Democrat
Agenda Omissions
By Stephen Lendman
19 January, 2007
Countercurrents.org
With
all the customary pomp and pageantry accompanying the occasion, the
110th nominally (first time in 12 years) Democrat-led Congress convened
on Capitol Hill on January 4. It was done much the same as in earlier
years except for the first time ever a woman took the gavel after being
elected Speaker of the House in a final vote known weeks in advance
killing any suspense about its outcome.
New House Speaker California
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi called it "an historic moment for the
Congress" which it was but only with respect to the gender of the
Speaker, not for what significant policies can be expected over the
next two years as this writer explained in an earlier article on November
13 titled New Faces, Same Agenda. The article suggested the political
firmament shook briefly on November 7 leading some in the country to
hope a new day on Capitol Hill had arrived with the Democrats now in
charge ready to bring with them some long-delayed substantive change
voters demanded in the November 7 mid-term elections.
It didn't take long, for
those paying attention, to realize how foolish that thinking was as
the presumed new Democrat leadership at the time (now confirmed) made
it clear in its barely disguised rhetoric it will be business as usual
and one more betrayal of the public trust that sent a strong message
of disgust in the mid-term elections demanding change it won't get.
Expecting none is even more
certain based on the background of the new Speaker, a 20 year congressional
veteran, who's more privileged than populist, and is one of the wealthiest
members in the Congress indicating she'll do nothing to alter the nation's
course put in place by the Bush administration benefitting members of
her class and herself including those ensconced in corporate boardrooms
(where the real power of the country lies). They've been greatly enriched
in the past six years and the previous 20 before them under Republican
and DLC Democrat leadership still in charge and very much aligned in
planning the continuation of the same agenda ahead.
Expecting change will be
even harder in the Senate that's split 51 - 49 with newly elected former
Vermont congressman Bernie Sanders an independent socialist aligned
with the Democrats but former Democrat and now independent Connecticut
Senator Joe Lieberman nominally counted as a Democrat (keeping his seniority
in the party and in charge of the Homeland Security panel) but one who
votes consistently with the hard right wing of the Republican party,
especially for our wars of aggression and Israel's. It makes the new
Senate effectively 50 - 50 with Dick Cheney as vice-president able to
cast the only vote that counts if he gets to use it. In addition, George
Bush unfortunately is still president and able to veto any unwanted
legislation and prevail as the Congress is far from veto-proof.
What might matter for Democrats
is they control committee chairmanships in both the House and Senate.
Those positions have power, and chairmen of them can use it to advantage
if they wish. Beyond the rhetoric now being heard and likely to continue,
those expecting little use of that authority against the Bush administration
and Republicans in Congress won't be disappointed. For the country's
majority, however, it's another story, but most people will be slow
catching on if even able at all to do it. It's the reason politicos
literally get away with murder.
The United States
of Power and Privilege
Politics 101 again teaches
that nothing in Washington can be taken on its face, that campaign promises
are empty and disingenuous, and the criminal class in the Capitol is
bipartisan in what noted author and social critic Gore Vidal calls our
one party state - the property party with two wings in a plutocracy.
It also proves former iconic investigative journalist IF Stone's wisdom
that "All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should
be believed."
Political deception is institutionalized
in Washington. It's in the DNA of most arriving there or succumb to
its contagion once elected, and very few officials in Washington stay
true to their principles if they had any. Doing it might exclude them
from rising to leadership positions because getting them depends on
playing by the same kind of "good old boys" rules as all the
others in power.
Whatever it is, there may
be something about the nation's capital that brings this on - that makes
even good people do bad things when they get there. Sooner or later
most decide to go along to get along, and then succumb to the inevitable
deadly syndrome of power corrupting and absolute power doing it absolutely.
It especially affects those with seniority who've risen to high positions
in their parties with all the special privileges afforded them in that
capacity.
Those paying attention to
the rhetoric on January 4 got a bad taste of what it's like and what's
to come. It came from House Speaker Pelosi and her 26 year congressional
veteran and establishmentarian war hawk Majority Leader Steny Hoyer,
and in the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent the same message promising,
as he and Pelosi did on November 8, to work with the president in a
spirit of bipartisanship. It meant they were unconditionally surrendering
to the established power structure agreeing not be "obstructionist"
even though Republicans and the Bush administration never made a pretense
of governing that way when they're in charge. Bottom line - the public
got scammed again just like they always are under either party.
As part of the deception,
Democrats added some boilerplate pro forma comments promising a "new
direction....for all the people, not just the privileged few (and) restoring
economic security to a very vulnerable middle class." If only they
meant it which they don't. Don't be fooled again as the clear direction
ahead was signaled (for those noticing) in the supposedly "liberal"
New York Times on January 5 by columnist Carl Hulse saying: "They
(the Democrats) can spend their energy trying to reverse what they see
as the flaws of the Bush administration and a dozen years (of a) conservative....dominated
Congress. Or they can accept the rightward tilt of that period (the
NYT through Hulse supports) and grudgingly concede that big tax cuts
(not mentioned for the rich), deregulation (no mention of its harm),
restrictions on abortion (ignoring the country's majority saying they're
pro-choice), and other Republican-inspired changes now a permanent part
of the legislative framework" the NYT clearly signals it apprves
of but fails to mention them.
They include the oppressive
Patriot Acts I and II, the Military Commissions Act, the revised Insurrection
Act of 1807, the Read ID Act, secret illegal surveillance of everyone
(even by the Pentagon) including a recent presidential signing statement
to postal legislation allowing mail to be opened without a warrant,
many tens of billions funded off-the-books for two illegal wars of aggression
and many billions more for thuggish "homeland security" enforcement.
All these congressionally-approved actions violate our constitutional
rights now effectively annulled. So do the privatization of the hopelessly
corrupted electoral process and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military
Force (AUMF) resolution that allowed most all the above abuses to follow
it. These and other legislative acts signify a nation sinking fast into
despotism. The "liberal" NYT supports it in its role as a
quasi-official instrument of state-approved information and propaganda.
