CosmeticDemocracy.com

I am no economist, but it seems to me that this “financial emergency” is fundamentally a CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY.There is nothing in this “bailout” scenario that has not been predicted and avoidable for decades. People with experience and sane and healthy analyses who spoke and wrote of the dangers were ignored, ridiculed or scorned. Certainly not given airtime nor column space in major media to explain their concerns or to connect the dots.There is absolutely NO intention of this “government” and the corporate lobbyists that fund and write the legislation for them, who influence and buy legislators, and who “regulate” their own ventures, to allow the People either:

1. first-hand, un”regulated” or uncensored knowledge of what actually goes on, or what/how/by whom decisions are made.

2. a free press that engages the public and discusses and questions situations as well as alternatives.

 3. a free electoral system that allows such a simple notion as alternative views and political organization (i.e. other parties) with both the right and “permission” to speak freely and in the open and with access to the public’s airwaves.

Forget Public Funding of Elections.The “Free Marketeers” who have so brazenly lied to us, lo these decades (centuries?), about their ideology and intentions, admit no Free Market of Ideas, eliminating candidates from National Debates, allowing no television time for smaller candidacies (as nations such as Brazil and Mexico somehow manage to do), preventing any real dialogue, exchange of ideas IN MUCH THE SAME WAY AS their Phony “Free Market” Rules and rigged games they play, that ALWAYS end up with us, the taxpayers, bailing out the failed “plans” (schemes?) AFTER the usually unpunished perpetrators have taken out and stashed away their private profits.It’s time to realize: this is a wholesale Criminal Enterprise masquerading as a government, while bad-mouthing ANYTHING representing truly democratic or representative ideas of the governed.The enemies of democracy are not conspiring to smash aircraft into our symbols of power. They are circulating freely in the corridors of our Capitol and White House. They sit behind microphones and in front of cameras that blanket the nation with innuendo, false images of humanity and science, disinformation, vitriol and hatred. They take what they want, prey on the weak, and plot to silence those who might object. They cover their actions and trails with emotional rhetoric spread by giant media networks with whom they share power.This is not democracy in ANY sense of the word. It is a Cosmetic Democracy at best where appearance deceives and illusions shatter if you look too closely.A Thousand Plagues, too, on the folks like Nancy Pelosi and her duplicitous and traitorous gang of enablers who use the romantic and nostalgic falsehoods of a supposed Democratic Party “legacy” of supporting working people to quietly shut up, shut down and neutralize the efforts of exactly those elements in our society (anti-war movement, veterans, women’s groups, labor, impeachment advocates, etc.) who actually WOULD stand up to defend our REAL democratic principles.We must also question the sense of all those people of good will, still IN the Democratic Party (or so self-identifying), who have willingly allowed themselves to be used and fooled time and time again, accepting “lesser-of-two-evilism” as the Norm and Rule, having demanded NOTHING of their duplicitous neo-liberal usurped “Leadership” Council of that political party, having lowered both their expectations and their pants to that “leadership”, without getting a single meaningful concession in return that supports the American People or our Constitution.This has gone on for decades now.Those of you who have tolerated and even supported this should be ashamed and embarrassed. You have willingly allowed the oligarchy of this nation to use the artifice of a “second flavor” of Capital, the Democratic Party, to fool, use and abuse both you AND this nation, wasting your time and our democratic potential.If you truly are progressive, it is time to take up the real and active defense of Democracy, insist on Impeachment (there is still time), restore the Constitution (there may be still time), and BAIL OUT of that phony Party to put your energies and resources towards building a new one that has its feet firmly planted in Democracy. This may hurt and sadden some to realize, but...it is too late for the Democratic Party — they have already effectively betrayed the nation. They have stood by and watched (when not aiding and abetting) the worst elements of our society rape and pillage our nation and ravage others across the globe — and done nothing — other than shout down those who begged them to act on behalf of the people.There IS NO legacy to save.This whole supposed “government,” propped up by officials of both “Official Parties” is really an illegal occupation of Governmental Positions and Roles by people who hate government, because when it works, it represents ordinary people. They work hard to see representative government destroyed and replaced by an oligarchic-corporate fiat in the guise of government, touting “freedom” and “democracy” as no more than brand names and slogans.

Tom Engelhardt of TomDisptach.com in a recent article “The Ponzi Scheme Presidency - Bush’s Legacy of Destruction” (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/06-3#comment-1108019), compared the Bush regime and legacy to that of earlier empires such as the Assyrians, but with no similar commitment to counting the bodies.

Engelhardt’s account of death and destruction is enlightening, and on mark. He writes this as an epitaph, understandably eager to consign it all to the past, but it is not that easy.

I decided to ask a few questions of that author…

———————

What’s this use of the PAST TENSE, Tom? Wishful thinking? Too much holiday champagne?

You write as though this is over now, what with the election and all.

Have you forgotten how this killing plan and machine was being put together in the background during the Clinton Administration?

Then, the Bush Administration actions all occurred with virtually no political opposition. The “new bosses”, the Democrats, did not have the temerity, while it was happening, to call “foul” about any of the numerous visible crimes, the shredding of the Constitution, nor did they question the lies and no-bid contract that made these killing fields possible.

Nor did they listen to their own constituency about the war and healthcare, or even lift a finger to support democracy and the vote by investigating several clearly stolen elections.

You think it is OVER? You think it CAN be over without ever examining, analysing, nor denouncing and punishing those who made all this policy, thievery and destruction happen?

Besides the physical and fiscal damage, Bush-CheneyCo created legal and legislative chaos that would in normal circumstances be difficult to unravel. With the latest part of the Ponzi scheme — the “Bailout” — they have left the new Administration with little wiggle room to act in any sphere but the direst economic ones — even if they knew what to do.

Sooo…now what? The Accomplices are now nominally in power. Do they run the defense industries? Or Big Media? You can’t turn a moving battleship around on a dime, even when you want to — and certainly not if you haven’t even planned a course change.

