus in the budget bill (allowing for the federalizing of the state National Guards and easing the declaration of martial law),
the Surge,
the DA firings,
Constitutional scholars and Ted Kennedy placed on terrorist no-fly lists,
e-mailgate,
setting up yet further provisions for martial law and criminalizing dissent on Iraq by executive order,
allowing Cheney to claim he is an independent branch of government beholden to no oversight...

I'm sure I missed something, feel free to add to the (ever-growing) list.


[edit on 22-7-2007 by gottago]

I don't really think the Dems want to actually catch Bush and make him answer for what he's done. No matter how you look at this issue, and no matter how you feel about the President's actions, one things remains clear. The Dems just aren't trying that hard to enforce the law. I think they want to get away with the same things he's doing when their President is in office. they know that so long as Bush continues to act up, the voters will keep getting mad, which will help them win in November of '08.

Originally posted by TXMACHINEGUNDLR
He is not going anywhere.....He has done a good job and the left is pissed because their fat ass post boy from AK got ruined in his last years..lol...Get over it Bush is here to stay, and I say thank God.

Wow, there was literally NO contributing information in that post what-so-ever.
Congrats, person who left the caps lock on when creating his name.



I'd like to note the above subjects abundance of confidence, and lack of information. I believe that to be exactly how Bush got in, in the first place.
For every one person with a certain view on the internet, there must be dozens, if not hundreds of others out there who share that same view.

I've found a horrible trend lately in current generations. A trend toward 'feeling' your way through a decision, instead of actually making an informed decision.
Increases in angry remarks, made with little to no information to explain why they feel a certain way, instead, riddled with either cursing, or warrant less ridicule of anyone who is about to disagree with them... even though no-one has responded to be ridiculed.

When bush first entered office, this trend was already well underway. The notation "Bush is someone I'd like to meet at the bar"... was a very persistent rationality for a cast vote in his favor... however, few ever asked themselves whether this (ability to socialize in a bar) is a legitimate qualification for presidency.

Alas, I fear we have let the generations grow increasingly politically detached. Unable to weigh the simple options of, "who is better qualified for president".

All of it seemingly replaced by the same mentality we use on celebrities.



Regardless of whether Bush is ousted from office or not, we need to eliminate this mindset before we tackle the next task of election.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
I don't really think the Dems want to actually catch Bush and make him answer for what he's done. No matter how you look at this issue, and no matter how you feel about the President's actions, one things remains clear. The Dems just aren't trying that hard to enforce the law. I think they want to get away with the same things he's doing when their President is in office. they know that so long as Bush continues to act up, the voters will keep getting mad, which will help them win in November of '08.

Justin,

Absolutely right, but interestingly the dynamic has shifted. Up until the midterms, you had what I called the battered wife syndrome going on--the Dems were derided as the Mommy party by the neocons and the rabid right, and were just being walked over. Now they've got a base in congress but they're doing nothing to rollback and little to payback. I do think you're right, they're biding their time to get into the WH themselves and play with all the neat new toys.

But the thing of it is, what we call politics is really pantomime for the masses and though I admire your faith in the political system, I think the jig has been up since the JFK assassination and the MIC and corporate/financial interests are our and the gov'ts masters, and their agenda is the only one being followed. Any real deviation only comes from infighting from colliding interests in the ruling consortium. As a corollary, the real PTB barely tolerate Dems in the WH; they much prefer the wife beaters, who aren't afraid to do the outrageous to push the agenda forward.

This is why I believe a real push for impeachment is necessary; it injects the dispossessed back into the center of the political equation and revitalizes the will of the marginalized--us. If they indeed are not held accountable, their gains will be cashed in and we move ever farther along the path of no return.

Being told, 'this is not proper, it will just cause turmoil' by the Dems is outrageous. It should cause political turmoil; that's exactly the point. Shake up the chess board, hold our public servants (accent on that last word, servants) accountable for their actions. Don't let them keep the odious "gains" of the Bush years; it's vitally important to roll them back.

Unfortunately, the system is reliant upon the majority party...no matter which one is "in" at the time...to uphold the law. I maintained in my published work that both parties no longer have any intention of actually enforcing the law...except when...it's in their best interests to do so.

The Dems won't impeach, and they won't fight back against Bush's defiance of the House subpoenas. They'll wait until they hold all the high offices, they'll get their paybacks. As they kill, crush, and destroy the Republicans, they'll abuse their power in all the ways I described in my book. We will at some point wish for the days of Bush43 only because they will seem tame-er by comparison.

Bush can't go tyrant on us because his political party is in dissary and it can't support him. Without majorities in Congress, the White House is of limited use to any would-be power grabber. Once she has the power of Congress behind her, we will see Hillary re-align the Federal judiciary...and then the killin' will begin in earnest. Even if for some reason Barack Obama does win the Presidency, he won't dare stop the purge that the Dem Congress will initiate. Who knows? He could be the reluctant dictator. Ha.

^Justin,

I don't foresee the 'bloodshed' you suggest if and when HRC gets into the WH. The Dems are the outliers in the executive branch and like I said really are at best tolerated. The big interests like the GOP in there because they themselves are mostly GOP, and this administration has been busy remaking the bureaucracy even further in their image.