The Times columnist, expressing
his paper's view, wants the above agenda continued opposing the majority
voting for change who'll learn soon again none is forthcoming. What
is ahead is little more than some tinkering around the edges in the
form of inadequate feel-good legislative efforts in what's characterized
as the "first hundred (meaningless) hours" leaving out the
remaining 726 or so days in the 110th congressional term that count
the most.
Congressional Proposals in
the "First 100 Hours" That Will Extend Well Beyond Them For
the Senate to Act and Final Reconciliation to Be Completed On Whatever
Bills Emerge
It sounds like a title from
a Hollywood "bad dream" factory," but this was the docket
in the "First 100 Hours" of posturing hyperbole with lots
more ahead from where this came from promising great pain and suffering
in the next two years again failing to deliver on promises made just
like it's always been.
-- some far too inadequate
House "ethics reform" tightening of lobbying standards; requiring
members to disclose and justify (but not loose) special-interest and
home-district so-called "earmark" pork barrel appropriations
(aka thefts of taxpayers money); certifying spouses don't benefit from
"earmark" appropriations; banning members from accepting gifts
from lobbyists including fancy meals, free travel paid for by outside
groups including corporations, or use of campaign funds to pay for them
except for two big loopholes still allowing one-day trips (anywhere)
for meetings, panels or to speak and exempting charter plane services
from the rule changes that easily can be ordered by a lobbyist as an
allowable bribe for congressional services wanted in return.
There's not a hint in this
legislation about the biggest ethical abuse of all - the outrageous
corporate and other special interests violations of the public trust
in the way campaigns are now financed. They include monstrous loopholes
in the law to do it without limit in various soft and hard money ways.
It means those running for office have to sell their souls and honor
to become a serious candidate for political office unless they have
vast independent resources and will part with enough of them. The result
is the public gets "the best democracy money can buy" meaning
none at all.
An example of it has already
begun. With the rhetoric still echoing in the House chamber about so-called
ethics reform, the victorious Democrats held a top-dollar fund-raiser
collecting admission fees of $1000 a head from attendees quick to line
up to take advantage of Democrat influence-peddling for big bucks the
Pelosi-led ones see no conflict of interest collecting. In 1995, the
Republicans did the same thing, we know the result, and now Democrats
in power are acting the same corrupted way at night while disingenuously
preaching reform during the day. So the message to voters is free meals
from lobbyists are out, but big cash contributions are OK, and with
enough of them coming it won't be hard buying lots of fancy meals and
trips and most anything else.
-- new proposed rules for
pay-as-you-go budgeting requiring new tax cuts (not touching those in
place) or entitlement spending be offset with corresponding spending
cuts. It means those cuts are coming from essential social services,
so this hardly represents reform. Nor is it a step forward from the
ugly past generation of congressionally legislated cuts in vitally needed
programs those most in need don't get like many millions of poor single
mothers taken off the welfare rolls by the cruel 1996 Clinton administration
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act euphemistically
called "welfare reform."
-- raising the federally-mandated
minimum wage (last increased in 1996 and 97 in two steps to $5.15 an
hour) by $2.15 to a pathetic $7.25 an hour as the Office of Management
and Budget defined the inflation-adjusted poverty threshold for a family
of four in 2004 to be $19,307 and at year end 2006 is a likely estimated
$20,500. The higher minimum wage, if enacted, will provide an income
of about $15,000 for someone employed the full year meaning it's a sub-poverty
wage.
In passing this inadequate
minimum wage increase, the new House Speaker showed another hint of
her anti-populist dark side and betrayal of the public trust five days
into the new congressional term. The new law as initially passed exempted
American Samoa while applying to all 50 states and other US territories.
The reason - to benefit the Starkist subsidiary of Del Monte Corporation
headquartered in Pelosi's home district that employs 75% of the Somoan
workforce that was to continue receiving a $3.62 minimum wage or half
the amount applicable to all other areas subject to US law if the bill
clears the Senate and George Bush signs it. Now the power of public
Republican rebuke made Pelosi reconsider. She quickly backtracked saying
the initial bill will be altered so American Somoan workers will be
guaranteed the same minimum wage as all others the legislation covers.
-- Feel-good legislation
removing constraints on federally-funded embryonic stem cell research
sure to be sustainably vetoed by George Bush who'll never allow it.
-- More feel-good legislation
requiring the federal government to negotiate lower prices on prescription
drugs for seniors on Medicare again with no chance of final passage
as a presidential veto is certain unless a change in the final legislation
accomplishes the same thing by keeping drug prices high. The House passed
the new law on January 12 without a veto-proof margin, and its fate
in the Senate is uncertain before anything ever gets to the White House.
-- Legislation to codify
recommendations of the fraudulent and corrupted 9/11 (whitewash) commission
that should instead be enacted to denounce and scrap its report demanding
a new independent commission be formed to learn and disclose all the
facts so far suppressed with Democrat complicity in the Congress. More
on this below.
-- New measures to reduce
interest rates on student loans, create federal incentives to develop
renewable energy sources and reduce subsidies for Big Oil - more feel-good
efforts with few positive results expected beneath the disingenuous
headlined achievements.
All of the above is from
the House only with the Senate under its much different procedural rules
taking them up next in debate under a system where a filibuster can
kill a bill and a de facto 50 - 50 body can do it even easier, plus
the reconciling procedure between different House and Senate bills to
reach compromise on a final one. As the legislative process drags on
in the new year and the warm glow of a new "people's" Congress
slowly fades with few substantive results, cold reality will set in
that the 110th body isn't much different than the ones preceding it.
Expect that pattern to emerge
even though a bipartisan Senate bill was introduced by Democrat Senator
Max Baucus and Republican Charles Grassley to repeal the increasingly
repressive alternative minimum tax (AMT)originally intended to assure
only the wealthy didn't escape their tax obligation through loopholes.
Now the AMT is a monster mainly afflicting middle-income earners it
was never intended for and who shouldn't be burdened with it. Repealing
it, however, won't be easy because this unfair tax produces so much
growing revenue. It's hard to see its revocation enacted without some
serious vital offsets eliminated to pay for it that would result in
more harm done than good if it happens. It's also directly contrary
to Speaker Pelosi's pay-as-you-go budgeting scheme that requires tax
cuts to be offset by spending cuts or other compensating revenue adjustments.