This nightmare isn’t over. The destruction of democracy and the economy is only beginning to be seen and felt here. Only a concerted effort of the people in spite of and in rebuke of the soon-to-be Democratic “led” two-party corporate agenda of enabling and appeasement can end it.
——

Alan Kobrin
Miami

What does it take to grasp the following:

We can never get out from under this creeping repressive, smothering blanket if we do not seek to SEE, much less understand or unravel, the deepest levels of economic interests and collusion going on.

Who owns the media, and what do they want? Does the answer surprise us?

What did Ike tell us? Did either major party listen to or even dare repeat his miilitary-industrial complex warnings (he forgot the media) as part of their party liturgy to warn the millions or even the minions? Hardly.

This fight to crush the New Deal legacies (bits of basic living crumbs to workers) by the Right has been going on for DECADES! And it has been downhill since the McCarthy era (I call it the Great American Purge).

With McCarthyism, dissent once again became publicly unpatriotic in America (as it is now). Unions were viewed as selfish special interests and entrepreneurship raised above sainthood. The American myth, thus reinforced, saw us through the Cold War (with SO many gullible folks from all parties saying publicly how this was so necessary to save us and democracy).

The brief rebellion during the Vietnam Era (fed by drugs, Kinsey, and FM radio) served mainly to prepare the hardliners with how to really use force and power to deal with dissent the next time (read: “right now”).

The final assault on the New Deal gains (and the democracy needed to sustain them) is nearly finished now.

I daresay the Democratic Party has been VERY instrumental in all this. That party is designed to take the “feeling and thinking sector” of American folks, the ones who still believe in facts, science, diversity, and so on, and keep them believing that our problems only exist because of a few bad apples or bad decision-making. The way I see it, that party’s Oligarchic Task is to keep that good-hearted part of the population living in a Fairy Tale where Raw, Ruthless Power serving Economic Interests only exists in films: “Why, Beverly, THEY would never do THAT!….?

Kennedy, King, Kennedy, Wellstone, 911 … such BAD luck we’ve have! Right?

… SOMEbody actually DID those things, however. They each took planning and intent, motive and means.

==> ** GENERALIZATION ALERT! ** <== :

•    Republicans support the Dark Forces with nearly unbound devotion.
•    The full force of the Democrats silences meaningful progressive thought or reflection and keeps everyone’s Eyes Off the Prize, so as not to disturb “the Myth”.

Obama, Hillary…Hillary, Obama…need I say more?

The death, destruction, torture, weapons building, poisoning of our planet, of our minds and of our bloodstreams (can you say Big Pharma?) go on daily, 24/7 — right NOW — even as the Candidates Who Will Save Us All spend valuable time discussing the finer points of who will do what at 3 a.m. if some outsider really wants to push our buttons.

If those two are NOT PART of this Illusion Spin Machine, then I am Osama bin Laden.

So, why is it so hard to BELIEVE any of this about how the media and Congress act??

Sorry that Reality hurts so much, folks, but we are going to have to end this Fatal Attraction/Dance with the Democratic Party if we are to survive as America. Shocking! For a huge variety of rea$on$, they CANNOT let go of that Myth that they help to sustain. You simply cannot GET to the underlying causes of our situation with that kind of thinking…the Myth is blinding. It FEEDS Cognitive Dissonance on all levels.

No wonder so many folks are simply flummoxed, wandering around saying, “…gee, How did THAT happen?”

I guarantee you, in Europe and in South America, with their other parties, history and political traditions, they not only see right through all this, but are appalled by our inanity and ignorance, and find it hard to believe we neither STOP this nonsense, nor organize to resist (with those few exceptions we know).

They, too, are finding it harder to deal with reality as our CultureMediaSteamrollerSatelliteSystem invades young psyches the world over.

Not only do we NOT work hard and OVERTIME to set up a democratic and legal Resistance to the ongoing Fascist Threat here in the US, our most “venerable” institutions have just come off a decades-long period of lulling us into slumber while they actively (and passively) went about DESTROYING those very institutions that might be standing up and defending this nation today (unions, public education, farmers, a free press, fair and COUNTED elections…)…and maybe even asking for Impeachment.

As the EndGame grows nearer and the stakes get really high, so-called “Progressive Forces” go instead after “third party” and other truly independent visions and attempts at organizing  a real, informed resistance as though THEY were the enemy, receiving greatly more vindictive action and pressure to “shut up” than does the Dictatorial Regime itself.

To Greens and others trying to build a consciousness, a movement, a party to see us through and beyond this blindness, too many “Progressive Dems” say: PLEASE, shut up, stop talking about this mess. They may hear us. Do ANYthing but say the truth out loud. Don’t dare point to any direction of action of the DNC hasn’t already sanctioned. Please! Be quiet. Go away. Shhhhh…they’ll hear you.

Sadly, sadly, they are more afraid of “rocking the boat” (albeit a sinking one), than reaching solid ground. They tell us they are afraid of losing “gains.” Right.

They tell us: we cannot afford four more years of Republican rule, even as they did nothing to stop the abuses of the last eight (or should we say sixteen?).

By perpetuating the prevailing Myths, we cannot collectively Recognize nor Resist the forces creating our bewilderment.

Yes. Indeed! It’s “crazy-making.” And it’s time to STOP this behavior!

Get off the Dupopoly Carousel! There are no answers there — even if the special mirrors make it seem that way.

The Duopoly are knowingly and willingly creating and perpetuating this misbegotten and ruthless situation;  they CANNOT be the ones capable of providing the solutions. That should be fairly obvious by now. Only the People armed with knowledge and organizing themselves in new ways are capable of that.

Dennis tried…and just look at what they’re doing to him.

The very discussion of impeachment on this program reiterating why it is the PEOPLE who must force Congress to act, attests to that reality.

For those who keep scratching their heads, asking WHY, I guess it hasn’t yet dawned on them, yet, where the problems and solutions lie.

