As I read all the various threads on the Downing Street Minutes, withdrawing from Iraq, and economic and electoral issues, one fact seems increasingly crystal clear: that no real change will be possible without impeaching the Bush administration. Anything else will just be nibbling at the margins, tussling over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Quite simply, these vile people seized power illegally in 2000, and have been lying, scheming, avoiding accountability and corrupting or co-opting all the checks and balances ever since. They will not give up power until forced to do so literally at the point of a gun or a national insurrection. Any attempt to make them change their fundamental policy or to reign in their actions will be defied and ignored. They scorn anyone who doesn't support them. Should those who don't support them appear to be threatening their power, I have absolutely no doubt that some "national emergency," off the wall judicial decision, change in the rules, or distracting crisis will miraculously emerge to deflect and neutralize that threat.
Look at the record since Bush began seeking the Presidency. Truth and respect for the law have been completely expendable commodities. Rememeber, last year their campaign chortled that they "manufactured their own reality apart form the facts," and condescended to the "reality-based community." If there are facts they wish to conceal, like Cheney's energy task force, they conceal them. If reality is going against them, like the 2004 exit polls, they simply change the reality. If evidence of their corruption appears to be about to come to light, like when Enron collapsed, something spectacular like 9/11 happens and completely draws attention away from it. If a body like the 9/11 Commission starts getting too close to the truth, then the administration's actions are simply moved "out of bounds" in the interest of "bipartisanship."
These propagators of the "Clean Skies Initiative" and the "Healthy Forests" programs are lying EVERY time they open their mouths, and laughing at anyone gullible enough to take them at their word. Most of us know they don't even believe the shit they're saying, whether it is saving Social Security by defunding it or defending Terri Schiavo's life. It's all just a distraction and misdirection while their real agenda marches on, steadily accumulating power for the corporate super-rich, and disassembling anything from legal torts to PBS or labor unions that might oppose them.
If the Downing Street minutes prove anything, it is that there is absolutely NOTHING this administration will not do to have its way. In fact, the behavior that Bush accused Saddam of before the war, circumventing laws, concealing motives, presenting a false image to the world, are EXACTLY this administration's game plan. These are the crazy fringe Texas oil men Eisenhower warned us about, and they have seized power through a coup d'etat and will not be leaving office peacefully unless absolutely forced to do so. They are as viciously entrenched in power as the Communists ever were in the Politburo, or the Nazi's in the Reich's Chancellory. And only the threat of tanks in the streets or mass insurrection will loosen their grip.
It doesn't make me happy to say any of this. In fact, I feel sick to my core about it. But not facing up to what we're dealing with only allows them to continue to manipulate and distract us from what they are really doing. All of the Howard Deans and brilliant electoral strategies in the world will mean nothing if Diebold is counting the votes. All of the shocking investigations and revelations will mean nothing if by the time the information reaches the public, it is considered "old news," or compromised by calling it "partisanship." Congress can pass all the laws it wants, or the Supreme Court can render any decision, but "special emergency powers," "national security," "executive privilege," or "wartime conditions" will nullify it's implementation. They have no shame. They have no respect for the truth. They believe they are above they law. They are doing God's work and the rest of us are just heathens in their path.
The more we know about these people and the way they have seized and wielded power, the more we should understand that they are NOT playing by the rules as they have been for the last 200+ years of our democracy. Probably the only true thing they've ever said was that on 9/11 "everything changed." If you don't believe me, just watch the response to ANY action by any level of government that infringes on their core program. None of the usual levers of power will have ANY effect on them, short of completely removing them from their ability to control every facet of real power in this country. I hope I am wrong, but I have a sick feeling that long before the 2006 Congressional elections occur and give us a chance to reclaim some power, they will concont some diabolical reason to compromise or suspend the election, or to negate the results.
Therefore, I think that rather than allowing the opposition to get bogged down on the minutia of any one issue, like Iraq, electoral reform, the economy, etc, instead we should be weaving all of these things together into a general call for impeachment on the basis that in ALL of their actions and policies, they have lied and misled the American people. They have been acting in bad faith since they were spreading rumors about McCain's black baby in the 2000 South Carolina primary and it has only gotten worse since then. We can blog our hearts out, listen to Air America, and go to our DFA meetings, but it will change nothing as long as they are in power.
If Bill Clinton could be impeached about getting oral sex, then these criminals and sociopaths should be removed from office and their entire agenda reversed because it has all been a complete and total lie. Our country has never dealt with a political crisis like this, not Watergate, and the Civil War barely comes close. I pray I am wrong, but to believe that I have to deny the five years of reality that has passed in front of my eyes.
To address this issue, I beleive all of our Democratic representatives in Congress must take Conyers' actions as an example and go on the offensive. Whether inside the rules of Congress, or outside of them, they should begin investigating, enumerating and publicizing by all means possible (public rallies, the internet, paid television time, direct mail, anything that can't be co-opted or buried by the collaborators in the mainstream media) they ways in which the present Republican administration has betrayed the trust of all but the few, and repeatedly acted against the interests of the many.
Imagine a million people on the National Mall for a "Withdraw from Iraq" rally on the Fourth of July. Imagine a National "Keep your hands off my social Security Rally" where the AARP organized demonstrations in virtually every American city simultaneously. Imagine millions of mothers taking to the streets with their children protesting the "$30,000 per child birth tax the Republican economic policies have imposed on every child born.
The time has come for radical action. They have been waging a radical class war against us without mercy since Day One. it is time to fight back, and to fight back effectively with the Truth as our greatest weapon. And we need to fight back now, before they remove the last tattered remains of our ability to do so.