It will take a whopper of either one to pay for this, and thus it won't
happen without sweeping tax reform along with it that's impossible in
tis Congress unwilling to change the sweet tax laws now in place benefitting
the rich including themselves.
So much for reform and change
in an age of permanent discretionary wars for conquest and plunder with
giant corporations running everything for their benefit and Congress
in their pockets giving them everything they want from ours.
What the Democrat-Led
Congress Isn't Addressing or Is Doing Inadequately
When all is said and done
and the legislative dust clears in the months ahead, whatever parts
of the above agenda are enacted in whatever final form, it's sure they'll
fall far short of rhetoric trumpeting them. They'll be seen for what
they are - a lot of posturing, unmet promises to voters and a little
tinkering around the edges with the most crucial of all things people
want left unaddressed or taken up inadequately starting with issue number
one in the minds of a large and growing majority of the public:
Ending the War in
Iraq and Bringing Home the Troops
A majority of the public
demands it, protests continue over it, some in the Congress pay it lip
service, and nothing happens in the only venues that count - on the
floors of both Houses of Congress with the Democrat leadership serving
the will of the electorate and introducing and passing legislation to
end the illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and all funding
for them. Cutting off their funding means cutting off their oxygen effectively
ending them no matter what the president, Pentagon or war-profiteers
may want.
But it won't happen according
to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin who speaks from
both sides of his mouth saying the US "commitment (in Iraq) is
not open-ended....I believe the (American) people want us to find a
way out (but not) precipitously (so we can) leave Iraq better than we
found it (letting Iraqis) take responsibility for their own future (indicating
with no firm commitment) we are going to begin (reducing or redeploying)
our forces four to six months from now without setting an end point
(is the position) the American people will support."
At the same time, Levin and
other key Democrats say they'll continue funding wars and will accept
Bush's January 10 proposed 20,000+ temporary troop "surge"
in Iraq (despite some contrary posturing for the public)now called a
strategy to "change America's course" since the earlier one
for "Victory in Iraq" flopped. They'll do it even though three-fourths
of the US public opposes it and the White House gives no indication
it intends a force reduction any time soon.
That was the message from
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden as well who believes
top Bush administration officials think the Iraq war is lost and are
just postponing its inglorious end. Biden opposes a troop "surge"
and will hold weeks of committee hearings on the war. Still he concludes
"There is nothing a United States Senate (or senator in any capacity)
can do to stop a president from conducting his war."
Untrue as Biden, Levin, Pelosi
and all others in the Democrat leadership know as just explained above.
Congress has appropriation authority, and voting to end the funding
will cut off George Bush's power to do anything the Congress forbids.
It will render him impotent if the Congress acts responsibly which this
Democrat-led one signals unequivocally it will not.
It's also up to the Congress,
not the president, that has sole authority under Section 4(a)(3) of
the War Powers Resolution stating "In the absence of a declaration
of war (none declared for Iraq), (whenever US) Forces are introduced....in
numbers which substantially enlarge (US) Forces....for combat....in
a foreign country (only the Congress has the power to authorize it)."
As international law expert Professor Francis Boyle explains, failure
by the Bush administration to get such authorization is an "impeachable
offense under the terms of the United States Constitution for violating
the Constitution's War Powers Clause and Congress's own War Powers Resolution."
Despite the law and potential
consequences of violating it, the Bush administration isn't easily deterred
or intimidated. So don't expect change ahead in its permanent war agenda
or any Democrat-led effort to force it whatever their post-election
bluster that's only intended as a head fake diversion with no muscle
backing it up. George Bush intends to do as he pleases, law or no law,
so wars of aggression won't end because the new Congress backs and will
fund them "supporting the troops" and the president - even
one with an approval rating down to 26% in one or more independent opinion
polls that's a single point above Richard Nixon's low point in August,
1974 right before he departed in disgrace to avoid impeachment.
It gets even worse, as it
always does, as not a word is heard from Democrats that the Bush administration
through lies and deceit committed what the Nuremberg Tribunal called
the "supreme international crime" of illegal aggression against
a country posing no threat to us or its neighbors. The new Congress
also said nothing about what former UN head of Iraqi humanitarian relief
called an act of genocide against the Iraqi people when he resigned
from his post in anger and disgust in 1998.
The Congress ignored the
Lancet report in October, 2006 (other than shamelessly mocking it) that
an estimated 655,000 Iraqis were killed by violence stemming from the
US invasion, occupation and continuing aggression against the people.
It said nothing about the outrageous economic sanctions imposed for
a dozen years prior to March, 2003 that killed as many as 1.5 million
innocent Iraqis including at least 500,000 children former Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright thought was a price worth paying when asked
about it on the CBS 60 Minutes program in May, 1996, and since then
the number of total deaths has skyrocketed.
It said nothing about US
policy under three presidents maliciously and willfully destroying a
once prosperous, modern nation leaving in its wake a surreal lawless
armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity,
clean water, medical care, fuel or most everything else needed for sustenance
and survival denied them by their oppressive occupier there only to
seize and control the country's vast oil reserves to have "veto
power" over other nations wanting access to them. It said nothing
about the Bush administration building 6 to 12 major permanent bases
in the country including at least four to six super-sized ones with
every convenience of a modern US city that are there because there's
no force withdrawal intended as long as there's enough oil in the country
and region to warrant their staying.
It said nothing about construction
continuing on what will be the world's largest embassy in Baghdad critics
call "Fortress Baghdad in the so-called Green Zone. It sits on
104 acres making it six times larger than the UN compound in New York.
It's a self-contained city within a city for more than 1000 people already
there, insulated from the Baghdad community behind 15 foot thick walls
for security. It has its own water, sewers, electricity, apartment buildings,
a Marine barracks, swimming pool, shops and all other modern conveniences
of home at a budgeted cost of $592 million meaning likely double that
amount or more once completed. It's another clear sign the US occupying
force isn't planning an early exit.