If we are surprised by how all this happened, we can only blame ourselves, and our greater desire to FEEL good than to Live Good. Our willingness to accept not only the Great Myth about “how wonderful the USA is and how it needs no changes, only a few tweaks”, works with the belief that Americans don’t really have to do anything ourselves  for this “great life” to go on and on.

The Primary Season Message is doing it to us right now, telling us that if we “Vote Right” in November, we don’t have to worry about the Occupation, mercenary war profiteering torture, pain and death our tax dollars sow. We don’t have to think about New Orleans or question war spending. It will all somehow work out. Just Choose Well … and Vote.

Yeah … and let’s forget that old story about stolen elections and hacking votes, why don’t we?

We don’t really have to talk about all that nasty stuff, do we?

Tell me, how different is that than Barbara Bush saying, when asked about the war, she doesn’t worry her beautiful mind about such things?

——————-

WE ARE ALL BARBARA NOW — unless we step off into CourageLand and change it!

We have no right to enjoy the benefits of the American Revolution if we continue to betray it. Americans of color have not yet enjoyed many of those benefits and it is only together with them will we be able to fight to have our rights and democracy at all. Time to stop sending the poor to fight our nasty wars to back up a Myth that dumps on us all.

If all the people wanting impeachment today were in a third party tomorrow, we’d have impeachment next week. Staying where they are is what makes them all irrelevant to our Congress.

For those who feel impeachment is either unimportant or a distraction, to those who contend that impeachment is too late or too costly, irrelevant or merely vindictive, but especially to those in our Congress entrusted with making and preserving our laws, I write this letter. I believe you are missing some very important principles that just might save America’s legacy and soul.

To my dear, disenchanted fellow citizens,

1- America IS its Constitution. Without it, we have nothing special to offer this planet. It is what set this “land of the free” apart historically, why we call ourselves the “great experiment in democracy (laws made by the people)”. It is what spelled out the basis for a democratic society, a principle which George Bush claims to be sending people to kill and die for on the other side of the world.

2- Built into that Constitution is a self-defense mechanism — the process of impeachment (basically a congressional accusation, which could lead to a trial in the Senate). It was written there in order to prevent and deal with possible abuses of power or breaches of the Constitution. It is an indictment which, only if proven, could lead to removal from office.

3- The President, the Congress, and the Armed Forces ALL make an Oath to that Constitution, not to the president, not to a political party, not to a flag, but to the Constitution, to defend it against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

4- If an abuse to constitutional power even seems apparent, as many people contend in the case of the George Bush administration (whether you agree with that notion or not), impeachment is the means called upon to look into the case, to see whether such excesses have really gone on — or not.

5- The frivolous use of impeachment for political and vindictive reasons during the Bill Clinton presidency, caused much of the public to come to regard the impeachment process itself as a mere political, partisan tool. Sullied repeatedly and on television, impeachment effectively became neutralized as a serious means to investigate or to stop any possible excesses or crimes of the Executive.

We live with those consequences every day now. In the last few years, our Constitution has repeatedly and successfully been attacked and eroded because of the very reluctance to use impeachment as the safeguard it was meant to be. Today we can see this as a first step towards the imperial executive, and in dissolving the separation of powers.

6- If, in cases of seeming great abuse, impeachment is not called upon (as required by our Constitution), then:
a. our Constitution becomes “defenseless”, and loses its means of protection from abuse.
b. our Congress, by not invoking impeachment, violates its Oath of Office to defend that Constitution, and becomes complicit in possible wrong-doing.
c. The Constitution might never be protected again, and thus, effectively America, as we know it, will have DIED, never to be resurrected again as it was…and all our officials will have breached their Oaths by not defending it. The backbone of America will be broken.

So, those who say impeachment is wrong, or that there is not enough time, are effectively allowing America to commit suicide, never to have that Dream again. They will have done more damage to the US (and to the world) than any Al Queda or other foreign-based enemy ever could do. It wouldn’t matter any more what happens with America’s wars abroad. Our security (the constitutional basis for our society) will have been severely breached, and the war at home will be LOST, along with our freedoms.

Now THAT would be the destruction of America.

Spying, torture, removal of habeus corpus, preemptive wars, illegal unlimited detention, infiltration of civic groups, censorship, accusing political opposition of being “terrorists,” etc….does this sound like the USA you and I know? Sounds kinda like the ol’ Soviet Union, doesn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a dictatorship implanted here. I want an ever-more-perfected democracy.

George Bush was quoted at a November 2005 White House meeting about the Patriot Act as having angrily referred to the United States Constitution “that goddamned piece of paper.” THAT UTTERANCE, alone, is a violation of the inaugural Oath of Office he took, and the document he swore to defend; it makes him unfit to continue in that office, and should land him in the street.

Our solemn duty
There simply is no higher political or moral duty at this time for real patriots, than to impeach this president as it is required by law, by our Constitution. There simply ARE NO higher priorities than to save America’s Laws and Life.

To pretend that there are more important things to do in Congress during Bush’s last six months, is to willingly stick one’s head in the sand while America dies an ignoble death. Do you want that on your conscience? Is THAT the legacy you wish to give your children? Or might you rather have them be proud to be part of a nation that knew how to REALLY defend itself from abuse–and not just with bombs and bullets–but rather, with the Supreme Law of the Land, the US Constitution.

Before you jump to conclusions and make emotional charges against those who care deeply about the future of our nation, I suggest you actually READ the 35 charges (now 36) by Kucinich, and be able to deny all 36 of them. In any case, America has the right, the need, the Constitutional obligation, to look into such allegations for their merit. Any single one of them, if proven true, is grounds for impeachment as written in our Constitution, which, the last time I looked, still reigns as the supreme law in our land.

Yours, with due respect and with hopes for the future of our nation.
For those who feel impeachment is either unimportant or a distraction, to those who contend that impeachment is too late or too costly, irrelevant or merely vindictive, but especially to those in our Congress entrusted with making and preserving our laws, I write this letter. I believe you are missing some very important principles that just might save America’s legacy and soul.

