There is simply no other word that is sufficient, no other theme that is effective. No other cry that will be heard…..Heard by both the populace and the politicians. After long months of thought,I can simply think of no other way to say it.
In a world that has been reduced to soundbites and slogans, in a political world that is based on lies and spin and propaganda, in a world where reason is scoffed at and complexity ignored, where all thought and ideas must be reduced to the lowest common denominator…it is what we have.
Even ‘Throw the Bums Out!’ is too long and confusing for these times.
Nothing else comes close to expressing the anger and frustration that I…and millions of others apparently, feel at this time.
Nothing else expresses the deep level of change that ALL of us can feel in our bones that we need.
We can and we have written, and yelled, and jumped up and down and pointed at the crimes and usurpations and atrocities of the criminals in the White House….to no avail.
We can and we have written, and yelled, and jumped up and down and pointed to the ineffectiveness and unresponsiveness and the resulting de facto collaboration of our Democratic Congress with these criminals….also to no avail.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is this: Our Government has failed us. It no longer is a government of, by, and for The People.
And only The People can fix that.
The politicians and lobbyists ….and candidates…won’t just GIVE it back to us. No one will.
Only The People can fix that.
And for The People to fix it, we must join together.
And to join together we need some common cause for which to fight, a common theme to rally around. A common battle cry to unite us into a single voice. A cry that expresses all of the disgust and outrage at what our government and our country have become.
Impeach! …..
….seems to be it.
So, after a long thought filled absence, I am back on the Impeach bandwagon. I see no other path or plan that has the same power to rally and unite masses of People. And masses of People are exactly what we need to effect change.
.
Throughout the Impeachment debates here on Daily Kos, even the most adamant anti-impeachment folks have pretty much always said they are in favor of impeachment theoretically, they have said they think it is the just and right thing to do in light of the extremes and transgressions that Bushco has gone reached. They just disagree that it is good strategy, if I understand it correctly….they object because they don’t think it will work.
Well, at this point I have to admit…I don’t think it will work either.
I don’t think we will successfully remove Dick Cheney from office. Not anymore. Not with this Congress. Though I always knew it would be a long shot, I honestly thought at the beginning of the new Congress that there was a chance. What was it that changed my mind and prompted me to stop writing Impeach diaries?
FISA.
When the Democrats voted for the first FISA bill so they could leave on vacation, I realized finally and completely that there was no way in hell that they were going to even consider it….even to use it as the bludgeoning threat that the founders intended it to be for an out of control executive. I realized in short, that they had no real intention of opposing Bush in any meaningful way.
And that is still true.
Back then I took very seriously the criticism that people leveled…that promoting impeachment as if it was really going to happen was giving people false hope. I know the power of hope and the power that writing about it can have in peoples lives. So I took it very seriously indeed.
When I realized that the Dems leadership would put live badgers in their pants before they would move to oppose Bush and Cheney, I could not in good conscience continue to write hopefully about impeachment.
To remedy this, to be honest, at this point…I have say to everyone reading this now, Impeachment very probably will NOT happen. I refuse to say or even imply that it will. Though there is still a chance, it would take a miracle, and while I believe in miracles, they are in awfully short supply these days.
Frankly I will be stunned if the Judiciary Committee even opens meaningful investigations….because once they do it will be nearly impossible for them to continue to ignore the evidence that can, lead to only one conclusion. This administration needs to have its crimes thoroughly investigated and be put on trial for them. But if they ever even start to LOOK at that can of worms, they are immediately at a point of no return. The evidence is just too damning.
And hell, they will not even enforce the subpoenas issued for the absolutely MILDEST crimes of Bushco. Let alone open the rotting can of worms of Torture and Rendition and the killing of the 4th Amendment.
And since they have continued to fund, and thus support, the Iraq Occupation…you can forget about them investigating that. It strikes too close to home.
.
So why promote Impeachment if I don’t believe it will happen?
Because it is a way to fight back.
A simple, short, easy to understand concept that has immense power behind it. Both to unite The People…and most importantly….to scare the politicians.
The Impeachment movement is still going strong. New polling shows public support is still strong… NEW POLL: Majority Think Bush and Cheney Have Committed Impeachable Offenses by Steve Singiser
….and will only grow stronger the more exposure it gets. The anger is out there, the frustration is out there…and it is looking for someplace to go.
.
.
The politicians understand on a very visceral level what Impeach means. They know it is shorthand for ‘Throw the Bums Out.’ Anmd they know that they are some of the bums. They know it is a cry for change. And they know that they are part of what needs to change.
It is a cry for change born of the frustration of The People feeling powerless in the face of a system and a government that they have no control over…indeed nothing to do with at all….except as consumers. But we all now that our role as citizens is NOT to consume whatever our system and government shoves down our throats. That is not what we were taught being a citizen means. That is NOT what American democracy is SUPPOSED to be.
There is only one way to ‘save’ democracy in America….and that is for The People to make the politicians more afraid of The People than they are of the Military Industrial Complex and K Street….and George Bush and Dick Cheney. And other than threatening armed revolution, what else is there besides impeachment?
