Impeachment? Is it time?

One of the additional bonuses of my new fitness routine and purchase of a treadmill (hey--it's cheaper than joining the gym, which I hate), beyond being able to see my feet again, is turning on C-Span at 5:30 a.m. and seeing programming that usually is watched by insomniacs and a tiny minority.

This a.m. I got to hear a forum held by a group called, The World Can't Wait and their call for two things:

1. Immediate withdrawal from Iraq
2. Impeachment of President Bush

I don't know alot about them, but I like the provocative nature of what they are calling for. I can't say that I don't agree wholeheartedly with the above two points.

The content below comes from their website:

Will the Democrats stop the war? Or is it up to us?

While public opinion against the war is mounting everyday, there has been debate within the halls of power over what direction to take in the occupation of Iraq. Many are hoping that the Democrats will end the occupation, and beginning to pin their hopes on the 2006 elections.
The Call for World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime! puts it clearly: “There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.”

As the Bush regime is clearly having trouble continuing its occupation of Iraq, and debate is breaking out in Congress, we must ask ourselves what it will take to stop not only the war, but the whole disastrous course the Bush regime is taking us. This will require massive resistance of millions of people taking independent political action (as laid out in our Call), and demanding “Bush: step down, and take your whole program with you.”

We want to encourage people everywhere to debate these questions – from chat rooms, classrooms, work, political discussions, and holiday gatherings – and start organizing to drown out Bush’s State of the Union speech in massive protest.

While some might accuse me of hyperbole, I find much in this piece that I also agree with. Let me just implore those of you who are feeling kind of "blah" and apathetic now that we are in the doldrums of winter. Having your government spy on you, lie to you and spend your tax dollars to kill innocent people in Iraq and other places ought to piss you off enough to at least look into some of the information I've posted here and in other posts.

Find one thing that you can do today, this week, this month, and get at it. Democracy is depending on you!

Going with the flow

And then you have the cowards on the other side of the aisle, the "loyal" opposition party, urging against a filibuster.

Forgive the source, but the pickings are slim on links. ('Gotta love how the copy editor at the local Fox station spelled "A-B-C " and then made sure to phonetically represent Barack Obama's name--as if the morons who get their news there need as much help as they can).

For a guy knighted by progressives as a possible hope in 2008, Obama is turning out to be not much more than a silent fart in church.

While Kennedy and Kerry are fighting a losing battle, I'd at least have a bit more respect for Democrats if a few more went down swinging, rather than planting another Judas kiss on the backside of their base.

Republican swims upstream

I don't know much about Senator Lincoln Chafee, other than he's a Republican and he's from Rhode Island. I suppose I know in a roundabout way, from following politics closely that he's a moderate--something increasingly rare on the Republican side of the aisle.

In a surprising decision, he appears ready to buck his party and vote against the Alito nomination, lending some possibility to a filibuster.

Speaking of moderate Republicans (they used to be called, "Rockefeller Republicans," btw), my own Senator, Olympia Snowe, is also firmly in the camp of moderation. I always chuckle about how the conservative hard-ons in my own state get apoplectic about Snowe, calling her a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and that she ought to leave the party, ala Jim Jeffords (I-Vt). Then, she goes out every election and wins 70 percent of the vote. I guess these knuckle-draggers don't know the voters as well as they think they do.

Well, you know the drill. If you are a Mainer, call her office (202-224-1946) and urge that she vote against confirmation of Alito and seeing the Court hijacked by idealogues. Oh, and be nice--her staff are surely being bombarded today.

If you are in a state with a Senator who might be termed a moderate, a call to their staff wouldn't be a bad idea.

Since Maine has two of the four (in addition to Snowe, Maine's Susan Collins is also termed a moderate), your job is easy. Collins office can be reached at 202-224-2523.

Of the remaining two, I've mentioned Rhode Island's Chafee. That leaves only solitary John McCain (R-Az).

Commence dialing, loyal denizens of Maine and Arizona.