To my dear, disenchanted fellow citizens,

1- America IS its Constitution. Without it, we have nothing special to offer this planet. It is what set this “land of the free” apart historically, why we call ourselves the “great experiment in democracy (laws made by the people)”. It is what spelled out the basis for a democratic society, a principle which George Bush claims to be sending people to kill and die for on the other side of the world.

2- Built into that Constitution is a self-defense mechanism — the process of impeachment (basically a congressional accusation, which could lead to a trial in the Senate). It was written there in order to prevent and deal with possible abuses of power or breaches of the Constitution. It is an indictment which, only if proven, could lead to removal from office.

3- The President, the Congress, and the Armed Forces ALL make an Oath to that Constitution, not to the president, not to a political party, not to a flag, but to the Constitution, to defend it against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

4- If an abuse to constitutional power even seems apparent, as many people contend in the case of the George Bush administration (whether you agree with that notion or not), impeachment is the means called upon to look into the case, to see whether such excesses have really gone on — or not.

5- The frivolous use of impeachment for political and vindictive reasons during the Bill Clinton presidency, caused much of the public to come to regard the impeachment process itself as a mere political, partisan tool. Sullied repeatedly and on television, impeachment effectively became neutralized as a serious means to investigate or to stop any possible excesses or crimes of the Executive.

We live with those consequences every day now. In the last few years, our Constitution has repeatedly and successfully been attacked and eroded because of the very reluctance to use impeachment as the safeguard it was meant to be. Today we can see this as a first step towards the imperial executive, and in dissolving the separation of powers.

6- If, in cases of seeming great abuse, impeachment is not called upon (as required by our Constitution), then:
a. our Constitution becomes “defenseless”, and loses its means of protection from abuse.
b. our Congress, by not invoking impeachment, violates its Oath of Office to defend that Constitution, and becomes complicit in possible wrong-doing.
c. The Constitution might never be protected again, and thus, effectively America, as we know it, will have DIED, never to be resurrected again as it was…and all our officials will have breached their Oaths by not defending it. The backbone of America will be broken.

So, those who say impeachment is wrong, or that there is not enough time, are effectively allowing America to commit suicide, never to have that Dream again. They will have done more damage to the US (and to the world) than any Al Queda or other foreign-based enemy ever could do. It wouldn’t matter any more what happens with America’s wars abroad. Our security (the constitutional basis for our society) will have been severely breached, and the war at home will be LOST, along with our freedoms.

Now THAT would be the destruction of America.

Spying, torture, removal of habeus corpus, preemptive wars, illegal unlimited detention, infiltration of civic groups, censorship, accusing political opposition of being “terrorists,” etc….does this sound like the USA you and I know? Sounds kinda like the ol’ Soviet Union, doesn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a dictatorship implanted here. I want an ever-more-perfected democracy.

George Bush was quoted at a November 2005 White House meeting about the Patriot Act as having angrily referred to the United States Constitution “that goddamned piece of paper.” THAT UTTERANCE, alone, is a violation of the inaugural Oath of Office he took, and the document he swore to defend; it makes him unfit to continue in that office, and should land him in the street.

Our solemn duty
There simply is no higher political or moral duty at this time for real patriots, than to impeach this president as it is required by law, by our Constitution. There simply ARE NO higher priorities than to save America’s Laws and Life.

To pretend that there are more important things to do in Congress during Bush’s last six months, is to willingly stick one’s head in the sand while America dies an ignoble death. Do you want that on your conscience? Is THAT the legacy you wish to give your children? Or might you rather have them be proud to be part of a nation that knew how to REALLY defend itself from abuse–and not just with bombs and bullets–but rather, with the Supreme Law of the Land, the US Constitution.

Before you jump to conclusions and make emotional charges against those who care deeply about the future of our nation, I suggest you actually READ the 35 charges (now 36) by Kucinich, and be able to deny all 36 of them. In any case, America has the right, the need, the Constitutional obligation, to look into such allegations for their merit. Any single one of them, if proven true, is grounds for impeachment as written in our Constitution, which, the last time I looked, still reigns as the supreme law in our land.

Yours, with due respect and with hopes for the future of our nation.

Alan Kobrin

————–
Alan Kobrin is an activist, web consultant, educator, and writer, who seeks a re-dedication to democracy through participation; he co-founded FloridaImpeach.org and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of Florida.

See the letter to Miami Herald about impeachment and censorship in the US” letter published in the Miami Herald which gave rise to this article, “Impeachment 101″

“It’s your baby.”

With these words, Condolleeza Rice reportedly told the CIA that they could go right ahead and break US and International Law, by using torture and a series of extreme measures to gain confessions from detainees with no respect for their human nor legal rights. All this with apparent disregard for any potential negative consequences to our nation from such actions. It was done in secrecy, and if somehow discovered, would, as we have seen, be blamed upon “a few bad apples.” Thus was the undermining of a pillar of US legal and moral structure conceived in our White House.

If there ever were a case for legal abortion, this is IT.

This “baby” must not reach full term. It puts the mother in extreme risk of her life. It is seriously deformed by any standards. Were this baby to somehow survive, and grow to adulthood, it would bankrupt the family and leave an enduring wake of pain and sorrow.

Ms. Rice holds the position of US Secretary of State. Many say she is on the short list for Republican VP candidates. Her cavalier attitude and disrespect for our own and international norms of law and propriety make her unfit to represent a nation that would like to consider itself both democratic and humane. It is past time for her to go now, and no longer create risks for her family, her community and her neighbors. All who love and respect our Constitution should insist she resign or be impeached — as should any others who participated in this orgy of deceit and decadence.

It’s barely 4 pm EST on Super Tuesday™ and today I get to play pundit by calling the election hours before polls close, even on the east coast.

For me it is clear: the results are in, and America has lost.

2000.
Seven years ago we had what amounts to a coup in the United States, not just a local finagling of votes by a party boss, but a spectacularly mounted calculated and managed effort to ensure who would get to occupy the Oval Office, with players in a number of state houses, in the media and in the Supreme Court.