.
In Tucker Carlson’s interview with Dennis Kucinich after Dennis stood up for The Constitution, Tucker uses the phrase ‘overthrowing the government.’ (at about 3:50 in the video below) And like it or not, that IS what needs to happen. As Dennis points out in response, this form of overthrowing the government was specifically and purposefully and with great forethought included in the Constitution by the Founders. Precisely for times like these.
via videosift.com
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Our system is designed so that when the government is out of control The People have a remedy, a way to take it back, at least a way to rein it in.
ALL of us hope that the government will come to its senses without radical actions being needed, but it is certainly not trending that way! Even the dream of a Dem Supermajority won’t solve all the ills now…we have slid to far down the slippery slope and there are still too many folks in Congress on our side (let alone the Repubs!) who just don’t get it…who don’t understand the level of change that we need to get back on track. It is up to us as citizens to educate them.
The wisest, safest, and LEAST radical thing we can do at this time as citizens is to band together and scare the crap out of….and some sense into…our politicians, our government.
Fully 75% of people polled say we need change. Americans know something is deeply wrong with their country and their government. What they don’t know is how to change it. At Docudharma we are working on a project to produce an agenda for positive change. We hope that we can be a force for change in the future by finding new ways to unite The People around creating new forms and ideas. But in the meantime, we very much need a shock to the current systems in America. We need an unmistakable way to speak up and make ourselves heard.
Frank Rich ended his last column thusly…
Last weekend a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that the Democratic-controlled Congress and Mr. Bush are both roundly despised throughout the land, and that only 24 percent of Americans believe their country is on the right track. That’s almost as low as the United States’ rock-bottom approval ratings in the latest Pew surveys of Pakistan (15 percent) and Turkey (9 percent).Wrong track is a euphemism. We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon.
I for one, am not willing to acquiesce and resign myself to the helplessness implicit in that last statement. I want to fight back dammit! I want to fight to get my government and my country back on track. I have racked my brains for ways to have some effect on the spiraling death slide our nation is going through. To have an effect on the politicians who continuously take the path of least resistance that is taking this country down. I can only think of one. Scaring them out of their bubble. And I can think of only one way to do that, by giving people a vehicle through which to express their discontent in a united way. It will only be by enough of The People standing up and demanding change that it will happen. The only question is how to get them to do that.
43% of all Americans think Cheney should be impeached?
I think I will stand with them …and do some yelling.
We desperately need to unite at least SOME of the country to fight back, we desperately need to scare and pressure our politicians into new ways of thinking and behaving, we desperately need to take America back from those who have stolen it from its citizens…and since we can find no other, the Battle Cry we need to do that is….Impeach!
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This will be on the Big Orange tomorrow at some point, I am SURE certain people will be thrilled!
(one of OTB’s creations, btw!)
fucking great, buhdy
The “Answer the Question: Is this Administration subverting the Constitution? Yes or No.” Project.
Making sure everyone in Congress and all the presidentials can’t go without answering it. Then tablulating it. Been thinking of setting up a website to keep the tally, getting reports from people pressing the issue and seeing who gives us a yes, no or hedge (= “doesn’t matter to me”).
So at least we have it clear and on record who is with the people, and who is indifferent or against them.
PS Anyone have a better term than “Congressman” for generic Congressionals? As in “Answer the Question Congressman.” Congressman having the obvious limitation, “Congressperson” is just ungainly, and “Congresscritter” while the best, doesn’t really project respect for the office somehow.
Indict. Incarcerate.
and so true.
Jokes on them though, I can’t afford to consume anymore! My evil plan is working…..or is their evil plan working?
Damnit!
IMPRISONMENT!
That depends on how you define “work”.
I submit that it will work. They are talking about a three-step process here, as Mary above noted, “Impeach, Indict, Incarcerate”. To many, “impeach” includes all three steps. NOT!
The first step is sufficient in itself. In fact, it is necessary for the good of our nation. Holding the hearings and opening the boils to let out the vile, toxic fluids of this neocon non-goverment is an essential process even if indictment and incarceration do not follow.
Do not worry, folks, about the violent connotations of “indict” and “incarcerate.” While I support those steps also, it is most important and urgent for the future of our nation to get on with the first step. If “indictment” and “incarceration” sound too radical and violent for the spineless among us, surely impeachment hearings will be acceptable. In fact, they are necessary. Hold the hearings and let the rest flow smoothly out of them.
Excellent diary, buhdy…I’m with you-IMPEACH!
just because…I CAN!
Entitled: “Please Impeach Me”
No Problem…
and begin the search for a global, ecologically sustainable society.
The pattern of history has already been laid; only the future is undecided.
The capitalist system, based as it is on capital accumulation, has made it into the cul-de-sac that Garrett Hardin called the “tragedy of the commons.”. The oceans are fished out, the forests are losing biodiversity fast, the icecaps are melting, the coral reefs are dying, and there’s a Connecticut-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where fertilizers from the Mississippi River have wiped out the sealife. Capitalist growth is slowing to a halt. The “tragedy of the commons,” however, is based on the game of Prisoner’s Dilemma that comes about when there is no general sense of solidarity behind environmental protection; this is in fact the case when we live a social system based on money and property and capital accumulation.