The Democrat rhetoric says
a lot about the 110th Congress speaking like all others before it with
forked tongue - pretending in rhetoric to serve the public interest
while acting against it. That's the reality the US public must understand,
address, and demand this time not to tolerate in mass protest demonstrations
across the country, in the nation's capital and in the halls and offices
of their representatives in Congress elected to serve us, and it's high
time they did or step aside and let others do it for them.
Other Foreign Wars
Unaddressed
With an unwinnable war in
Iraq only an end to US occupation will resolve, you'd think the leadership
in both parties would raise and debate the other unwinnable one now
raging out-of-control in Afghanistan, mostly below the radar. Instead
the other US war of aggression against the Afghan people goes on with
almost no discussion of it publicly or any hint the Democrat leadership
will end that conflict along with the one in Iraq. It's also never mentioned
that like Iraq, this is another resource war for control of the great
energy reserves in Central Asia in the landlocked Caspian Basin.
Like the war in Iraq, the
Afghan effort also failed, the war is lost, and the Taliban are slowly
regaining control because of an oppressive occupation and return of
the hated "warlords" after the 2001 intensive joint US-British
aerial assault displaced them. The "shock and awe" attack
then was against a vulnerable country unable to mount any kind of defense.
The Taliban easily succumbed to the onslaught after five weeks when
they fled Kabul allowing US-backed Northern Alliance "warlord"
forces to enter the city the next day. Once back in charge there and
around the country, they engaged in the same kind of murder, rape and
mayhem that gave rise to the Taliban originally who finally routed them
from most of the country.
The US-led war of aggression
created a state of unaddressed desperation for the great majority of
Afghans creating high unemployment, extreme poverty, one of the lowest
levels of life expectancy in the world, the highest infant mortality
rate in the world, one-fifth of all children dying before age five,
little access to electricity, clean drinking water and sanitation, little
available medical care or most other essentials of life, and an overall
surreal situation throughout the country where in parts of Kabul an
opulent elite have grown rich from rampant corruption and drug trafficking
while most others struggle to survive and many don't.
US leaders in Washington
simply don't care any more than than they do about conditions in Iraq
for the people there forced to endure our brutality that won't ever
end until the occupation does in both countries. The new Democrat-led
Congress understands the situation and the Bush administration's intent
to turn both nations into subservient US neocolonial states. Doing it
will make their people serfs used for imperial gain, but only at a great
cost to taxpayers at home. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz
estimates it will exceed $2 trillion of wasted expenditure for its failure
to achieve anything except enhancing the bottom lines of corporate war-profiteering
participants in this grand theft of the US treasury. Stiglitz is horrified
that under the Bush administration, the defense and energy industries
have been in charge, and the results have been "disastrous."
Besides the enormous political
damage at home and around the world, Washington's budgetary recklessness
has done serious economic damage to the country. It's likely to have
long-term negative effects that may, in Stigliz's judgment, result in
a global economic depression within two years without major changes
made in how the US economy is managed going forward. It all begins with
ending US wars of aggression draining the treasury and amassing a huge
debt financing them as well as harming the country and welfare of the
public not even aware it's been cheated. Where are the Democrats busy
addressing free lunches from lobbyists while ignoring the welfare of
the nation and its growing millions of poor. Many can't afford any lunch,
often going hungry and are forced to endure a state of misery from extreme
and growing poverty as resources are diverted from addressing vital
people needs to use waging foreign wars of aggression for wealth and
power.
Where are these leaders as
well on the other long-festering Middle East conflict that must be addressed
and resolved equitably for solutions to all others in the region to
be possible. It's the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict allowed
to continue because of US committed one-sided support for the Jewish
state no matter which party is in power. There's bipartisan unity to
supply it with all the modern weapons of war and billions in annual
funding and loan guarantees with more available as needed causing an
intolerable state of repression against a vulnerable and defenseless
people getting no outside support in their battle for life, liberty,
justice and the right to live freely in their own land just as Jews
can in Israel on land taken from them in large and incremental pieces
over many decades.
Not a word from the Democrat-led
Congress on this issue, on the daily killing and destruction in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), or on the brutal war of aggression
against the Lebanese people last summer approved, sanctioned and funded
by both parties in the Congress and administration supporting it for
imperial gain that turned out again to be all for naught.
Unfortunately it didn't deter
Democrats or Republicans from working post-war with their Lebanese neoliberal
prime minister ally, Fouad Siniora. They helped arrange a so-called
reconstruction aid conference to convene in Paris January 25 after the
Lebanese government, absent its Hezbollah opposition, rammed through
its idea of reform by agreeing to IMF and World Bank diktats that include
the usual kinds of structural adjustment privatizations. They always
come at the expense of ordinary people who lose critically needed social
services. In the case of Lebanon, it's coming when people most need
them. They'll now have to get by with less when their ability to pay
for essentials and everything else has been curtailed.
Where are the Democrat leaders
busy celebrating, ending free gift lunches and posturing with pompous
rhetoric while another "Rome" burns in the US-supported Ethiopian
invasion of Somalia to route forces loyal to the United Islamic Courts
(UIC) the people support because they defeated the hated warlords most
Somalis want to be free of. The support now includes US air attacks
conducting targeted assassination attempts that will continue with the
carrier Eisenhower off the Somali coast. The attacks have already killed
many innocent civilians, as they always do, with many more likely collateral
damage casualties ahead as the Bush administration apparently wants
to give Somalis a taste of the same kind of nation-building it brought
to Iraq and Afghanistan Democrats are very comfortable going along with.
So don't expect this issue
to be on their agenda either. Once again it's because central to it
is oil, and four US Big Oil giants, including Amoco and Chevron, have
exclusive concessions rights to develop what energy experts believe
are lucrative amounts of oil and gas in the country. They won't likely
get them unless a friendly regime is in power, so the despotic Ethiopian
Meles Zenawi regime was enlisted and funded to fight a US proxy war
with plenty of US firepower backing him up as needed.
