New
Faces, Same Agenda
By Stephen Lendman
14 November,2006
Countercurrents.org
The
political firmament shook briefly post-November 7 raising hopes change
would follow the Republican's drubbing at the polls and the Democrats
regaining control of both houses of Congress for the first time since
the GOP sweep in 1994. Presumed new House speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped
the tremors making it clear no substantive change will be on the table
when when the 110th Congress convenes on January 3. Instead, she announced
to those paying attention it'll be business as usual (as it always is)
as she intends to work with the president in a spirit of bipartisanship
and not be "obstructionist" even though Republicans for past
12 years never returned that courtesy or even made a pretense of doing
it.
Pelosi made it clear the
Democrat victory will be just another betrayal of the electorate that
sent her and the Democrats a strong message it voted for a mandated
populist anti-Bush, anti-war agenda it won't get. It's always for the
same reason - because those controlling the political process in Washington
owe their allegiance to the interests of wealth and power that select
and fund them and of which these officials are a part. The Democrat
(anti-populist) Leadership Council (DLC) made that position clear when
it participated in a November 10 post-election made-for-television spectacle
in the Oval Office so the whole world could watch their new congressional
leadership line up in a shameless public display of partnering with
a criminal enterprise in the White House posing as a legitimate government
they've been complicit with all along. Should anyone understanding how
things work in Washington have expected anything else?
Politics 101, Washington-style
teaches that nothing can be taken on its face, campaign promises are
empty and disingenuous, and in the nation's Capitol the criminal class
is bipartisan. Pelosi, whose background is one of privilege and not
populism, and her leadership collaborators plan on business as usual
come January. They intend taking full advantage of their newly empowered
status to grab a bigger piece of the political pie without sharing any
of it with their constituents beyond a few crumbs that exclude the most
important things people voted for - ending the Iraq and Afghan wars
of aggression and bringing US forces home, impeaching Bush and Cheney,
addressing critically needed social services like health care and public
education Republican and DLC Democrat rule have ignored and allowed
to deteriorate, restoring our civil liberties, finding and prosecuting
everyone involved in the cesspool of rampant endemic corporate and government
corruption both parties allowed to go on and that only a few have hd
to answer for - and that's just for starters.
What about restoring constitutional
democracy and the rule of law complete with checks and balances, the
separation of powers and our elected officials held accountable to the
public for all their actions and made to face the music when they betray
the public trust. What about ending the privatization of the most fundamental
element of a democratic process and returning control of it to the people
- the electoral process (now corporate run and corrupted) that can only
be fair under a system of verifiable paper ballots counted by hand by
civil servants unconnected to either party or the corporatocracy that
funds and owns them. What about allowing real alternative party candidates
the right to run under a system of proportional representation and break
the monopoly of a corrupted two-party, winner take all system. What
about that and a lot more that a real democracy demands, and the sham
one we now have won't allow.
Post-election, we're light
years from any of that which was confirmed when the other newly empowered
Democrats were also quick to show their shameless deference publicly.
They, too, had their Oval Office moment, genuflected obediently for
the cameras while there, and pledged their fealty to an unindicted war
criminal who's done more harm to the core principles of the country
and the welfare of everyone around the world (other than the elitists
like themselves) than any former president since Richard Nixon who was
forced from office in disgrace. Expect little chance of that for George
Bush if the Democrats' disgraceful display of servility indicates what's
ahead, which it does unless people wake up and demand the accountability
everyone deserves.
New Senate majority whip
Richard Durbin showed the public what it's up against. He expressed
the victor's spirit of conciliation and complicity saying both sides
spoke of "moving forward on an agenda, finding things that we can
agree on to start off on the right foot." Incoming Senate majority
leader Harry Reid was even clearer than the Illinois senator saying
"The only way to move forward is with bipartisanship and openness,
and to get some results....and that's what we're going to do."
And the man the Wall Street Journal calls "the architect of the
Democrats' Senate win," New York Senator and Senator to Tel Aviv
Charles Schumer, said in a November 11 Journal interview "If we
are seen as just blocking the president, it will not serve us well in
2008."
With acts of this kind of
obeisance, any hope the 110th congress will address the key issues people
voted for and demand faded like a late autumn sunset. For one thing,
Nancy Pelosi said any notion of following through on what a growing
majority of the public wants is off the table - impeaching George Bush
(87% of participants in an MSNBC online poll still in progress said
"yes" to impeachment). Pre-election, incoming House Judiciary
Committee chairman John Conyers said that would be a priority for him,
but on November 10 he reneged saying "The incoming speaker has
said that impeachment is off the table. I am in total agreement with
her on this issue: Impeachment is off the table."
