Ever since the Supreme Court decision of December 11, 2000, many of us have regarded the present regime as the beneficiaries of a coup aided by the cynical political wing of the Supreme Court.
"Irreparable harm," my ass! We are now seeing just who has been harmed, and the damage is likely to fall very close to home, and for decades to come, The bills to pay will fall upon us in our retirement, and in the impoverishment of our children and grandchildren.
We are now watching the spectacle of the incoming President taking over the actual functions of national leadership, within weeks of his election.
January 20th seems a long way off.
Indeed, by whatever medications or threat-obtained silences George W. Bush has been maintained -- like one of those aging Stalin-era Politburo members at May Day appearances -- as the figurehead ruler of this greatly abused land of ours, the facade has now entirely worn away. The wizard stands there exposed, mumbling, and so the movie must be nearly over, isn't it?
Indeed, the reason for Barack's early leap into this spotlight is to fill the leadership void left in the immediacy of the financial crisis.
Why, he's even reminding me quite a bit of a film character we see regularly at this season of the year, the George we'd much rather have seen running the government all these years: Jimmy Stewart's "George Bailey".
The image came to me not directly, but by first noticing the parallel of George Bailey's Uncle Billy to our George Bush's stumbling around, incoherently mumbling, as if he'd just lost $8,000 BILLIONS of the country's money. Pretty unbelievable premise for a fictional movie, eh?
And now everyone expects our new George Bailey Obama to step into the scene and rescue us all.
We ALL know that as hard as they search, that $8,000 just ain't turning up again, in this film at least. (Maybe -- this time -- in real life -- it re-appears in some super-secure underground bank vaults in Paraguay, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland?)
Every year, by this time, I've forgotten how it all works out in the film.
(Hmmmm, ... what's Potter's first name? Wouldn't be "Hank", would it?)
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Since December 12, 2000, when in the midst of our national shock I read the Stevens dissent to the handing over of the Presidency, I have never used the phrase "President Bush" in reference to this regime. Call it respect for the office, whatever. Could not bring myself to utter it.
(By the time of the Iraq invasion and the Terry Schiavo-era midnight flight in the "presidential" pajamas, I was more than confirmed in my stubborn reticence.)
So they held an inauguration ceremony in 2001. Wasn't my "consent of the governed" they were acquiring that day.
So he was appointed by Supreme Court "justices". They didn't do the job that America requires of justices. They should now resign, in shame.
They de-legitimized themselves as Constitutional authorities, just as all appointments, Supreme or otherwise, by this usurper ought by right to be rolled back or brought under review.
We have truly dodged a missile, in terms of future Court appointments, but We The People are still and always have been superior to the tides of that body's rulings, and we should act like it, when required.
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Anyway, the intent of this piece is probably clear to you by now. Just a few random thoughts on the road to Freedom... which much of the world still entrusts us who live "in America" to be the keepers to.
Just as we have lived, futilely, with the logic of impeachment for at least four years now, we have been living with the logic of resignation screaming at us for months, and certainly since November 4th.
We -- and I use that in the "whaddya mean we, Kemo Sabe?" sense of "we" -- are just slow on the uptake. The British would still be occupying New York, Boston, and Philadelphia if this generation of Americans... but, I digress, and I rant...
Some of the national healing that we had hoped for from impeachment two years ago, we might still gain from the handing over of government administration by Bush and Cheney to, perhaps, Nancy Pelosi, awaiting the inauguration of Obama.
Or, as I recall, Obama does not lose any of a potential second term by taking office early. But it seems not necessary, anti-climactic, and we would lose the defining impact from Inauguration Day's place on the timeline.
ACTION ITEM: We ought to campaign for and insist upon the immediate resignations of the two never-Presidential usurpers who've taken our nation on their eight-year joyride of criminal plunder and violence.
The history of the Bush Years: We have been played for fools, and, unless our children move to live and work in another country, they will inherit our folly.
We need to STOP acting like the fools they think we are, and the few weeks left are flitting away.
"Irreparable harm," indeed. Only "irreparable" until we take the necessary measures to repair our own reputation.