It includes a US-British
combined task force patrolling Somalia waters with heavy firepower from
the Arleigh Burk-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, the carrier
Eisenhower, and US air power. It also includes US military and CIA forces
imbedded with Ethiopian troops meaning this country is now actively
at war in three countries (plus others directly or indirectly below
the radar) with possible further aggressive action planned against Iran,
Syria and Venezuela, especially after Hugo Chavez announced he'll nationalize
(but not expropriate) two large US-owned companies. They are the telecom
giant Compania Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV) owned by Verizon
Communications and Electricdad de Caracas that's part of AES Corporation.
Both companies will be bought out by the state at fair market value.
Chavez also said he'll ask
for a constitutional amendment to end the nation's Central Bank autonomy
and indicated again he wants majority state control over the nation's
natural gas reserves and lucrative oil projects in the Orinoco River
basin where US Big Oil companies now operate including Chevron, BP Amoco,
ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil that aren't pleased with the news. As
a result, talks over a proposed new relationship have been stalemated
for months. Finally, the Venezuelan government announced on January
15 it broke them off giving the oil giants the option of staying on
as minority partners or sell out to a competitor that will.
The Somali conflict is another
Washington-backed war for oil and regional dominance of the Horn of
Africa. The situation is very unstable, and the likelihood is it will
settle down to one more unwinnable imperial war of aggression and attrition
against another determined guerrilla resistance with the US getting
more deeply embroiled with its proxy Ethiopian ally plus whatever other
regional countries (like Uganda) it can convince to send in thuggish
"paramilitary force" help euphemistically called "peacekeepers"
that may not be up to the task of wanting part in a long-term regional
conflict.
Add to that, growing signs
of a looming humanitarian disaster across the African Horn UNICEF estimates
may place 8 million people at risk of starvation. You'd never know it,
or what's at stake overall, listening to reports in the dominant US
media portraying the fiction of fighting al-Qaeda terrorism while suppressing
the truth that it's one more war for oil along with the other resource
war in Dhafur explained below. As long as the public is kept in the
dark, it gets the Democrats off the hook having to do anything to stop
either of them or their funding at more taxpayer expense.
From Afghanistan to Iraq
to Somalia and Dhafur, an area in western Sudan the size of France.
Sudan overall is a country the size of western Europe where again the
issue is mainly oil and gas and a Sudanese government unwilling to surrender
its sovereignty to Washington that never takes no for an answer and
intends pursuing further imperial aims there only portending even greater
harm to the people and the entire nation of Sudan if it goes ahead.
The Dhafur conflict involves
intertribal fighting over increasingly scarce water and grazing rights
in an area hard hit by draught and famine. It's falsely portrayed in
the US corporate media as atrocities committed by Arab Jan jawid militias
supported by the Khartoum government against black African people. The
truth is all parties involved are indigenous Arabic-speaking black Sunni
Muslims. Solving the conflict won't be easy, but US involvement in it
only guarantees greater strife that again may come in the form of so-called
UN or African paramilitaries masquerading as "peacekeepers."
Washington wants them in the region as a proxy force for imperial control,
not to maintain peace.
More ominous still is what
may be ahead following George Bush's announced plans in late December
to establish a new military command for Africa called the US Africa
Command, or AFRICOM. It will be headquartered in the African Horn region
at the large US base in Djibouti at the narrow Bab el Mandeb Strait
at the entrance of the Red Sea close to the Arabian oil fields where
the world's busiest shipping lanes are located.
It's likely to assure the
Bush administration under congressional Democrat leadership will get
further embroiled in more unwinnable conflicts that along with those
ongoing will cause unimaginable economic and political damage abroad
and at home. Unless they're all resolved, the nation will sink further
into the kind of hellish situation and decline Democrats were elected
to extract us from. Are they paying attention and will they act responsibly?
So far the answers are unequivocally no. Does the public understand
what's at stake? Again, the answer sadly is no, and it's why US aggression
and its crimes of war and against humanity continue affecting huge numbers
of people around the world and a growing majority at home stripped of
essential social services for lack of resources to pay for them and
denied their civil rights under de facto military rule.
Unaddressed Domestic
Issues
After the war in Iraq, voters
sent a message of disgust about the cesspool of public corruption in
Washington and a general feeling of unease about and mistrust for the
political class they voted out wanting change. They want an end to the
Bush administration's business as usual policies but aren't likely to
get much more than the kind of minor tinkering already explained amounting
to virtually none at all. Voters have plenty to think about including
demanding Congress restore our constitutional rights the Bush administration
destroyed with Democrat complicity during the past six years.
It was done incrementally
with a series of repressive acts destroying civil liberties, human rights
and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed all Americans by the Constitution
and Bill of Rights - now in suspension and effectively null and void
unless a Democrat Congress acts responsibly to restore them along with
their honor and integrity lost but regainable in part if meaningful
action is undertaken straight away. What's needed is a blizzard of Bush-reversing
legislation undoing damage to the republic done over the past six years.
The body politic is on life support only determined Democrat leadership
can counteract to move the nation in a direction voters demanded but
so far see no indication of getting.
The early signs are already
bad right out of the gate beginning with the "first 100 hours."
On January 9 in the first on the legislative docket schedule the House
passed new anti-terrorism legislation based on 9/11 Commission recommendations
it should have denounced and rejected. Instead it enacted a far-reaching
impossible to implement law to inspect all cargo at a cost of unknown
billions if put in force that will also be another repressive step toward
a full-blown police state because it targets people as well by expanding
no-fly and terror watch lists and other harsh measures. The bill amounts
to even more government surveillance in an age where everyone is suspicious
and fair game for whatever state-controlling mechanisms are cooked up
to harass us. The 9/11 Commission recommended a menu of these kinds
of authoritarian measures, and HR 1 includes many of them.
Congressional critics opposing
the proposed new law for once got it right calling it political posturing
providing no added security but a larger federal deficit for no good
reason. It's just one more sign the Democrat leadership will disappoint
the electorate the way their rejected Republican counterparts did. Hopefully
the Senate will reject this outrageous bill that should arrive in their
chamber stillborn, but don't bet on it.
Revoke or Drastically
Amend the Repressive Patriot I and II Acts
Patriot Acts I and II were
enacted under the false pretense of fighting an ill-defined "terrorism"
people believe exists because of Bush administration deceptive scare
tactics about threats to national security and the public welfare that
warrant them. They do not, and the reason they were enacted had nothing
to do with the nation's security or public safety.
