Kucinich Throws Down the Gauntlet, Moves to Impeach Dick Cheney

Dennis Kucinich Takes House Floor, Moves to Impeach Dick Cheney for Lying to the American People

This is a smart move on Kucinich's part. There is now no "cover" for the likes of Hilary Clinton who sounds more like a good Republican everyday. Like "triangulation", her position is reduced to a cynical wager that war opponents will choose her in a race against anything the GOP dregs up from amongst its gang of perverts, liars and war whores. No more! A real Democracy will not force upon its sovereign a choice between between the merchants of death and their customers.

Kucinich has drawn a bead on a known criminal, possibly a traitor. Cheney has no hope of shoring up popular support. He is universally reviled, perhaps even by the GOP. One hopes Bush sticks his neck out for Cheney. An extended neck is vulnerable.

This move is, as well, a strong message to Democrats. That message is simply this: we, the people, support Kucinich and we will oppose appeasers who have emasculated the Democratic party and, by doing so, left the American people in the lurch to fend for themselves in Bush's increasingly tyrannical rule.

Kiss-ass Democrats will find Kucinich's move divisive and they would be correct. It will and ought to divide the Democratic party into those who will lead this nation into a new day, what Lincoln would have called a "re-birth of freedom" as opposed to those suck-up Democrats who seem determined to march into hell with George W. Bush and this gang of traitors and liars.

UPDATES

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD VOTES FOR IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BUSH AND VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY Tuesday, November 6, 2007, 09:27 AM

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD VOTES FOR IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BUSH AND VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY

Monday, November 5, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, Marjorie@tjsl.edu; 619-374-6923
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org 212-679-5100, ext. 11
James Marc Leas, NLG member who drafted the resolution, 802 864-1575 or 802 734-8811

November 5, Washington, D.C. The National Lawyers Guild voted unanimously and enthusiastically for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at its national convention in Washington, DC. The resolution lists more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush and Cheney administration and "calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, to investigate the charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, to vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney as provided in the Constitution of the United States of America."

The resolution provides for an NLG Impeachment Committee open to all members that will help organize and coordinate events at the local, state, and national level to build public participation in the campaign to initiate impeachment investigation, impeachment, and removal of Bush and Cheney from office without further delay.

The resolution calls on all other state and national bar associations, state and local government bodies, community organizations, labor unions, and all other citizen associations to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office.

The full text of the resolution can be found at http://nlg.org/convention/2007%20Resolu ... lution.pdf

National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn said, "The war of aggression, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law.”

Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

Congressional switchboard flooded by impeachment calls

"We need to run newspaper ads in the major national and regional papers to energize and recruit concerned persons. This needs lots of money.We need your help now. Click to make an urgently needed donation right now."

- Ramsey Clark

The impeachment movement is at a critical moment. In response to Congressman Dennis Kucinich's attempt to force a discussion and vote on the impeachment of Dick Cheney, the Congressional switchboard was overwhelmed by a flood of calls from impeachment supporters. We must maintain this high level of activity. You can help. ImpeachBush wholeheartedly supports the impeachment of Dick Cheney (House Resolution 333), as well as George W. Bush and all other high officials guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Below is a recap of yesterday's impeachment showdown on the House floor.

House tied in knots over resolution to impeach Cheney

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, is trying to impeach Vice President Cheney for what he describes as "high crimes and misdemeanors" before the invasion of Iraq.

Right after the proposal was read on the House floor this afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stepped forwarded and tried to convince lawmakers to table the bill.

"Impeachment is not on our agenda. We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those," Hoyer told Fox News.

Update at 3:39 p.m. ET: We thought that the vote to table was over -- the clock said 0:00 -- but lawmakers are still switching things around and Kucinich is within a few votes of getting his bill to come up for a vote.

Update at 3:43 p.m. ET: At least 149 Republicans have voted in favor of considering the impeachment resolution. Hoyer's motion, which would have blocked a vote, looks like its going to fail by at least 31 votes.

Update at 3:53 p.m. ET: The 15-minute vote began at 2:53 p.m. ET. It's been an hour, and they're still voting. The tally stands at 170-242 right now. Hoyer needed 218 votes to push the bill off the agenda. He's 72 votes short. (As an OD reader later pointed out, Hoyer was 48 votes short, not 72 as we said at the time. Supporters of the measure had a 72 vote lead. We apologize for our mathematical ineptitude.)