The country has since gone down a road of increasing isolation, lawlessness, concentration of wealth and power, and colossal abdication of responsibility for the well-being, safety and future living conditions of its vast population.

2001.
The brazen and deadly attacks of September 11, 2001 on symbols of American power, instead of fortifying our resolve to be a strong nation of laws, served instead as a facile excuse for the marketing of fear, burgeoning militarization, increased secrecy, and further concentration of powers in the Executive branch. The fact that the cast of characters involved in this venture had been trying to achieve just that for decades, seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

We have seen the gutting of national founding documents and principles, lies and distortion in nearly every realm of daily official business of state, a growth of secrecy and and the resultant intimidation and shutting down of anything resembling balance of power in our branches of government. Affirmation and repetition have replaced truth and news. Civility has given way to aggression, peace has become unfashionable.

The nation is at the brink of economic collapse, yet continues to borrow to pay for wars which its leaders deem necessary for our security and indeed for the survival of civilization as they know it. They have put our grandchildren into debt for this adventure. By any social measure, we are worse off than before, whether it be the percentage of people with true and essential healthcare, wages, educational level, true participation in decisions and voting.

2004.
Against all odds people fought back. Groups formed to bring the power, potential and awareness of the internet into the fray to disseminate information, dissent, organizing information, and create the beginnings of a resistance to the further hijacking of our state. There were forums, debates, discussions, rallies and marches. New candidacies emerged, millions of dollars were raised. In 2004, the voter fraud was repeated as was the betrayal to the people by the supposed defenders of our vote.

2005.
Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast. A major US city, New Orleans, is ravished through major neglect, and condemned through avarice to be re-organized without its citizens and communities’ presence nor input. The”shock doctrine” at play in the US, with over a thousand dead, many missing and American refugees with not right to return nor to vote. Congress does not speak out the horrors, nor press the Administration to remedy the situation.

2006.
Dazed and bewildered, the defeated defenders of the Constitutional Order fought back yet again with renewed fervor, to gain a foothold in the 2006 elections. New but fragile more liberal radio networks began. In the end they found their efforts produced no tangibly different results.

As though none of these easily documentable events had occurred, the lies, the fraud, the crimes against Humanity and our Constitution begun in 2000 produced precious little notice and voice among our entire elected body in Washington, DC.

2007.
Americans outraged at the brazen wrenching from our hands of our national treasure, traditions, character, and lives fought back yet again with ever-louder calls for the ending of war funding and for the impeachment of the president and vice president for numerous crimes of spying, lying, abuse of power, crimes against humanity, war profiteering, violations of laws and the Constitution.

It seemed at last that America was fighting back not only to regain it’s voice but its soul and destiny as well.

2008.
Now comes the expanded 2008 election season. Begun in earnest in late 2007, we heard a few voices among the official ones describing and denouncing the multiple continuing crimes perpetrated by this nation in our names.

By the end of the first month of the year, no one publicly recognizing the gravity of what has happened to America lo these last seven years and seeking to unite its people in redress and rebuilding was permitted to continue participation in the “election” process.

Anyone who strayed from the permitted narrative (Good American Power with a Few Flaws to be Corrected) was gone. Gone by the Rules of the Game.

BEFORE most Americans got to cast ballots, no one willing to speak out against the outrageous attacks on our system and on our sovereignty, no one willing to fight for the best wages and healthcare for working men and women, no one willing to take on the corporate hijacking of nearly all our major institutions and decisions was left in the race.

Come January, there will most likely be a new face in the White House, and that is all most folks seem to want. Like battered spouses, the worse they treat us, the less we need to be content.

Super Tuesday™
People today are lining up today to vote, with new enthusiasm we are told, because of the barely described “changes” promised in the 24/7 rhetoric being spewed from the Media Machine.

Not one of the candidates on the major party ballots has recognized the true danger this nation is in, nor points out the causes, nor names names. Only so-called “third party” candidates like Cynthia McKinney (seeking Green Party nomination) shine light on difficult truths and are ironically called “spoilers” of the election.

Major party candidates dare not mention the hijacking of our nation and of its votes, nor dare to stop the made-in-America carnage abroad or offer lasting remedies to the destruction of our middle class, the destitution of the poor and the gutting of our democracy. Yet, we are told they are the best we have, and that the System is working. Oh, is it ever…

Too few have noticed, it seems, that Corporate America which pays for the campaigns and controls our airwaves, had ALREADY voted: and they allowed us our choices.

In today’s vote, the coup was completed, the theft papered over, shoved under the rug, unquestioned. Corporations won, and America lost.