Both these measures were
assaults on fundamental civil liberties in a free society and are affronts
to constitutional law in a state calling itself a democracy. They broaden
the notion of "domestic terrorism" to mean almost anything
the government says it is or who it says is part of it. They violate
our rights of privacy and constitutional protection against illegal
searches and seizures in unprecedented ways by expanding law enforcement
and intelligence gathering by virtually any means including surveilling
everyone (and their phone calls and emails) plus opening and reading
anyone's mail for any reason that requires a warrant by law now effectively
voided by presidential decree. They authorize secret arrests and detentions,
create new death penalty provisions and empower the state to strip citizenship
from those belonging to disfavored political, labor or other groups
that may only have been formed to work for the lawful rights of everyone
but now are falsely accused of supporting "domestic terrorism.
These are the acts of a national
security fascist police state passed in Congress to control a population
that might become restive, disapproving and no longer willing to accept
government policies it believes harm public welfare and intend doing
something about it. When a rogue state squanders the national wealth
on imperial wars, ignores essential people needs doing it, the result
will be eventual public opposition these acts were put in place to combat.
They're the same kinds of repressive acts all police states use that
abandon the rule of law imposing instead a total crackdown on anyone
seen as a potential threat to their agenda. The time has come to demand
these violations of constitutional law will no longer be tolerated.
They must be reversed leaving in place only those provisions in them
that comply with all rights guaranteed everyone under the Constitution
and Bill of Rights.
The Military Commissions
Act and Revision of the 1807 Insurrection Act
On October 17, 2006 George
Bush took another step toward ending constitutional rule by signing
into law two more repressive acts making that day one that will live
in even greater infamy than the earlier one on December 7 we're never
allowed to forget. He signed into law the Military Commissions Act,
known as the "torture authorization act," that does far more
damage than that. With little public awareness of what happened in a
White House signing ceremony, this act alone ends constitutional and
Bill of Rights protections allowing the chief executive the extraordinary
right to designate anyone an enemy of the state on his say alone based
on no evidence beyond his word that's now the law of the land. It means
anyone can be charged with "terrorism" for what Orwell called
a "thoughtcrime" making us all "enemy combatants, unsafe
from the reach of "Big Brother" residing in the White House
with the power of life and death over everyone everywhere in the world.
This new law allows the chief
executive the right to order anyone arrested, interrogated, tortured
and incarcerated in a secret prison anywhere in the world, subject to
the justice of a harsh military tribunal with no competent counsel or
right of appeal. It goes even further annulling the habeas rights of
"everyone" including innocent US citizens falsely accused
of terrorism, charged under this law and prosecuted under its provisions
as harshly as a verifiable bomb-thrower caught in the act.
October 17 was doubly heinous
as George Bush also quietly and privately signed into law a revision
to the 1807 Insurrection Act. It was hidden in Sections 1076 and 333
of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Two
hundred years of tradition along with the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibit
using federal and National Guard troops for law enforcement inside the
country except as allowed by the Constitution or authorized by Congress
in times of a national emergency like an insurrection. Under the new
law, the chief executive can claim a public emergency, effectively declare
martial law and send federal and National Guard troops to the nation's
streets to suppress whatever he calls public disorder that may include
peaceful demonstrations against wars of aggression and rightful demands
for restoration of our constitutional rights now abandoned.
The new law authorizes a
direct role for the Pentagon including use and transfer of state-of-the-art
crowd control weapons and technology to state and local responders.
It's intended to militarize them and blur the distinction between those
from the Pentagon and local law enforcement agencies - very ominous
and clear police state tactical readiness only needing a trigger, sure
to come, to make them operational.
Criminalizing Speech
Further Through Potential New "Hate Crime" Legislation
George Bush already has authority
to block free speech that will be even more endangered if the new Congress
introduces and passes a new Orwellian federal "hate crimes"
bill which seems likely. Democrats are closely allied to the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith that tried unsuccessfully for the past eight
years to get this type legislation through the Republican-controlled
Congress. The bill it wants, and Democrats already indicate they'll
support, is called The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (aka The
Thought Crime Act), and its purported intent is to criminalize preaching
hate against gays, minorities and other often demonized groups but could
also be used to make dissent a crime or outlaw any kind of free speech
the government wishes to stanch making it punishable by heavy fines,
imprisonment or both.
If introduced, as is likely,
this legislation will pass because no Democrat in Congress ever voted
against a hate crime bill, even one as outrageous as this one likely
will be that will outlaw free expression making it a crime to say unwanted
things labelled as "hate," including through the internet,
giving the government great latitude in who it can charge with a crime
and for what offense.
Democrats in Congress supported
the repressive acts discussed above and now may add to them with the
passage of even more harmful legislation. They aren't likely to cop
a plea of mea culpa, act quickly to reverse the ones already on the
books, or be deterred from making things even worse with their own agenda
of new oppressive laws. It's for the public en masse to act in our collective
self-interest and defense, to stand in defiance of these revocations
of our constitutional rights demanding those lost be restored, no further
compounding harm be done, and not letting lawmakers off the hook with
inaction or using their legislative authority to make matters even worse
as now seems likely.
With all their power and
privilege, those in Congress know their limits. They're most vulnerable
when they ignore the will of the electorate who in enough numbers can
throw them out just like the "bums" before them in another
Capitol cleansing that can and should continue each mid-term period
until we finally get it right. It's no simple task, and the congressional
makeup over the last generation alone proves it. But unless people act
in our own self-interest, real change for the better won't ever happen.
It must come from below, from the bottom up. It never, never comes from
the top down.
The Repressive Real
ID Act
This act passed in 2005 is
another Orwellian affront to our civil liberties requiring all states
by 2008 to meet federally enacted ID standards. The law makes it mandatory
for every US citizen and legal resident to have a national identity
card (usually a driver's license) that will contain on it a person's
vital and personal information. Once implemented, no one will be able
to open a bank account, cash a check, board an airplane, be able to
vote or conduct other essential business without one. This bill was
passed to repressively crackdown on undocumented immigrants (meaning
those of color or Muslims) and legitimate refuges fleeing persecution
and seeking their right to asylum. But it effectively targets everyone
as another means of social control.
