I hope the Dems prove me wrong
The bit of relief I felt the morning after election day soon faded as Nancy Pelosi claimed again and again that impeachment was off the table. I was further dismayed by the posturing that I heard after election day, that investigating the crimes of the Bush Administration by the new Democratic majority was a waste of time spent on revenge.
Revenge?
Okay, there is a part of me that would like to see Georgie and the good o’l boys get at least a bit of what they deserve. But I’d much rather let the whole gang off scott-free (as long as they are made powerless forever - in other words, never to return to politics) than to see their legacy destroy our country as it is sure to do IF we DON’T investigate.
We have a lot of cleaning up to do, and I believe that clean up is a far more important task than that of making a bunch of new laws. I can think of no better use of the 110th Congress’ time than to undo all the bad laws that have been created over the past few years and work to prevent such abuses in the future.
No administration that I can think of has done more to weaken the constitution or the rule of law. This administration is also guilty of several war crimes and crimes against the American people. We NEED to be aware of what has been done to us, we need to know the details of how they were able to nearly destroy the constitution. Such knowledge can help us build safe-guards to prevent the next despot from doing the same.
There are other important reasons to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration. I saw this article this morning: Ten Reasons Congress Must Investigate Bush Administration Crimes. Not only our nation, but the Democratic Party has a lot to lose by not checking the Bush Admin with serious, in depth investigations.
“The purpose of such action is not to play “gotcha†based on hearsay and newspaper clippings. Investigation, exposure, and even prosecution or select committee proceedings, should they become necessary, are primarily means for reestablishing the rule of law. But such investigations may be blocked by the Democratic leadership unless American citizens and progressive Democrats in particular demand them. “
I quit supporting the Dems quite a long time ago due to the erosion of progressive ideals within the party. When the Dems decided to accept big corporate money they lost the virtue of always being on the side of the little guy, and that big money also made them weaken their resolve on other important issues or served as a conflict of interest for their traditionally progressive values. I was further enraged a few years later by the way the Dems (as a group) rolled over and played dead with several of Bush’s bad policies, such as giving him the power to go to war in Iraq in the first place.
I hope this set of Dems heading to congress is of the stronger variety. I hope they are of the more ethical and less greedy variety. I hope that they are of the more visionary variety. I hope this set of Dems heading to congress proves me wrong.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I need add nothing. We see you progressives, though you are all a bit wispy, and ghostlike, in your commitment to what America really is.
The Democrats & Civil Liberties
Will They Turn A Blind Eye To The
Destruction Of The Bill Of Rights?
By Paul Craig Roberts
11-14-6
Unless November’s new blood improves the Democratic Party’s civil liberties pedigree, the Democrats will have failed even before they are sworn in next January.
In its disregard for truth, public opinion, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution and statutory law, the Bush administration has been more of a regime than an administration. The Bush/Cheney executive branch has operated independently of all the constraints that provide accountability and prevent despotism.
The Bush regime was able to evade these restraints, because Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and because Republicans wielded 9/11 as a weapon to forestall political opposition.
With signing statements and other unilateral declarations of presidential authority, the Bush regime asserted executive branch powers beyond the reach of Congress and the judiciary.
The Bush regime was a coup d’etat against the Bill of Rights and the jurisdictions of Congress and the courts. Unless Democrats roll back this coup, Americans have seen the last of their civil liberties.
Judging by Democrats’ statements in the flush of their electoral victory, Democrats have little, if any, awareness of this critical fact. Democrats are anxious to get on with their agendas and have shown no recognition that the first order of business is to repeal the legislation that permits torture, warrantless detention and domestic spying.
If Bush threatens to veto the resurrection of US civil liberty, the Democrats can impeach Bush as a tyrant as well as for pushing America into an illegal and catastrophic war on the basis of lies and deception.
Bush is the most impeachable president in American history. However, the incoming Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has declared impeachment to be “off the table.” Obviously, this means that Bush will not be held accountable and that the Bill of Rights is a casualty of the vague, undefined, and propagandistic “war on terror.”