Over at Big Orange, they’re down to writing diaries titled “The Edwards Campaign Is Depressing And We Can Do Better,” and Hillary’s Campaign Is Depressing And We Can Do Better. Progressivism is dead, because it has misplaced its faith in the mainstream — it lives on through the “realism” of those for whom it is beyond question.
It’s time to end capitalism, and desert the profits system so we can figure out a social system that will grant us a chance of survival. The one author I can think of that has focused most distinctly upon this dilemma is Saral Sarkar — his “eco-socialism” is based, for the most part, upon the “socialism” proclaimed by Gandhi.
We need to end capitalism.
But impeachment may have to suffice.
good to have you back, budhy. great essay. makes me want to have your child or something or you know – you’re pretty awesome.
honestly, i think we will have impeachment hearings and i think we will see an impeachment. the other two indict and incarcerate i don’t know yet.
i just delivered 26 intelligently written letters to jerry nadler strongly urging he come to his senses an suppport imepachment. his constituents are enraged. doesn’t help that we have the shameless scumbags schumer and clinton as senators. i think we are very close to torches and pitchforks. the 26 letters was a 14% return from a group of 186. and those are the ones who bothered to write. how many didn’t have time but feel just as sstronly or wrote directly to nadler or called? if we do not turn nadler around he will lose our votes and i think he is looking at a tough race next election. you don’t fuck like this with new yorkers.
Hear that Madam Speaker? Now don’t you go putting words in my mouth again.
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are there blog sites for anti-war republicans?
together we stand,
every boy, every woman
and man
and girl.
As I played my 18 holes today, went by the barber shop to get my locks shorn, traveled down by the University for a couple of things and over to Sports Authority for a dozen golf balls (on sale) and an extra large bag of tees, I never heard one single person utter the word IMPEACH.
I don’t believe it is in the lexicon of the vast majority of Americans. Is it valid to say that seventy or so percent of Americans believe that we are on the wrong path? Yes, I believe it is. Is it valid to believe that 70% of Americans are willing to do something, to take action? Impeach? No, I don’t believe that is so.
Throughout my lifetime, I have been of the opinion that any president, given that he/she would be restricted to no more than two terms, could not possibly destroy America irrecoverably. Bush has proved that naive supposition to be totally wrong. Unfortunately, he has done much to taint all Americans with a malaise of national despair.
I doubt that Congress could ever be prodded into action to impeach. I suspect that impeachment of the public would be a better place to start. We, the people…. are the real failure in the current scenario.
that is easily doable by each of us.
Tell Nancy to Impeach Dick Cheney
by
November 12, 2007
House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for “further study.” This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is “off the table.” But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?
Cindy Sheehan wrote this:
Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi’s office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.
Please send them to:
Cindy for Congress
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.
Spread this far and wide so we can take sacks of letters to her.
Don’t include anything besides the letter.
Love
Cindy
The Free Press
also at: After Downing Street
(emphasis re date my own)
I have proposed a theory in the past that impeachment prevention was sold by the Democratic leadership for large campaign contributions, in the tens of millions of dollars, probably funneled through Aipac money laundering channels, with the second payment for the coming election contingent on preventing impeachment until it was too late in the cycle to be functional.
But I now think the reality is a lot worse than that. I’m ready to believe that what has happened with warrantless spying involves foreign business entities, probably Israeli, that have predictably transferred information obtained through US government collusion to foreign government hands. Lieberman/Feinstein/Harman have set up a barrier to prevent investigations, because the truth that might come out is not just solicitation of campaign funds in violation of the law, it’s treason, or the equivalent, punishable by death.
If this theory has any basis in fact (I personally have no hard proof), preventing impeachment is part of the firewall that keeps leadership in both parties from execution. Truths uncovered in an impeachment investigation would lead to million-person mobs in the streets demanding termination of aid to Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt, alongside deep reductions in the military budget and in general cessation of corporate imperialism.
Things have been swept under the rug for a long time and now the edges are all curled up with leaking trash. The truth will jeopardize America’s oil addiction and Europe’s hope for independence from Russia’s energy tyranny. The truth is going to be very painful for almost everyone, one way or another. Impeachment is the ultimate Pandora’s box.
All that said, impeachment must happen. Buhdy, you’re a goddamn inspiration!
…Though the Senate’s conviction of Bush won’t happen (assuming Articles of Impeachment could be voted out of the House–after all, we’re not talking about a blowjob here), impeachment is necessary to lay out for history the official Congressional documentation of the myriad war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Constitution committed by BushCo.
It will create another cogent case to be used against these criminals before the bar of internatinal justice at the Hague, a three-step process:
Step 1:
Conviction before the International Court of Justice (The Hague):
Step 2:
Punishment Befitting the Crimes
Step 3:
Judgment
whether by:
a) some Higher Power
b) History
c) a and b
But, still I love:
Thanks. Tigana!