In the future, that kind
of control may be tightened by requiring radio frequency identification
technology (RFID) computer chips be embedded in these cards to track
everyone's movements, activities and transactions. If it happens, it
will be the ultimate dream of a government wanting police state powers
able to monitor all our moves only leaving out knowing or controlling
our thoughts research geniuses in labs somewhere surely are now working
on. Should people in a free society have to tolerate this kind of affront
to our freedom with our elected officials in both parties being the
problem, not the solution.
The Mother of the
Above-Listed Repressive Acts
State-sponsored repression
against the US public began with the passage of the Authorization for
Use of Military Force (AUMF) joint House-Senate resolution on September
18, 2001 authorizing "the use of United States Armed Forces against
those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United
States (exercising our) rights to self-defense to protect United States
citizens at home and abroad (and giving) the President....authority
under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international
terrorism against the United States...."
This single act alone is
responsible for George Bush claiming justification in the name of national
security to seize de facto dictatorial power, ignore constitutional
law, and get passed all the repressive legislation discussed above and
more and be able to get away with it. Any hope for a chance to restore
the rule of law and a republic on life support must begin with revoking
this unseemly AUMF resolution, but so far amidst all the Democrat bluster
not a hint is heard they have any plans to do it or even bring it up
for debate.
The Theft of A Free
and Fair Electoral Process by Privatizing It
No right in a free society
is more precious than the one guaranteeing free, fair and open elections
monitored and run by independent observers unbeholden to any political
constituency. It shouldn't surprise anyone that elections in this country
were never that way, and all of them to some degree were tainted with
fraud and abuse that never should have been tolerated but were by a
public largely unaware they were cheated. One of many earlier corrupted
ones happened before the emergence of Republican dominance after 1980.
It was the 1976 election won by Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford that was
dubious at best and possibly just another stolen one. It matched an
obscure Georgia governor as the choice of Rockefeller Trilateralists
and Wall Street winning out over Gerald Ford backed by opposing Republicans
in a close race that could have gone the other way and maybe did.
Electoral fraud is worse
today because technology has taken over allowing it to happen with electronic
ease. Following the 2000 presidential election (Al Gore won but didn't
contest), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed in 2002 that was
the first ever comprehensive law in the nation's history on electoral
administration supposed to be a major advance that, in fact, took a
giant step backwards. It ushered in the age of voting by electronic
machines owned, operated, programmed, controlled and corrupted by giant
corporations that now count over 80% of all votes cast in US elections.
Most of these machines have
no verifiable paper receipts, are easily manipulated guaranteeing fraud
in a secretive, unreliable electoral process privatized in the hands
of corporate interests with everything to gain if candidates they support
win. So it's no secret that's what happened in 2000 (even before these
machines took over) and since in 02, 04 and 2006 and will be in perpetuity
as long as private interests control the most precious of all rights
in a democracy now lost. This is the "ultimate crime" against
people in a free society, and it demands we compel our "elected
leaders" strike down the HAVA Act, put elections back in the hands
of the people at the state, local and federal levels, outlaw use of
these machines, and require all elections be administered by paper ballots
hand-counted by civil servants monitored by independent observers and
party faithful if they wish. What are we waiting for?
Impeaching George Bush, Richard
Cheney and Other High Administration Officials for Crimes and Malfeasance
in Office, Violating the Rule of Law and Betraying the Public Trust
- For Starters
No two "elected"
leaders come to mind more deserving punishment by impeachment than George
Bush and Richard Cheney both of whom in six disgraceful years in office
are guilty of enough crimes, malfeasance, violations of law, derelictions
of duty and betrayal of the public trust to keep the House of Representatives
busy a long time doing their constitutional job as required under Article
II, Section 4 that states: The President, Vice President and all civil
Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment
for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
This president, vice president
and other high-ranking officials can rightfully be charged and convicted
for multiple offenses on all counts, but the House leadership straight
away after November 7 said impeachment is off the table, so it's up
to the public to demand it and not back down till it happens and justice
is finally served as it should be.
States have the power to
impeach their officials, but at the federal level the House has sole
power to impeach the President, Vice President and all other US civil
officers. If one is so charged, the Senate then has the power to try
the accused and if convicted remove that official from office in a process
that's automatic if it happens.
The case for impeaching George
Bush, Richard Cheney and other high-ranking administration officials
has been made persuasively by various writers and legal experts including
Michael Ratner and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega, former
district attorney and congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, former US Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, and professor of law and international law expert
Francis Boyle on multiple counts of lying to the Congress on the reasons
to wage war against Iraq, threatening new wars without cause, violating
laws against torture, warrantless surveillance, subverting the Constitution's
separation of powers, and more.
Boyle wrote a Draft Impeachment
Resolution Against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors
in January, 2003, two months before the Iraq war began making it even
more relevant today. Back then he accused the president and other administration
officials of lying about Iraq's so-called WMDs and manipulating intelligence.
The facts now prove he was right. Four months after the war began, he
wrote that the US is "the oldest republic in the world (and we
the people) must fight to keep it that way. And for the good of humanity,
we must terminate America's Imperial Presidency (and its scorn for the
rule of law) and subject it to the Rule of Law."
Before the November mid-term
elections new House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers stated George Bush
committed "impeachable offenses" because he and other administration
officials "countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment in Iraq" and elsewhere including Guantanamo. On March
13, 2003, almost on the eve of war, Conyers convened an emergency meeting
of over 40 of his top advisors (mostly lawyers) to draft emergency bills
of impeachment against Bush and other top administration officials to
prevent the impending war that looked inevitable without such action.
Boyle and Ramsey Clark were
among the participants, they made the case for impeachment impressively,
but no bill emerged at the time because of timidity and misjudgment
on the part of others attending who were members of the Democrat party
and worried about such action hurting their chances with voters in the
next mid-term election. John Conyers acted as moderator in 2003 without
stating his position then although, as quoted above, he later stated
his feelings quite clearly more than once.