Do Pelosi and the incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have the intellect and character to deliver the leadership required for Americans to remain a free people? Instead of bemoaning the damage Bush has done to civil liberty, Democrats are up in arms over one child in five being raised in poverty. The more important question is whether children are being raised as a free people protected by civil liberties from arbitrary government power.
Do Democrats share the delusion of Bush supporters that it is only Middle Eastern terrorists who are deprived of the protection of the US Constitution? One can understand the reluctance of Americans to extend constitutional protection to terrorists who are trying to kill Americans. However, without these protections, there is no way of ascertaining who is a terrorist.
Currently, a “terrorist” is anyone given that designation by any of a large number of unaccountable government officials and military officers. No evidence has to be provided in order to detain a designated suspect. Moreover, designated suspects can be convicted in military tribunals on the basis of secret evidence not made available to them or to any legal representation that they might be able to secure. In other words, you are guilty if charged.
As the case of US citizen Jose Padilla makes clear, these gestapo police state proceedings apply to Americans. Padilla was declared to be an “enemy combatant.” He was held in a US prison for three and one-half years with no charges and no warrant. He was kept in isolated confinement, tortured, and denied legal representation.
In order to avoid US Supreme Court jurisdiction over the case, the Bush regime filed charges after stealing three and one-half years of Padilla’s life. However, the charges have no relationship to the Bush regime’s original allegations that Padilla, an Hispanic-American, was an al Qaeda operative who was going to set off a radioactive dirty bomb in an American city. The US government no longer designates Padilla as an “enemy combatant.” The dirty bomb charge has disappeared, and US Federal District Judge Marcia Cooke has criticized the government’s indictment as vague with sketchy evidence “weak on facts.”
The reason that the Bush regime wants to detain people indefinitely without evidence is that it has no evidence. The reason the Bush regime passed torture legislation is in order to produce the missing evidence by torturing a suspect into self-incrimination. “Evidence” procured by torture has been illegal in civilized societies for centuries. But the Bush regime has resurrected the medieval rack and substituted it for the Bill of Rights.
If Democrats cannot bring themselves to rectify the inhumane and barbaric practices that now pass for US justice, then they, too, have failed the American people.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolutin (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury’s Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:19 am
I can’t help but note a bit of irony here. Sure, I understand that Dems have gone wayward in the past, and let some former Dems down. Notwithstanding, had the greens not voted for Nader in 2000, Bush would be a mere “comma” (i.e., loser to Al Gore) in the history of political races for president. It’s wrong to hold third parties responsible for electing Bush in 2000 but, then again ….
November 15th, 2006 at 10:52 am
How are we to get any justice from a group of democrats that bought into the BS from the administration HOOK, LINE, and SINKER? These people are idiots and they won’t prosecute bush because their stupidity is painted all over the last 6 years.
Who is dumber, those that follow the idiot, or the idiot himself? Maybe the idiot is no idiot, but the followers surely are. There is no mandate in democratic victory, especially for social agenda democrats.
That for the American people democrats is, “OFF THE TABLE”!
The people want what dems won’t give them, BALANCE, and repudiation of their own mistakes in supporting in MAJORATY what bush has done. What faith do the People have in you? That’d be none, just waiting to axe all that do not do their job. Truly, we may have begun to see, the end of elitist politics.
November 15th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Oh yes, Nader the evil phantom of the Dems. This excuse is really getting old.
If there hadn’t been purging of voter rolls in Florida, Gore would have won.
If the Supreme Court hadn’t stopped the recount in Florida, Gore would have won.
If Al Gore would have run his campaign with the passion with which he fights global warming, Gore would have won.
If Gore would have fought for his win and refused to accept, Gore might have won.
Blaming 2000 on Nader is convenient for Dems so that they don’t have to take responsibility for their own failures or to confront the Republicans on their dirty deeds in 2000.
Nader had every right to run, and Greens had every right to vote their conscience and not resort to lesser-evilism. Speaking for myself and at least a couple of other people that I know, if Nader hadn’t run in 2000, I wouldn’t have voted — I had just had enough of the two-party system. With that trend in mind, you can’t claim that everyone that voted for Nader would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn’t run.