“They” are beating us down.The real danger here is that whatever good has been capable of manifesting itself lately, whatever good sense, caring, honesty is beaten to the ground by sheer power of the corporate coffers and its ability to control the Word and the Airwaves.You and I know that well over 50% of this country wants Impeachment of at least Cheney. You and I know that over 50% want this war over yesterday. A much higher percentage of the nation wants no part of torture.High percentages want single-payer health insurance even though we don’t really get to hear details and comparisons of this very often.None of these things seem to matter.What people want and what the “vote” produces are completely different animals.Our expectations have been dashed. We keep accepting less and less. THAT is why our democracy is going (if not yet gone).Look at this nonsense called the political primary process with its phony debates.BEFORE even half of the country gets to “vote,” this silly game (whose rules people accept for no reason that I can fathom), any and all candidates with ideas related to the truth or reflecting the Majority opinions, have been winnowed out already — by the media and the high finances. No “opposing” thought, puh-leez!We are PERMITTED (oh, thank you, thank you, sir!) to choose from Hillary or Obama…OR, one of the others — I can’t even go there.They ALLOW us this. PRE-chosen, pre-vetted, bought-and-paid-for personalities, but will not allow rocking of the boat. Most folks act grateful for this, and now seriously jump into the debate of: “change” vs. “experience” like choosing features of a car. There are only so many times you can ask yourself if you want leather trim or not. Perhaps a more apt metaphor would be choosing which model electric chair we want: ohhh, this one is more comfortable, but THAT one is more powerful, quicker…..You could say our “election process” does not permit us to rock any boats — even if that is what the majority clearly wants. It has too many strings attached, too many tricks, and when even those tricks don’t work, well, you still have Diebold and others (plus the Supreme Court) to pick op the slack.What is NOT permitted is getting the population really informed or (heaven forbid) expressing an informed opinion in a way others could hear about it. Witness FTAA meeting, Miami FL, 2003: eight million dollars of Iraq funding to arm our police against dissident thought.We get pissed when corporate media does not give coverage to impeachment or to hundreds of thousands protesting the war, or to Dennis Kucinich’s platform. We get pissed when neocons play fast and loose with the nomination of judges to get those willing to use restrictive voting laws.So why aren’t folks getting pissed that media — and the other “democrats” — allowed legitimate candidates (and, more importantly) their IDEAS get eliminated so early, well before over half of America gets to even give their opinion. It’s like on fifth of the country gets Election A, while the rest get Election B. Why do voters become so docile and compliant, so obedient when it is soooo clear the game is rigged.Who was it then, who silenced Kucinich, if not the Democrats themselves? Why didn’t they stand tall and together to say in Iowa: “if Dennis can’t speak, then NONE of us will speak”? Does this differ much from how they silenced Dean in 2004 and Michael Moore when he tried to help? Now the DLC is running and encouraging candidates against Dennis in Ohio. An accident? You tell me. They did the same to McKinney in Georgia. No one who questions the game or the rules is allowed in.Why doesn’t anybody notice that year after year in spite media silence and of having election after election stolen, does no one complain bitterly that virtually none of our elected officials have lifted even ONE FINGER to remedy the causes — or even examine — what happened to — those elections, much less examine or change election laws or election funding.A few short months ago (weeks, really) many of us and people throughout the country were rightly pissed at our Congress for enabling the War machine, and allowing the most crude of appointments to the Bush Crime Machine. Where are they now? In Hillary-Obama,,,Hillary- Obama la-la land. And what happened to their complaints and concerns? What about the people dying every day? The torture? The spying? The….Constitu…wha …oh THAT %@#$! piece of paper?The only thing that shores up the fortunes of cowardly enabling Democrats is the SAME thing that we so easily blame the Republicans for sowing: FEAR. Fear that Republicans might win again.What a game! Ping-pong, with our heads as the ball. Fear-change-fear-change…what about what the public WANTS??! Sorry, not available, make another choice.They BOTH use FEAR to support in essence an agenda which cannot be questioned. This agenda MUST be given an air of democratic acceptability…at least, for the time being.NONE — I repeat — NONE of the most pressing issues of our time are being mentioned, much less addressed by ANY of these so-called “candidates” — the ones that are left.So, if Obama, for example, represents “change” or “hope” and gives inspiring speeches that make people feel all warm and teary, which of these things has he (or ANY of the others) addressed, or is likely to address:

• an illegal, immoral war
• torture, rendition
• tax-paid mercenary armies
• destruction of our Constitution
• destruction of the Treasury
• destruction of the Currency
• at least 2 rigged, stolen elections
• stacking of the judiciary
• the Project for the New American Century which advocates the points above
• getting and funding free health care for everyone
• hidden agenda North American Union being put together behind closed doors
• end of Bill of Rights
• Executive Orders allowing the President to take your property if you oppose his Iraq policy
• Executive Orders allowing the President to suspend (what’s left of ) the Constitution in an “emergency”
• Executive signing orders (over 800 of ‘em) negating laws passed by Congress
• 935 published lies leading us to war
• tremendous loss of credibility and security
• the growing cult of secrecy
• privatization of:
  • our elections
  • the election debates
  • our vote count
  • our military
  • our schools
  • police forces
  • our community services
  • health insurance
  • “public” media
  • information systems
  • retirement
• massive outsourcing of prime jobs
• need to replace corporations with citizen representation and participation in highest level domestic and foreign policy decisions
• multiple question about 911 (building 7, destruction of evidence in all 3 sites, etc.)
• crying need for IMPEACHMENT

They are silent — and have silenced those who were not.The candidates we are given and all the surrounding media apparatus successfully ignore the massive hijacking of our nation, its institutions, its agenda, and its credibility.Tell me again how this “two party” system serves us democratically?? Sure, the parties are different: they each have select portions of the society they are responsible for silencing (while making them feel good). Oh, there may be thousands of individuals within who do seemingly important and legitimate things (the Kucinich and Dean people, etc.), but in the end, after all the hoopla and confetti, it boils down to keeping their “assigned” folks in line.GATT, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, IMF, World Bank, all are “shock doctrine” long-term programs to make countries’ economies buckle under to corporate demands by using fear and intimidation. The wars of Afghanistan and Iraq (and soon possibly Iran) are mere extensions of that policy. War is what you do when a nation has the goods CorporateOneWorld wants, and it won’t sign an agreement. Those nations, too, like us, are “given a choice”: in their case, sign here, or kiss your ass good-bye.Make no mistake about it: the 90’s “dot-com bubble” may have been fun for a while, but Bill Clinton’s push for NAFTA, etc. got this nation ready for Iraq; and the Big Media concentration wet dream he oversaw helped put Fox and Murdoch (among a very few others) more firmly in the driver’s seat. Any surprise that Murdoch is bankrolling Hillary? Or that ALL remaining candidates have cold-warriors as “advisors”?This business of accepting “the least worst” is precisely what is killing us. We expect less, accept more crap every four years, and those with any power at all walk all over us. They TELL us what our choices are, never ASK us what we want.If we are feeling down, somewhat used, a bit dirty and discouraged, I’d say there are reasons for it. Our work: drip, drip, drip, in the bucket, while they harness tsunamis of spin.Huge forces have been at work on us to dismantle our thoughts and opposition, while making us feel as though we are still deciding something. Ya’ gotta hand it to ‘em, Quite a game they pull off!Impeachment could yet go a long way in waking America up. It may still be the last best hope to get some truth out before it gets swept under the Rug of the “08 Election.OK. We can’t stop working at cleaning up the elections, but that is not enough.About elections: they must be respectable, COUNTABLE, legitimate and free from Big $$, but mere participation every 2 or 4 years not only won’t get us out of this mess, it is what CAUSES much of it in the first place: only citizen participation and organization can pull us out. If you think organizing through “get out the vote” campaigns, or distributing candidate literature is sufficient participation I am referring to, then you ought to re-read all the above. We need dissemination of alternative media sources, and house parties and discussion groups to keep aware and informed. Citizenship is too much work? OK, then let them steal our national treasure, silence us, put us into debt to build larger killing and imprisonment machines. We can become the “good Americans” who let it all happen.Even David Swanson and John Nichols seemed a bit deflated on their radio talk the other night. It’s not easy.Talk to people who have expressed their desire for impeachment before. Shake them from the Primary-Induced haze.We still represent a Majority, even if our system now systematically denies it. While it may not be easy, at least we represent Reality.Charlotte and Diane have listed some things yet to be done and disseminated.We should be ramping up, not giving up. Put our heads (and hearts) together. To do this we have to function as a REAL Coalition (not just a handful of folks): each organization has to come in with its own handful of organizers to take on responsibilities (then we have dozens), and commit to reaching specific measurable goals that spread the word, get media, and bolster Wexler and company.Let’s pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get about the business saving our Constitution. What is the alternative?

