Impeach

We have all heard the arguments on impeachment, pro and con.  We have all heard about whether or not we “have the votes.”  Whether or not this will ruin our chances in 2008 for a Democratic victory.  We have all discussed every possible permutation, and we have no consensus.  Ok.  I accept that.  My decision is to support anyone who is for impeachment, and that includes Kucinich, who I think is doing a great job getting this issue in the spotlight.

This diary isn’t just about impeachment.  It’s also about what can happen if we don’t impeach this crew, and asks the question of what we will do if any of these things come to pass.  As much as I’m pro-impeachment, if it doesn’t happen I’m not going to lay down and die — I want to know the consequences and take action.

One of the consequences has to do with the 2008 Presidential election.

None of this may come to pass, and I hope that is the case.  I am claiming no precognitive abilities here.

But I do think Naomi Wolf has some interesting things to say as far as these consequences, in her post over at Firedoglake, A “Presidential Coup,” The Continuity of Government, And Blackwater Watching Midtown Manhattan

I have argued that in the closing stages of a `fascist shift’, events cascade. I am hearing about them, even across the globe. Here in Australia I hear from the nation’s best-know feminist activist, and former adviser to Paul Keating, Anne Summers, who was also at the time this took place Chair of the Board of Greenpeace International. Summers was detained by armed agents for FIVE HOURS each way in LAX on her way to and from the annual meeting of the board of Greenpeace International in Mexico, and her green card was taken away from her. `I want to call a lawyer’, she told TSA agents. `Ma’am, you do not have a right to call an attorney,’ they replied. `You have not entered the United States.’

…

Increasingly, reputable figures are starting to talk about `a coup.’ Jim Hightower notes in an important essay, “Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?,” that a coup is defined in the dictionary as a sudden forced change in the form of government. (He also spells out the basis for a rigorously modeled impeachment and criminal prosecution.) Daniel Ellsberg’s much-emailed speech on recent events notes that, in his view, a `coup’ has already taken place. Ron Rosenbaum speculates in an essay on Slate about the reasons the Bush administration is withholding even from members of Congress its plans for Continuity of Government in an emergency – noting that those worrying about a coup are no longer so marginal. Frank Rich notes the parallels between ourselves and the Good Germans. And Congress belatedly realizes as if waking from a drugged sleep that it might not be okay for the Attorney General to say the President need not obey the law. Congress may realize why Mukasey CAN’T say that `waterboarding is torture’ – the minute he does so he has laid the grounds for Bush, Cheney and any number of CIA and Blackwater interrogators to be tried and convicted for war crimes. They are so keenly aware that what they have been doing is criminal that laws such as the Military Commissions Act of 2006 have been drafted specifically to protect them and the torturers and murderers they have directed from criminal prosecution. That is why insisting that Mukasey say that waterboarding is torture is, in spite of the alarming apparent defection of Feinstein and Schumer, an important tactic and even the perfect opening for the impeachment bid that Kucinich is bringing on November 6th to be followed by Congressional investigations into possible criminality.

Will we have elections, and will the results of those elections be honored?  Will we, in the next year, go to war with Iran?  How will that impact our elections?  Can we stop this criminal crew from going to war with Iran?  And given the lawless behavior of this misAdministration, are these outlandish questions?

Regardless of the answers to any of these questions, we have problems right now, as Ms. Wolf enumerates.  We are debating the notion of giving telephone companies immunity from spying on American citizens.  We have a lot of technological infrastructure, don’t we?  And one of the most precious things in that infrastructure is the internet.  We saw in Burma how the internet allowed the entire world to see a cruel junta violating the most basic human rights.  There was a big outcry.  And then the internet went silent.  I  felt such an ominous feeling of dread when that happened.

Let’s look at our present system.

From an article over at theAtlantic.com entitled The Web Police:

China has become notorious for the extent and sophistication of its Internet censorship. The government constantly adjusts its roster of banned Web sites. Search engines filter content, leaving only pro-government information on sensitive topics. Companies that provide space to bloggers censor hundreds of key words, such as “democracy,” “Falun Gong,” and “freedom.” Chat rooms are monitored by tens of thousands of government workers, who remove offending posts. E-mail is subject to censorship, although less likely to be blocked than public communications. Even text messages are now perused by the authorities.

But it’s not just China.  The article links to a rather remarkable map (warning, pdf) showing  where the internet is censored all over the world.  What I found most interesting was the part entitled “Collaborators”:

U.S. companies provide most of the technology for foreign censors.  Secure Computing’s SmartFilter has been used by Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Iran.  To comply with China’s laws, Google has created a censored search engine, Microsoft has taken down offending blogs, and Yahoo has shared information that landed a Chinese journalist in jail.

The important thing to realize, I think, is that we have the technology to shut down the internet, to very easily censor the nascent movement we are all a part of.  It’s something I think we ought to be aware of.  For we know that not only would the Bush misAdministration love to see us go down, much of the traditional media would like that as well.  Who would protest?  We’re still too young a movement for most people to even notice that we’d be gone.

This has happened many times, of course.  During the Stalin years in the then Soviet Union, writers, poets, resisters, employed samizdat:

…  the clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature or other media in Soviet-bloc countries. Copies were made a few at a time, and those who received a copy would be expected to make more copies. This was often done by handwriting or typing.

This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.

Vladimir Bukovsky defined it as follows: “I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and [may] get imprisoned for it.”

Ultimately, no matter what could happen, history has shown if folks want to get information out, they will get it out.  ‘Course under certain circumstances, doing so is a lot more dangerous than sitting around typing on the intertubes.  And in the meantime, countless human beings suffer, and die.

So what does this have to do with impeachment?  I’m not trying to predict anything here.  I am saying we ought to look ahead if we end up missing the opportunity to remove these criminals from office.  Whether we impeach or not, there will be consequences.  I’ve read a lot of what the consequences could be if we do impeach — the biggest being losing the 2008 election.  And that is a valid argument.  I think some of what I’ve shown above are also potential consequences, among many others I have not mentioned.

Either way, I think, as Bette Davis once said, we’re in for a “bumpy ride.”