Besides his comment quoted
above, Conyers laid out the grounds for impeachment last December in
a detailed 350 page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis:
The Downing Street (smoking gun) Minutes and Deception, Manipulation,
Torture, Retribution and Cover-Ups in the Iraq War and later updated
it to include "illegal domestic surveillance." He also wrote
a May, 2005 Washington Post op-ed piece saying a new (110th) Congress
needs to get answers about whether the "intelligence was mistaken
or manipulated in the run-up to the Iraq war (and if) high-ranking (administration)
officials approved the use of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment
inflicted upon detainees." He added if evidence was found, these
would be potentially impeachable offenses, that constitutional law is
sacred, and if George Bush violated it he must be held accountable like
anyone else.
There's enough evidence in
the once secret and now revealed Downing Street (Memo) Minutes alone
to make the impeachment case. This document refers to the secret 2002
Washington meeting of high level US and British officials when the intelligence
claiming justification for the planned 2003 Iraq war was cooked to fit
the policy already decided on by the Bush administration and is so-stated.
It discussed how the Bush administration "wanted to remove Saddam,
through military action (and) had no patience with the UN route. (So
to justify doing it) the intelligence and facts were being fixed around
the policy." Richard Dearlove, head of British intelligence M16,
attended the July British PM's cabinet meeting from which these minutes
were written and then leaked to the London Sunday Times on May 1, 2005.
He knew they were accurate as he attended the secret meetings in Washington
when the plan was discussed. He told those at the July cabinet meeting
that "military action was now seen as inevitable (and) George ush
had decided "to remove Saddam through military action, justified
by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD (and) intelligence facts were
being fixed around the policy."
Now John Conyers, a 42 year
respected congressional veteran, chairs the powerful House Judiciary
Committee with jurisdiction over any bill of impeachment and in that
capacity can do no better than waffle on his earlier commitment saying:
"To be sure, I have substantial concerns about the way this administration
has abused its authority, but impeachment would not be good for the
American people." Conyers clearly got his marching orders from
the top of the Democrat leadership reigning him in and now making him
cower instead of demanding accountability and justice for administration
officials guilty of lies and deceit leading to their crimes of war,
against humanity and multiple violations of the rule of law and public
trust. Will the public allow this betrayal to stand? It won't if enough
of them stand against it and not back down until justice is finally
served.
Other Action Needed
by This Congress Unaddressed
The list of unaddressed issues
is almost endless after more than three decades of a democracy in decline
and the welfare of most Americans in it because Democrat and Republican-led
governments alike dedicated themselves to the interests of wealth and
power that always come at the expense of ordinary working people making
up the vast majority in the country. Below are just some of the ones
desperately needing attention but won't get it without an awakened electorate
demanding it.
-- Addressing the most pressing
social needs far more important than a pathetic increase in the federal
minimum wage. They include a national health care crisis with 47 million
uninsured and over 80 million with no insurance some period of every
year plus many millions more underinsured; the unprecedented and growing
wealth disparity between rich and poor; the growing level of millions
impoverished, hungry or homeless; the planned destruction of public
education; and these issues are just for starters.
-- Reforming the nation's
shameless gulag prison system with the highest number of people incarcerated
in the world and subjected to some of the same kinds of violent abuse
as prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
-- Saving internet neutrality
from the clutches of giant telecom and cable companies who want to own
and control the last remaining free and open mass media space where
everyone still has the right to speak openly. Allowing them to seize
it for profit and control means articles like this may be banned and
unavailable in the future.
But new developments give
hope for a positive resolution of this crucial issue. One victory already
won is media giant AT & T agreeing to observe Network Neutrality
principles for at least 24 months in a deal with the FCC allowing their
$85 billion merger with Bell South to proceed. It's just a stopgap solution,
and now it's up to the Congress to follow the FCC's lead and make Net
Neutrality permanent under the law.
Hopefully it's in the cards
as this issue is already on the table with legislation being drafted
to prevent high-speed internet companies from charging content providers
extra for priority access. Also, net neutrality legislation was introduced
in the Senate on January 9 by Democrat Byron Dorgan and Republican Olympia
Snowe and Democrat Edward Markey said he'll introduce similiar legislation
soon in the House and will hold hearings on this issue in the Energy
and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that
he chairs. Nonetheless, the road ahead to final resolution promises
to be long and impediment-filled as powerful divergent interests on
either side of this issue will make for a lively confrontation before
a conclusive result is reached.
-- Supporting the rights
of ordinary working Americans, the unions representing them and the
right of all working people to be able to bargain collectively on equal
terms with management.
The great majority in the
country have now endured over three decades of ruling governments in
Washington failing to address their needs and rights, but it only got
worse in the neoliberal new world order in the 1980s and 1990s that
reached an unprecedented level of extremism under George Bush's imperial
presidency. In an age of neocon rule, it's reckless in its aims, out-of-control
in policy, one-sided in support of capital, scornful of the rule of
law, and indifferent to the rights and needs of ordinary people everywhere.
It's a system of savage capitalism
at its worst, bordering on the tipping edge of fascism. It's based on
corporatism, patriotism and nationalism backed by iron-fisted militarism
and "homeland security" enforcers. It's waging a permanent
war on humanity, intolerant of dissent and opposition in an age where
the law is what the chief executive says it is and checks and balances
no longer exist because the Congress and courts surrendered them in
the name of national security.
This is a state of desperation
the public only began sensing from visible parts of it like the daily
account of war in Iraq without end or resolution that's only possible
when US occupying forces leave. They went to the polls on November 7
and demanded this and an end to embedded corruption and abuse of power
in Washington. They got their new Congress, most want the president
impeached and removed from office, and they're facing disappointment
on both counts unless they become aroused, realize again they've been
had and act in the spirit of news anchor Howard Beale from the 1976
Hollywood film Network who got fed up one day and yelled "I'm mad
as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore." We've never been
more in need of an army of fed up "Howards" giving vent, fighting
back for their rights, and demanding their representatives in Congress
pay attention and act responsibly, or step aside for others who will.
Stephen Lendman
lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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