How bad does the two-party system have to get before Dems will admit that 3rd parties have not only a right to exist — but may be necessary to the survival of our democracy?
November 15th, 2006 at 11:49 am
My comment merely cites the irony. The Greens made their point in 2000, and each election since, and we have been paying for it for six years now. Personally, I hold the Dems responsible for the election of Bush in 2000, and I also appreciate the factors that you list that assisted in that victory, but I also note that you failed to identify one more factor: had Nader not run, then Bush would not have been elected. Seems pretty straightforward to me. How about you, cassandra?
November 15th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
I am happy to see progressives rally around the current incarnation of the dems, led by pelosi and dean, as it ensures greater populism, and as with the confusion of reps, the democratic party and their progressive support will soon follow in that order.
November 15th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Latter-day Buffalo has a point.
How can we be assured given the current political climate that the “gang” is made powerless forever - in other words, never to return to politics - if the Greens continue to encourage voters to not vote Dem? I don’t think you can have it both ways.
PS I am not saying I disagree with the top post, I am just pointing to reality.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
We absolutely demand the cessation of the greed driven violence. And we can achieve it. BALANCE, on the other hand is a wistful concept, that is always exceeded, hence the pendulum metaphor. So, if the dems performance isn’t up to a progressives expectation, it will be our task to stay activeand call them on it. If on the other hand they do good work, which is what I expect, applaud and thank them. Senators and congressmen and women will consider anything an ‘issue’ if they get enough calls and letters. You might be surprized just how few calls and letters that is, but, no calls, no letters…NO issue. We must speak continuously and with clarity. I think of this as providing guidance, my responsibility. I can imagine gaining 5 more senate seats a dozen or so more in the house, as well as the presidency in ‘08.
Right now and in the next congress, we (progressives) will have an opportunity that for the last 6 years, we haven’t had. We must make use of it, if only because we are here. I believe we’ve got em outnumbered
November 16th, 2006 at 10:07 am
If nader had not run, then bush wouldn’t have been elected. A reasonable assumption, though I could see many that voted for nader not voting for gore. Or not voting at all. Does it matter considering that in fact, the unprecedented move of appointing the President has occured, defining elected democracy in our country DEAD? The spirit of free and fair elections was destroyed by the Supreme Court. Now O’Conner stands against bush, credibility anyone?
If we remain in this 2 party dynamic then democracy is a farce in our country, blaming dem defeat on a guy that mobilzed 3% of the populace is admitting the pathetic nature and divisions of the “progressive” movement.
Since this country is not a plebescite democracy, but a representative one, with the officers sworn to their Oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, the fact that dems do not want to prosecute a sitting president that has commited high crimes, and misdemeanors…leaves the People with nothing… but the self interest of those elected and their petty agendas. Let the mob rule is what dems are saying, hardly the Country I swore an Oath to.
The obligations of the Oath precede and trump any notions of political agenda, anyone that will not act on their duty is defunct at least, a worthless traitor to the Constitution at worst, either way, unfit to rule.
Cirlcling the drain in 2008.
November 16th, 2006 at 10:36 am
There’s another option besides voting for the Dems, voting for the Greens, or sitting out the election. The option that many of us have chosen is to get involved with the Democratic Party and make it the kind of party we want it to be.
During his presidential campaign, Howard Dean’s rallying cry was “We’re going to take our party back, and then we’re going to take our country back.” If Dems have more spine than they did 2 years ago, if they’re talking about progressive issues more than they were 2 years ago, it’s because grassroots Democrats are changing the party.
I agree with about 90% of the Green Party’s platform, but we’re stuck with a two-party system. There’s really only one viable political party for liberals and progressives. Don’t give up — get involved and help us drag that donkey back toward the left.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
If the party you want does not want to engage in doing its primary sworn duty of defending and upholding the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, then it is a party of treason.
We are in serious trouble, your brand of democrats could not then swear the Oath in Truth, lest they rid us of bush, or fail trying. Your brand of democrat is fundamentally fascist if the Duty is not undertaken as the primary obligation of those serving as representatives.
There is no attack here, note the “IF” part. Meanwhile dean and pelosi are not fit to rule as they will do nothing.