U.S. supports repressive U.N. policies

Repressive and totalitarian regimes have traditions of excluding sexual minorities from equal protections and access to the same rights offered others. That’s why this article, showing the administration linked to an Iranian initiative that denies United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people comes as no surprise.

Throughout history, fascist regimes have done their best to eliminate groups and minorities that didn’t fit the criteria of the totalitarian leader at the time. In Nazi Germany, Hitler was behind the killing of over six million Jews. Also singled out for elimination—homosexuals, habitual criminals, resistance fighters, German opponents of Nazism, gypsies, the mentally retarded, and the “anti-social”; beggars, vagrants, etc. Basically, any group deemed by the Nazis as not serving their vision of national political life.

While Hitler didn’t assume total power overnight—it took a series of gradual, but orchestrated steps—he eventually assumed his totalitarian role, with the majority support of the German people.

When I listen to callers on national news programs like C-Span’s Washington Journal, I’m reminded that there are many Americans who would have been right at home, goose-stepping under Hitler. These types of citizens accept authority and the national governement’s policies without question. Even more frightening to me, is their anger at anyone who dares to disagree and dissent from their narrow vision of what their country should be.

When people make statements such as, “either you’re with us, or against us” and assuming that only those who have “something to hide” should be concerned about our government’s domestic surveillance program, it indicates an element in our own country that are very open to a despot taking control of our government. In my opinion, the number of these people (the Kool-Aid drinkers) hovers around 50 percent.

I continue to watch with interest to see how much of our liberty we are willing to cede to Bushco. I think that we are no safer today, than we were September 12, 2001. I continue to posit that the issue isn’t with terrorists attacking America. The real issue with safety and terrorism is related to our imperialistic foreign policy and need to dominate the world.

A presidency of lawlessness

We’ve seen the Bush administration, time and time again, thumb its nose at the rule of law and the civil liberties of the American people. Additionally, in its behavior towards prisoners, so-called terrorists and other randomly selected foes, this is a group that holds itself above the law.

This week, the president and other administration hacks, have been traveling across the country, in a full-scale PR blitz, designed to justify spying and data mining aimed at American citizens. Brazenly, as the president has done since September 11, 2001, he uses the fog of fear and the guise of his war on terror to justify suspension of constitutionally guaranteed protections.

While half of the U.S. population is perfectly content with totalitarian-creep, voices of dissent are too few and curiously quiet. Fortunately, pockets of dissent exist and occasionally let the emperor know that he and his minions are standing naked as a jaybird. On Tuesday, Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, appeared at Georgetown Law School to deliver an address defending the NSA domestic spy programs. During the course of his speech, nearly 30 students stood up, donned black hoods one-by-one and turned their backs on Gonzales in protest. They also held aloft a white banner with black lettering that had the following quote from Ben Franklin; “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Afterwards, a panel of professors, including David Cole, who has written extensively on the subject civil liberties and the war on terror, stated that the NSA spying program is clearly illegal and that Gonzales was incorrect in defending it, both legally and constitutionally.

According to Cole, under FISA, Section 1811, entitled “Authorization During Time of War,” this very issue was specifically addressed by Congress. "They (Congress) said that when we’ve declared war, the President can conduct warrant-less wiretapping, but only for 15 days. And they said in the legislative history, this is so if the President needs further authority, he can come to us and ask for that authority. The President didn't do that here. He simply went ahead and did it without asking for their authority."

This isn’t surprising, as Bush is just continuing a lifelong pattern of thumbing his nose at rules and laws he has no use for. Whether it was at Harvard, driving drunk in Kennebunkport, failing to show up for military service, and now, as commander-in-chief, the most powerful position in the land and arguably, the world, this man knows no boundaries and no one appears capable of stopping him.

I continue to watch with interest just how far Congress, the media and ultimately, the American people will allow him to go in his crusade and ascension toward totalitarianism. Clearly, half of the country, including the kooky religious right, stands squarely behind this reign of hubris and lawlessness.