Update at 4:02 p.m. ET: Hoyer's motion failed 251-162. The House is now voting on whether to vote on whether the resolution should be sent to the Judiciary Committee.

Update at 4:25 p.m. ET: The vote to decide to vote (yes, you read that correctly) just ended. By a 218-194 margin, the House has to vote on whether to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That's happening right now. 

Update at 4:30 p.m. ET: Perhaps we should pause to explain. When most  Republicans unexpectedly -- and on orders of GOP leadership, the AP is reporting -- switched sides and voted against tabling the measure, they essentially forced Democrats to keep talking about it on the floor. Tabling the measure would have killed it.

Debate over Cheney's impeachment is in direct opposition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's wishes. She has repeatedly said an impeachment of Cheney or President Bush is off the table. Thus, failing to table this measure is a essentially a jab in Pelosi's ribs.

"We're going to help them out, to explain themselves,"  Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told the AP of the impeachment's supporters. "We're going to give them their day in court."

Update at 4:32 p.m. ET: The House just voted, 218-194, to send the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. That should end today's debate -- but it does keep the resolution at least technically alive.

We The People Foundation

"50 States Sued to Block Computerized Vote Counting"

This is people power at work. This is people doing something about it.

This people power depends entirely on the people.

So, people, a helping hand might make a difference.

As we used to say, shout, write, sing, dance and chant, when I was young -- Power To The People!

Discoveries

• The Heart and Soul of Country Music
• Ondrej Svadlena - Sanitkasan
• Tom Lehrer - National Brotherhood Week
• Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire - Shall we dance? (1937)
• Kar Wai Wong - There's Only One Sun

The Cowboy's Shared News Items

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GOP Corruption
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Bush Corruption
Iraq

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The Origins of America's World Wide Image Problem in Bush's Embrace of the 'Science of Lying'

Successful lying has become a science. Highly paid consultants taught Bush officials the new science of effective lying at the outset of Bush's new regime. The cost, however, will be picked up by US taxpayers; it is no coincidence that new studies show US prestige declining as the world learns the truth about Bush's hidden agenda.

Typically, the US responds with promises of more spin and PR, more ludicrous attempts to put a smiley face on torture, lies, and aggressive war. The US will try to spread the guilt around and "reframe" the issue.

They've wasted no time. As I write this, Colleen Graffy, of the US State Department, is telling Stephen Sackur, of BBC's Hard Talk, that other nations maintained GITMO-like facilities where people are held indefinitely in legal limbo. She failed to name one. It's unfortunate, she says, that some people ought not be afforded what Americans have always called Due Process of Law.

Because the GOP often thinks backward from conclusions to premises, GOP types have failed to grasp the essential nature of "Due Process of Law", that is, either it applies to everyone or it doesn't apply at all. Any exception is arbitary and no one may be presumed guilty in advance of Due Process. It just doesn't work that way. The GOP has apparently institutionalized post hoc ergo propter hoc.

America has an "image problem" because the rest of the world knows America by the lies Bush tells the world.

A new report by an influential policy group in America says the US Government needs an urgent public relations overhaul to improve its image in the international community.

The report by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations says the Bush administration has significantly under-performed in its efforts to capture the hearts and minds of non-Americans.

The report says that in trying to sell its foreign policy and values, the administration needs to much more, and it needs to do it fast.

The report says that although negative attitudes about US policy are particularly pervasive in the Muslim world, America's image problem is truly global.

--US 'suffers global image problem'

Bush's lies are designed to conceal a hidden agenda that lurks behind America's failing image abroad. The rest of the world knows that Bush's "War on Terror" is both a lie and a red herring if the American people do not. Another transparent PR campaign is the last thing the US needs.

So why not go down, meet with the doctors, with the guards, with the interrogators, and still put in the report but we would have liked to have spoken with the detainees. But frankly what would we have learned from that? If the detainee said we're being tortured, you'd say well there's OK there's the Al Qaeda manual, chapter 18 that the British police discovered in Manchester saying if you're detained claim you were tortured. Or if they're not told they're tortured then they'll say well you detainees were specially chosen.

--Colleen Graffy, US State Department, Guantanamo Bay, Sunday 12 March 2006 Andrew Marr interview with Colleen Graffy,

Thus is summed up the danger any "war on terrorism" poses to Due Process of Law. Bush officials can be relied upon to come up with a circulus en probando rationalization designed to legitimatize any outrage. At a time when some 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in those "areas covered by the US military 'surge'", Bush efforts to define those thrown into any US facility as "terrorist" is absurd. An arbitrary exception to Due Process is thus made for people "accused" of being terrorist, though they are never formally "accused" or charged. They just "are". Bush says so.