That's a heck of a lot of inertia for Hillary & the Dems to overcome. I don't think they'll slip easily into the role you've defined for them, because they're not going to be sitting all that comfortably. That is unless, and here I strongly suspect, she and the rest of the Dems have already cut their deals. And I'm sure part of the deal was to just let it pass and leave alone the transgressions of the Bush years and no payback so that you can have your turn at the wheel. Here's your script, show time.

gottago... I agree with you wholeheartedly. Justin has excellent points (as usual) and his scenario will play out if nothing changes. That's the operative here. We, the People, absolutely must force change --- and quickly. ALL politicians in both parties need to be put on notice post haste that the jig is up. We're watching and we're pissed. We have a vast amount of inertia to overcome and we are decidedly at a disadvantage given the momentum tyhe political machine has amassed while we've all been asleep. But we either get on it and do it now or, I fear, the future will become increasingly dark for us and especially for our kids.

^jtma,

Thanks, you're spot-on with the stakes.

Under Clinton you had that impeachment farce, it was an embarrassment and a bad joke. Why is it suddenly so terrible, for very real and serious transgressions?

Reagan should have been impeached for treason in selling arms clandestinely to our enemies (Iran, no less! Oh the hypocrisy!), but instead you name the national airport after him. Everybody turned a blind eye, the MSM and the Dems together, because nobody wanted to go through Watergate again. Just make Iran-Contra go away, send it to a committee and investigate it until the outrage passes. Well, so ultimately what happened?

These same neocon players got away with it, and came back, cockier and more Strangelovian than ever, and look at where we are now.

Let this one pass, and--well, enough said.

There is only one possible change that could defeat my dark scarnio. That would be the rise of third party candidates. They WILL be on the ballot for the primaries in '08. Troubel is, they won't be chosen by the majority of voters. It took me about six years to build my case and write my book. No hasty conclusions.

The Dems know that...deal or no deal...if they let the Bush team run wild, the voters will go to the polls to cast punishment ballots that will heavly favor the Democrats. When weighed against the time and expense of impeachment and other lagel fights. it's just too easy to make a show of resistence and wait for 2008.

When the Dems control the White House and both Houses of Congress, they will do so WITH all of bush's new toys, and decisive majorities. the bureaucracy will bend to theri will, and that will allow them to crusade under the banner of reform while they take legislative, legal, and punitive action against the small and vulnerable Republican minority. Hence, blood bath.

^Justin,

I think your scenario is probable, likely even, and I do argue impeachment knowing it will not happen, though it should.

However, the GOP knows this scenario too, and you cannot believe they are not going to just roll-over and take it, wife-beaters they are. So what in your calculations do you think they will do to fight back or forestall this impending catastrophe?

I see you skirt the issue of higher powers and politics as puppet theatre. In my estimation, there won't be any payback for the above-stated reasons. Your thoughts on the 800-lb MIC gorilla no one wants to talk about?

Originally posted by gottago
However, the GOP knows this scenario too, and you cannot believe they are not going to just roll-over and take it, wife-beaters they are. So what in your calculations do you think they will do to fight back or forestall this impending catastrophe?

From where I sit, the Republicans are beyond the point of no return. Like it or not, they are headed to the wood shed for a spanking. They can try to steal the election, in which event they would have everything to gain by doing what I've already suggested. Or, they can lose power with dignity and hope to learn their lessons while they're on the outs with the American people.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
From where I sit, the Republicans are beyond the point of no return. Like it or not, they are headed to the wood shed for a spanking. They can try to steal the election, in which event they would have everything to gain by doing what I've already suggested. Or, they can lose power with dignity and hope to learn their lessons while they're on the outs with the American people.

Ok, dignity is just not a trait of wife beaters, these guys are impervious to shame, so you see them trying to grab it, Diebold-wise I assume.

And the PTB/MIC gorilla? Don't want to go there? Why?

[edit on 23-7-2007 by gottago]

I'm trying to do three different things at once today. Not sure about the PTB acronym. Reform of the military industrial complex (MIC) and other power blocks in American society would come 'after' some of the earliest reforms that you'll probably see talked about in this thread.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
There is only one possible change that could defeat my dark scarnio. That would be the rise of third party candidates.

Well, I could see another possibility...And to it's credit, it's still a peaceful one:
As soon as the current crooks have been replaced with a brand new batch of crooks, everybody flood Congress with demands to review the laws that have been legislated over the past 50 years or so in order to weed out the bad (Unconstitutional) laws (& that we'll be watching them)...
Flood the Judicial with demands to indict everybody that just left for any/all crimes they commited while still in Office (& that we'll be watching that)...
And flood the Executive with demands to roll back all of that accumulated Unconstitutional Power that's been centralized for the past several decades (& we'll be watching that very closely).
Let's make 'em earn the salaries we pay them! Who's with me on this?

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
I'm trying to do three different things at once today. Not sure about the PTB acronym.

PTB = Powers That Be. I'm not very good with TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) myself, despite my years in the military.