The public needs to remind
Mr. Conyers how he laid out the grounds for impeachment last December
in a detailed 350 page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis:
The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution
and Cover-Ups in the Iraq War" and later updated it to include
"illegal domestic surveillance." Now the Michigan Democrat,
just reelected to a 22nd term by his constituents, can do no better
than say "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." Is he saying war crimes,
crimes against humanity and the destruction of a democratic republic
gone unpunished are good for the people?
In the past, Conyers had
a record of being one of the few in Washington remembering who elected
him and supporting their interests. What is this man now thinking in
backing off on a crucially important issue with mass public support,
and why after over 40 years in the Congress is he willing to renege
on his word on a fundamental matter needing resolution before the country
can move on? Mr. Conyers has the power to end our "long national
nightmare" that will go on unless he does the job the public demands
of him - and if he won't, he needs to step aside and let someone else
do it.
Just last May in a Washington
Post op-ed piece, the Michigan congressman had a different view than
now saying a new 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." If evidence was
found, he indicated these would be potentially impeachable offenses
and left no doubt he believes the constitutional law of the land is
sacred, and if the president of the United States violated it he must
be forced to answer for it like anyone else.
He did violate it, and there's
plenty of evidence found to prove it. So why did John Conyers decide
not to follow through on the evidence he found as he promised to do.
The public needs to remind the congressman of the oath he took and the
word he gave and demand he reverse his statement and chalk it up to
a case of temporary bad judgment. He'll be forgiven if he does, but
damned if not. It now remains to be seen if he's man enough to see his
error, say he's ready to do the job he said he would, and be willing
to fulfill the public trust with the power entrusted in him.
Conyers has all the evidence
he needs in The Downing Street (Memo) Minutes mentioned above and in
the title of his report. It refers to the secret 2002 Washington meeting
of high level US and British officials when the intelligence claiming
justification for the 2003 Iraq war was cooked to fit the policy already
decided on by the Bush administration and is clearly stated in so many
words. It was smoking gun evidence the president and his close advisors
lied to the public to make their fraudulent case for the Iraq war. It
had nothing to do with the falsified justification given for it, and
that alone is grounds enough for initiating impeachment proceedings.
One of the war-planning co-conspirators
practically admitted his guilt when Paul Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary
of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld and now World Bank president, later
gave an interview in Singapore and was asked publicly how it was he
and others in Washington decided on WMDs as the reason to go to war.
He answered "it was the only thing we all could agree on."
The new Democrat leadership
apparently didn't hear him or bother to read the Downing Street Memo.
It also fails to grasp that if Bill Clinton could be nonsensically impeached
for lying in a sworn deposition about his sexual proclivities, the present
incumbent deserves at least as much for going to war based on lies and
murdering 655,000 or more Iraqis and counting plus the many thousands
of Americans killed, wounded and to be affected by the war for the rest
of their lives along with their families. He and his spurned Republican
allies also need to be held to account for six years of wanton abuses
of the public trust in all aspects of their agenda from hell still ongoing
and unaddressed.
The list is endless and includes
waging two illegal wars of naked aggression to supporting and funding
the two illegal ones Israel waged over the summer with one still raging
below the radar that's murdering defenseless Palestinians daily and
that no one is acting to stop. It includes waging war on the public
at home, dismantling or ending essentially needed social services, endangering
the economy by a policy of reckless spending, destroying our civil liberties
and seizing absolute state control through a power-grab coup d'etat
the Democrats supported by their votes in the Congress or silence when
they could have acted to thwart it with strong public support backing
them.
On November 7, the public
expressed a powerful sentiment of anger and disgust against a rogue
criminal administration, demanding accountability from those they voted
for and big change going forward. They won out in spite of already uncovered
massive Republican- manipulated voter fraud (again) that was unable
to contain the torrent of resentment too great to overcome. In drubbing
the Republican congress that Tuesday, voters sent a message they want
a new direction that reverses all the harm done by the current one.
So far, it hasn't gotten through and unless repeated on the streets,
through the mail, in town meetings, on the phone, in emails and all
the other ways voters reach their officials, it'll again be ignored
by the Democrat leadership, who, like their counterparts, never get
it until they awaken the day after and realize they just lost their
jobs.