Terrorism is whatever Bush says it is. Terrorism should be dealt with by intelligence personnel and law enforcement. "Terrorism" as consisting of specific, prosecutable crimes should be treated like any other intelligence and law enforcement problem. It is understandable that Bush would not want to do so. To so treat those crimes robs him of the power he seeks. It deprives him of the various pre-texts he needs to wage war on the world. Free of "terrorist" distractions, the utterly failed and corrupt nature of Bush's miserable regime would become apparent even to his corrupt GOP base.

Tragically, thousands have been robbed of "personhood" because Bush assumes arbitrary powers --powers that our founders never intended him to assume and wage. Bush opposes Due Process of Law because he is in violation of it. Of course he would oppose the Geneva Convention and US Codes binding us to them because there is probable cause to bring charges against Bush for violations. Due Process of Law was articulated and espoused by our founders to prevent what Bush is doing in fact.

Bush's failed "surge" leaves in its wake a giant sucking sound --Bush's BS rhetoric played backward. The surge failed because it was the wrong war against the wrong target for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. Nothing about it was right but then Bush has never been right about anything at any time for any reason.

For political purposes, Bush proposed to wage a war on terror against everyone but terrorists. Certainly, Saddam had nothing to do with 911 and most certainly never supported al Qaeda. If Iraq is now an al Qaeda "base", it is Bush's fault --not Saddam's.

Bush failed because, by definition, no government propped up by US forces is legitimate. Having failed the fundamentals, Bush had hoped to paper over them with "fresh meat". He would not hesitate to throw US troops into the grinder. Tragically, he may never be held to account for the lives he so eagerly and gleefully sacrificed. The lies he has told about the nature of their sacrifice and the nature of his criminal fraud upon the American people is enough in itself to try him for high treason. If all the war criminals in his administration should ever hang for the capital crimes for which they are culpable, it will be ironic that it will be for the foreign troops killed in his wars of aggression. It will be a tragic injustice if Bush himself should escape charges for the lives ofUS troops that Bush so eagerly sacrificed.

Less than 12 hours after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush proclaimed the start of a global war on terror. Ever since, there has been a vigorous debate about how to win it. Bush and his supporters stress the need to go on the offensive against terrorists, deploy US military force, promote democracy in the Middle East, and give the commander in chief expansive wartime powers. His critics either challenge the very notion of a "war on terror" or focus on the need to fight it differently. Most leading Democrats accept the need to use force in some cases but argue that success will come through reestablishing the United States' moral authority and ideological appeal, conducting more and smarter diplomacy, and intensifying cooperation with key allies. They argue that Bush's approach to the war on terror has created more terrorists than it has eliminated -- and that it will continue to do so unless the United States radically changes course.

--Philip H. Gordon, Can the War on Terror Be Won? Foreign Affairs

Both parties miss the point. As any idiot will tell you: you cannot wage a war on terrorism upon everyone but terrorists and expect to win. What was originally called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" [OIL] failed to achieve the publicized objectives because those were not the real objectives. Bush either lied or he is stupid or both! Iraq had nothing to do with 911 and, until the US arrived in Baghdad, there were no "terrorists" in that nation. Even now, the point is debatable. Initially, the US deliberately mislabeled a "resistance" to US occupation "terrorist" or "insurgent".

In the long run, the United States and its allies are far more likely to win this war than al Qaeda, not only because liberty is ultimately more appealing than a narrow and extremist interpretation of Islam but also because they learn from mistakes, while al Qaeda's increasingly desperate efforts will alienate even its potential supporters.

But victory in the war on terror will not mean the end of terrorism, the end of tyranny, or the end of evil, Utopian goals that have all been articulated at one time or another. Terrorism, after all (to say nothing of tyranny and evil), has been around for a long time and will never go away entirely.

From the Zealots in the first century AD to the Red Brigades, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Tamil Tigers, and others in more recent times, terrorism has been a tactic used by the weak in an effort to produce political change. Like violent crime, deadly disease, and other scourges, it can be reduced and contained. But it cannot be totally eliminated.