Early 2000.

Florida, on orders of Secretary of State Katherine Harris, contracts Choicepoint to create and update a “Felons List” to be used to prevent convicted felons from voting in the Florida 2000 presidential elections. Their $4 million contract calls for that company to telephone verify that the list is correct. On directions of the Secretary of State, that part never occurs.

Few knew of Enron’s shaky finances at the time it became number one contributor to the George Bush campaign. Earlier, Jeb Bush had Florida state employee pension fund invest heavily in Enron stock, a move which helped finance his brother’s run to the White House, but later cost thousands to lose their savings. In effect, Florida retirees paid for the distorted results of the 2000 election, which, for many, has since taken on the dimensions and results of a coup d’etat.

November 2000.

For the first time in US history, no presidential decision is announced after Election Day. The nation is in paralysis.

Counts. Recounts, the answer changes. Pregnant chads, hanging chads, butterfly ballots, a new vocabulary to describe flawed election practices rules the news. Still no decision.

In the midst of heavy pre-election presidential campaigning, then Miami-Dade county mayor, Alex Penelas flies off to Spain, never once appearing on behalf of “his party’s” candidate, Gore.

Tens of thousands of Floridians, mostly black, go to the polls only to be told they cannot vote because they are not registered: their names appear on the “Felons List.” Ninety percent of that list is false. No one defends them. No one even finds out this has happened for months. Ballots show up in dumpsters in Central Florida. The recount in Miami-Dade is stopped by “angry citizens” who really are Republican operatives flown in for the event.

Even with tens of thousands of citizens claiming unlawful disenfranchisement, along with thousands of questionable ballots, Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State and Bush Campaign chair, declares George Bush winner of all Florida electors with 537 vote margin.

December 2000.

Florida Supreme Court orders recount of all votes. US Supreme Courts stops recount, giving victory to George Bush. Black Congressional representatives question the seating of Florida’s delegates. Gore blocks their efforts.

Dismayed, angry Democrats blame…Ralph Nader for putting a determined, yet ill-prepared, inarticulate demagogue into the White House.

Nader, who for more than forty years contributed to the betterment of law and life in the US, becomes the scapegoat for a fixed election and badly flawed campaign in a race where both major parties conspired to keep his candidacy and important thoughts out of the presidential debates and politics.

2007.

The Film “An Unreasonable Man” examines the life and actions of Ralph Nader, which led him to become one of America’s “most trusted” men, and those conditions which eventually led him to run for the presidency. Get to know the selfless and dedicated life of a man many came to call an “egoist” and the cause of our current ills.

Advocates and critics both contribute to this unique story of a unique and highly principled man, who seeks nothing less that an aware, active citizenry prepared to bring about a re-birth of democracy in this land by taking political power back into the citizens’ hands, away from corrosive and all-consuming corporate control. The Corporate super-concentration of the media in this land make this task and this message all the harder.

It is in fact, the colluded silencing of Nader and of the popular and Green movement who he represented, that has led us to the present impasse in Congress today. We have today representatives that can look the highest crimes in our history in the eye and not bat an eyelid. It is precisely this current scenario of a Congress incapable of saying “No!” to its corporate funders to the point of taking the US to the brink of permanent war, torture and potential dictatorship, that the Nader/Green candidacy and campaign efforts attempted to forewarn and forestall.

Those who today express deep concern and distress about the nature and direction of our current government, with its lack of representation, accountability and backbone and the deteriorating state of our rights, should have seen and heeded the warning signs in Boston when Massachusetts state police, on orders for the Republican and Democratic Parties “running” the Debates, physically removed Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the location of the Debates where he was intending to merely watch so he could give later commentary to the networks.

It is a scene of police power enforcing the corporate decision about Who Gets To Speak (or even Watch). The police would not allow Ralph to speak or defend himself, threatening him with arrest. This scandalous, illegal, immoral, and antidemocratic act should have shocked the nation. Instead, this story was barely mentioned in the so-called “mainstream” press.

This was an attack on the people’s rights to be represented or to have opinions which differ from the corporate agenda.

This opening salvo in the War on America was not considered “newsworthy.” You can now witness live footage of this shameful event, which until now has never reached American TV screens, in “An Unreasonable Man” this week in an Independent Lens production on PBS. Seven years late.

America has come to a troubling historic crossroads through decades of machinations and power-grabs, where the power of people and its democratic institutions has been consistently diluted or ignored and the power of corporations ever-increased, too often through fraud or deceit, to the point of privatizing nearly everything, including our military. During this there have been hundreds, if not thousands of warning signs along the way.