The DLC is already actively
collaborating behind the scenes to continue the conflict in Iraq by
signing on to whatever altered tactical plan the Baker Commission proposes
and is soon to release. Should we have expected anything else from a
party that marched shamelessly in lockstep with a Republican administration
beginning with Al Gore's pathetic refusal to fight for the office he
won in 2000, choosing instead to surrender it meekly to George Bush's
Supreme Court appointment as did John Kerry four years later in his
show of insouciance in an election even more fraud-laden than the one
in 2000. It hardly matters under a system author and political critic
Gore Vidal calls our one party state ruled by the Property Party with
two wings in a plutocracy, with scarcely a dime's worth of difference
between them.
The public is slow reacting
and is still hypnotized and basking in the deceptive afterglow of post-election
hoopla to realize they've been had again. Instead of celebrating victory
unconsummated, what's needed is follow-through to press the demands
that will remain unaddressed waiting around for a new bunch of politicos
to act on them. Nothing will change in Washington until people understand
that bringing in a new set of bums replacing the old ones only guarantees
more of the same unless they press their advantage in a very visible
and vocal way beyond the voting booth.
Otherwise, the only change
guaranteed ahead is none at all, and all they'll have to look forward
to is the next electoral round in 2008 when the same charade of a democratic
process is repeated on the false pretense it will matter more then than
it does now. You'd have thought after 12 years in the political wilderness,
enough newly inspired Democrats and some of its leaders would have been
as aroused as were the revolutionary Republicans with their Contract
with America in 1994 that helped them sweep the mid-term elections that
year with a promise to "bring to the floor the (ten) bills, each
to be given a full and open debate....and fair vote....and be available
for public inspection." They delivered as promised, but it was
a scam calling for government reform Clinton DLC Democrats went along
with and voters fell for not realizing the GOP agenda meant tax cuts
for the rich and corporate giants, a dismantling of tort and welfare
protection, and cuts in social programs and bedrock social security
protectio mostly affecting those most in need of them.
So where do we stand now
that the celebratory dust has settled and the cold light of another
day has dawned. Washington is still enveloped in a Kafkaesque shroud
of hellish strangulation combining illegal foreign wars with domestic
repression and neglect along with a guarantee nothing substantive will
change beyond a few feel-good bits of tinkering around the edges to
fool the public again a new agenda arrived and all is well in the world.
The reality is all is hell in the world, and the DLC Democrats intend
to continue conspiring with a criminal administration to keep it that
way - at least as long as people allow them to get away with it.
Hope springs eternal and
eventually there may be a public awakening that the same criminal element
is in charge, little has changed nor will it without action outside
the voting booth, the illegal Iraq and Afghanistan killing machines
go on without end as do the appropriations for them about to get another
obscene supplemental off-the-books $160 billion wasted-on-war tranche
of funding diverting desperately needed revenue away from critically
neglected social programs Democrats allowed Republicans to slash and
burn and now aren't even considering for restoration.
The specter of Patriot Act
I and the covertly proposed and stealth piecemeal enacted Patriot II
(total police state takeover) Act remain in force as do the just passed
Military Commissions Act and revision of the Insurrection Act that makes
everyone including US citizens an "enemy combatant" unprotected
by habeas or due process and allows the president the right to send
"jackboots" to the streets to enforce whatever he says is
the law and against anyone he claims without evidence is a threat to
national security - aka a terrorist.
That combined with a president
claiming the dictatorial right of a "unitary executive" allowing
himself, on his self-authorization, to go around the Constitution, Congress
and courts in the "interest" of "national security"
has transformed a country Lincoln said "was conceived in Liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal (in
a) "government of the people, by the people, (and) for the people
into a fascist dictatorship the Democrat leadership is very comfortable
with and has no intention of challenging - as long as they're cut in
on the spoils which they'll now get a bigger piece of.
These are the same "Democrats"
who pledge allegiance to Thomas Jefferson who abhored war calling it
the "greatest scourge of mankind....(swore) eternal hostility against
every form of tryanny....(explained) All tyranny needs to gain a foothold
is for people of good conscience to remain silent....(and said) Every
generation needs a new revolution (to reinvent itself and expunge the
sins of the past one)."
If Jefferson were with us
now, he'd tell us the sins of the past generation are so enormous and
out-of-control and so endanger the republic, at best on life support
and fading fast, that never before in the country's history than now
is the mother of all revolutions he spoke of needed. The political class
in Washington won't respond to his call or even want us to know about
it, and it's up to the public to deliver the message in a way those
in power can't ignore.
Jefferson would approve explaining
how important it is to keep "the spirit of resistence....alive....(that)
timid men prefer the calm of despotism....(and that everyone has) certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness." Jefferson also knew what Ben Franklin meant when
he said at the Constitution's birth that we have a Republic if we can
keep it. He also knew that if lost, it's for the public to reclaim it
from those who took it. It's high time to try. Jefferson and Franklin
would approve.
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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