--Philip H. Gordon, Can the War on Terror Be Won? Foreign Affairs

What Gordon hasn't told you is that "wars" on tyranny or terrorism are not won by becoming tyrants or terrorists. By arrogating unto himself powers never bestowed upon the Presidency by our founders, Bush has become both a tyrant and a terrorist himself. Thus, the war against Iraq is lost and the fraudulent nature of the "war on terrorism" is exposed.

A city of some 7 million people remains a city without legitimate government, effective leadership, security, or viable economic progress. This is a war that Bush waged upon a civilian population. GITMO detainees would never have wound up there had the US not committed a war crime. [See: Lessons Bush Learned From Hitler ] Yet --the victims of Bush's crimes and incompetence are blamed for both.

What remains in Bush's wake is a disaster of almost unimaginable proportions and, as yet realized consequences. At some point, something will fill the vacuum left by an inevitable US withdrawal. With lies and failure, Bush will have denied America a voice in whatever "government" may evolve in the Middle East. He may have triggered America's ultimate fall which the recent "PR Problem" is but a portent.

The Bush administration are war criminals at the very highest levels, in violation of Nuremberg Principles, Geneva Convention, and US Codes; Section 2441 and others. It is no coincidence that Bush and Cheney will place themselves above the only law that might have brought real terrorists and real war criminals to justice. This regime has placed itself above the only laws by which war criminals and terrorists might be restrained. It should hardly be surprising then, that terrorism is worse under Bush's regime, as, indeed, terrorism has been under every GOP regime.

The real terrorists, therefore, are Bush and Cheney. By placing themselves above the law, they have made of America a lawless state. The Rule of Law is the thin veneer separating civilization and chaos. As Rome fell, the Western World descended into barbarism. At Adrianople, the Emperor Valens could not raise an army of Romans. Most were mercenaries, the Blackwater of their day.

I am saddened by my country's descent into a surveillance state, a police state. Just as Karl Rove spoke wistfully of a "permanent Republican majority", Hitler planned to establish a "permanent" majority of Nazis in the Reichstag, a body that would become Hitler's rubber stamp, passing whatever laws he desired, making legal the crimes he planned to commit.

Until Tony Blair, England was almost alone among nations which emerged more democratic in the wake of violent revolution. It is significant that though he was a dictator in deed, Oliver Cromwell eschewed titles like King, Dictator et al. Instead, he chose "Lord Protector". He might have demanded and gotten a crown for his efforts. Despite his atrocities (I have in mind the slaughters in Ireland), Cromwell may very well have been uncomfortable with the potential to rule England despotically. Though many believe he did, his rule might have worse. At last, what had become Great Britain would be more comfortable with a tamed monarchy than a benevolent dictator. Alas, however, America may never regain the will to restore the Constitution. We might not be as fortunate as England had been following its Civil War.

How the GOP Embraced the New Science of Lying

An update provides an example of stuff "Bushies" have just made up and lied about:

Paul Krugman: "There's no such thing as Islamofascism."

"It’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11" ...

Krugman is more charitable. I would not attribute "Islamofascism" to Neocon imagination; rather, it was crafted and tested by a focus group. It is a deliberate attempt to link "fascism" with Islam. It deliberately exploits the fact that Americans still identify with WWII, a time when we were the good guys and "fascists" and "Nazis" were the bad guys. It's a tactic designed by consultants intended to turn US opinion against all Islam --not just terrorists. The term is bigoted and, as such, typical of the GOP!

The Cowboy's Shared News Items

US image problem
US atrocities
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Indict Bush
Bush Corruption
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Billionaires For Bush Reveal How Bush Paid Off His Base and Stuck You with the Tab

If you think the astounding rise of income inequities and the rise of the GOP are just coincidental, please email me. I would like to speak with you about the many advantages and pleasures you might derive as the new, proud owner of the Brooklyn Bridge. The GOP sold Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1982 like George W. Bush sold his war on Iraq. The benefits of both have accrued only to this nation's power elite and, in both cases, everyone else is stuck with the tab. It will be left to sons, daughters, grand-children and great grand children to retire the debt Bush has run up murdering civilians in Iraq. Yet, odds are, many of those same sons, daughters and their offspring will start life pulling up the rear having been denied pole position at the outset.

Bush stuck you in yet another way. His "elite" base got the tax cut that you didn't. Those who did not get a tax cut are considered "poor" but are getting poorer as we live and breath. His "base" was rich at the time Bush cut their taxes. They've gotten richer as a result. Where will Bush's base hide, I wonder, when the bill he has run up in Iraq comes due? They are not worried. Bush has been bought and paid for.