There is indeed, something very disturbing in a society which can miss ALL the signs of trouble, and yet seek to place blame for these ills precisely upon an individual and a movement attempting to warn us and to show us how to change directions before it is too late. We need to get grounded in our reality to find a vision and way out.

This week.

On this December 18th, on the very day the FCC is poised to give corporate print media outlets further unprecedented access to TV and radio — against the wishes of the majority of American people and the Congress — PBS presents a film on the life and struggle of Ralph Nader, “An Unreasonable Man.”

You owe it to yourself to watch.

In my home town of Miami, the program airs Tuesday, 10 pm on WPBT, Channel 2. It re-airs on Thursday at 1:00 am.

You can find other listings through: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/guide.html

By Alan Kobrin

One thing everyone has to agree that this Administration certainly gets right: our national honor is at stake.

Our ability to to create and implement successful strategic policies that address urgent issues such as institutionalized violence and terror, nuclear proliferation, and global climate change is on the line. We are at risk of losing respect and goodwill. Much of this will be determined by how our nation deals with the difficult and dangerous situation in Iraq.

We will see the worst of this fallout, however, not because of seeking a rapid end to US troop involvement in Iraq. U.S. prestige, honor and credibility will be damaged for the foreseeable future if we do not hold accountable those people who used every artifice, true or not, legal or not, to get our nation into an unnecessary and illegal conflict no one wanted except a small circle of ideologues with illusions of grandeur and little concern for the lives of others.

At the center of this ideological operation sits Dick Cheney whose disdain for public participation in governance goes back decades when he and Donald Rumsfeld tried to deep-six the Freedom of Information Act during the Ford Administration. As he himself admits, he feels it is time to “work in the shadows.” His taste for an authoritarian “imperial presidency” that scuttles any real balance of powers dates from Nixon’s days.

When it is one day revealed through the use of that very Freedom of Information Act, it is likely we will see that he personally gathered such responsible and democratic stalwarts as Enron’s Ken Lay to lay out, in secret, what he euphemistically called a national energy policy–otherwise known as the War on Iraq.

Enough evidence already exists that at least some of those closed-door “energy policy sessions” had to do with maps of Iraqi oil fields and the doling out of oil concessions to various companies. Nice turn of American Ingenuity to resolve our problems without having to leave the lucrative hydrocarbon business behind. It just happened to involve someone else’s oil. No problem for Mr. Cheney.

Getting into the White House has its perks. Like moving with real soldiers around on a map, or writing no-bid contracts to friends.

Did we remind everyone yet of Cheney’s Halliburton background? Well, these things mentioned here alone should be enough to question not only Dick Cheney’s dedication to and passion for democracy, but also his, shall we say, cool and neutral examination of the circumstances in the Middle East that might require urgent military action because of perceived threats from the Saddam Hussein regime. I would say minimally that his judgment on the question at hand might have been clouded.

There is every reason to believe he was never straight forward with the American people about a real justification for war with Iraq. All announced threats were unproven innuendoes, pushed hard by the White House in spite of contrary information coming from onsite inspectors and our best intelligence. The climate of fear which resulted from 911 was steadily nourished by this Administration to get support for their planned invasion of Iraq. Rational thinking, any thorough investigation and openness were tossed into the trash heap.

Our nation’s security, contrary to Cheney’s assertions, has never been so compromised, as it is now, whether by creation of new enemies through preemptive use of force, the use of torture, the stretching thin of our military including the use of our National Guard abroad, or by the obscenely expensive and morally outrageous privatization of vital military services.

Yes, this nation faces a crisis of credibility and honor.

We will further erode an already badly battered image abroad, lose allies, escalate military confrontations, recruit anti-American forces, create a global distrust and distaste for American-styled “democracy”, and deal a terrible blow to the rule of law both here and abroad if we do NOT impeach Mr. Cheney for all that he has done to seriously and deeply damage this nation, its people and its Constitution because of his own hubris and narrow exploitative view of human life.

It is therefore in the highest interest of this nation to go forward with the articles of impeachment brought about by Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Impeach? Yes, of course. Anything less would make this Congress and the American people complicit in all that has gone on to damage the national fabric and our place in the world.

A line of light silt and dust is pushed off the stage by a wide broom leaving traces behind, then scooped up into a pan, then dropped unceremoniously into the plastic can in the corner.

Lights come on brighter as players take their places, shuffle papers, check their mike units, and look nervously at their watches. The show is about to begin.

Debates, televised across the nation, polls, running totals of donations, swing states, tv & radio ads, candidate visits, the approaching election dates. The required essence of a democratic society. Right? With all the players and pieces in place, the show goes on.

Is that what democracy is (or what it’s become)? The ingredients of a prolonged electoral show? Or is it something else? Is there something missing, perhaps forgotten?

While some of those recognizable elements may be important in the carrying out of the process, the true essence lies elsewhere for sure. It’s an invisible spirit, a shared belief and desire for the best in us as humans to come forth from our minds and hearts and find sufficient common ground to move forward together in fairness, and not at each other’s throats like cave dwellers fighting over a scrap of meat.

Sad to say, what we have in America today is much more of the show than the substance. Those in positions to lead (or at least give orders and wield power) are more than happy to content themselves with promoting the two-dimensional cardboard cut-out of the figments of democracy to substitute for the real thing. It is a far easier task when one has near total dominance of the means of public communication to produce the look and feel show of democracy than have to contend with messy thoughts and desires of actual people who may in fact hold ideas very different than those producing the show do.

As long as at least some of the public are willing on selected dates to line up and deposit what they believe are their choices into some device, it’s enough to present something for the world to see. Candidates. Electoral Calendar. Speeches. Fundraisers. Campaigns. Are any of the deep concerns of the citizens being discussed or debated? Perhaps. It’s not a prerequisite in a Cosmetic Democracy.