We have grown up with "official myths", Horatio Alger stories of rags-to-riches, stories about how down-and-out boys might achieve an American dream of wealth and success through mere hard work and fair dealing. The US, myths say, is not an aristocracy; it is a "meritocracy". On the other side of the coin is an implicit message that if the deserving poor eventually get rich, those that are not rich deserve to be poor.

The GOP are well-advised not to waste my time and their time denying it. Their progenitur is Scrooge.

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

—Scrooge, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Still, the GOP is indicted best in their own words. Pat Buchanan is the class example.

One by one, the prophets of doom appeared at the podium. The Reagan decade, they moaned, was a terrible time in America; and the only way to prevent even worse times, they said, is to entrust our nation's fate and future to the party that gave us McGovern, Mondale, Carter and Michael Dukakis.

--Patrick J. Buchanan, 1992 Republican National Convention Speech, Houston, Texas

Buchanan targeted Democrats already tarred with the label "liberal", a GOP code word for anyone opposing GOP robber-baron economics. Any Democrat would have made a better President than any Republican chosen at random. At least one on Buchanan's hit list did. Jimmy Carter, now demonized with a GOP made-up, code word --stagflation. There is, in fact, no real word for an economic condition that only Republicans seemed to have complained about. Certainly, when another Democrat interrupts the GOP diet of government gravy and Pentagon pork, he/she will be accused of stagflation --or whatever word GOP consultants and focus groups can make-up or otherwise "pass".

The critics Buchanan so vociferously publicized were right about Reagan's disastrous presidency. Much of the rest of Buchanan's speech credits Reagan with any number of things which Reagan had nothing whatsoever to do with or things which occurred despite Reagan's worst efforts.

It was under our party that the Berlin Wall came down...

Thus it is implied that Ronald Reagan, who paid tribute to Nazi SS dead at Bitburg, had something to do with bringing down the Berlin Wall. Reagan is more accurately remembered for having "blinked" when Gorbachev put total nuclear disarmament on the table for negotiation at Rekjavik.

Buchanan's next absurdity must be read while remembering Bush v Gore:

We stand with President Bush in favor of federal judges who interpret the law as written, and against Supreme Court justices who think they have a mandate to rewrite our Constitution.

To be fair, Buchanan could not have known in 1992 that in a mere eight years a "conservative" majority on the high court would prove him wrong yet again. For all the right wing bluster about "strict constructionist" interpretations of the US Constitution, it will be forever recalled that it was the Republican majority on the Supreme Court that rewrote the Constitution in order to put into office an imperial "President" who would finish off the venerable document for good!

Wealth "trickling up" is a world wide phenomenon but the effects are stunning. In the year 2000, almost twenty years after the infamous Ronald Reagan tax cut benefiting only the richest Americans, a tiny elite, the richest 1% of adults, owned 40% of the world’s total assets. In 2000, the richest 10% of adults owned 85% of total assets. The bottom half of the world adult population owned a mere 1% of global wealth.

[See: World Institute for Development Economics Research, The World Distribution of Household Wealth, 2006]. It's gotten much worse since then.

It is well known that wealth is shared out unfairly. "People on the whole have normally distributed attributes, talents and motivations, yet we finish up with wealth distributions that are much more unequal than that," says Robin Marris, emeritus professor of economics at Birkbeck, University of London.

In 1897, a Paris-born engineer named Vilfredo Pareto showed that the distribution of wealth in Europe followed a simple power-law pattern, which essentially meant that the extremely rich hogged most of a nation's wealth (New Scientist, 19 August 2000, p22). Economists later realised that this law applied to just the very rich, and not necessarily to how wealth was distributed among the rest.

Now it seems that while the rich have Pareto's law to thank, the vast majority of people are governed by a completely different law. Physicist Victor Yakovenko of the University of Maryland in College Park and his colleagues analysed income data from the US Internal Revenue Service from 1983 to 2001. They found that while the income distribution among the super-wealthy- about 3 per cent of the population- does follow Pareto's law, incomes for the remaining 97 per cent fitted a different curve- one that also describes the spread of energies of atoms in a gas.

In the gas model, people exchange money in random interactions, much as atoms exchange energy when they collide. While economists' models traditionally regard humans as rational beings who always make intelligent decisions, econophysicists argue that in large systems the behaviour of each individual is influenced by so many factors that the net result is random, so it makes sense to treat people like atoms in a gas. The analogy also holds because money is like energy, in that it has to be conserved. "It's like a fluid that flows in interactions, it's not created or destroyed, only redistributed," says Yakovenko.

--New Scientist, There's one rule for the rich

Some essential background:

• In 1979, the top 1 per cent of the US population earned, on average, 33.1 times as much as the lowest 20 per cent. In 2000, the multiplier had grown to 88.5. Certainly, since Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1982, US "inequality" grew steadily but for a brief respite in Clinton's second term. Bush's final record will be even worse.
  
• Surveys have also identified a small, but fast-growing global group of 70,000 super rich individuals with more than $30 million in financial assets. This group is growing even faster than "paupers" in the $1 million-plus bracket." [See: World's richest worth $29 trillion in 2003; Survey: Wealthy now back at level before dot-com bust. MSNBC.com, June 15, 2004 ]
• The top fifth of households saw their income rise 43 percent between 1977 and 1999, while the bottom fifth saw their income fall 9 percent.
  
• The top fifth now makes more than the rest of the nation combined
  
• Table 2: Share of Total Available Household Net Worth, 2001*
  
  

  Wealth Group	Share of Net Worth
  99-100th percentile	32.7%
  95-99th percentile	25.0%
  90-95th percentile	12.1%
  50th-90th percentile	27.1%
  0-50th percentile	2.8%
  Total	100.0%

  [See: Kennickell, 2003. See data from the Federal Reserve Board for details.

The "center" itself would not be so bad were not the centers so far to the "right", in other words, skewed. Imagine a line with a tiny, ruling oligarchy on the right end and a perfectly egalitarian democracy i.e, a group sharing both power and wealth in perfect equity on the left end. The bulging bell curve in the middle of this line is not --in America --the middle at all, but far to the right. In America, the center is not in the center and may never have been.

While a tiny few, like Bill Gates, may indulge acts of philanthropy from time to time, the over all trends have not changed. A more egalitarian society is the preferred remedy to injustice --not isolated acts of charity, however kind. Moreover, with very, very few exceptions, those growing rich at the expense of others are unlikely to become more liberal as they gain riches. With few notable and statistically insignificant exceptions, the nouveau riche will continue to "...dance with the party that brung 'em." Reagan-heads called it the "Reagan Revolution" for good reason. Conditioned to think of "revolution" in terms of the French or Russian revolutions, Americans might not have grasped the significant harm "Reaganomics" have done America. It was for real.

How many people actually rule America by virtue of their great wealth, their ability to finance political campaigns, their ability to open doors with a phone call? The size of this group is variously estimated, but the fact is no one really knows. Surveys don't ask that question and political consultants like Karl Rove or Paul Caprio will most certainly not tell you. It is possible, however, to estimate the size of a group that literally owns some 99 percent of all "wealth" in the US. As this group grows both smaller and richer, the GOP declines in terms of total votes that can be counted on. This is why the GOP must, of necessity, communicate to its core base via "code words". The GOP, in other words, cannot afford to be honest even with its rank and file. It has cut a Faustian bargain with a tiny elite, Bush's base.

This tiny elite, Bush's base, must work behind the scenes. Robber barons have the money and the power to interfere with the electoral process in numerous ways. The most glaring development is the rise of super-conservative "networks" like Fox and talk shows like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. These programs are the Right Wing's propaganda machine, "faux news" programs that make no effort to tell the truth. Gullible people who have nothing in common with Rupert Murdoch will nevertheless fall for the Fox line. In more egalitarian days, opposing voices could demand and get "equal time". The Fairness Doctrine was deliberately targeted by un-American, "monied" interests for whom the open exchange of ideas is a threat.

Even Roman Emperors gave the vox populi lip service with a healthy soupcon of bread and circuses. The most successful oligarchs --real and faux --are those who succeed in tricking the "folk" into thinking them "...of the people". A regular contributor to this blog wrote recently:

Howard Dean, along with the other main stream Dem orgs. and the progressive Dem.orgs had better figure out a way to co-exist and share resources, they are going to need, if they are to over come this corrupt bunch they are about to take the field with.

Certainly, as more voters grow dis-enchanted with George W. Bush and the GOP in general, Democratic prospects will improve. But there is a downside to the political reality that even as they grow smaller in number, the GOP's natural base grows very, very rich.

Sadly, our electoral system seems designed to weed out dissent deviating past a certain "norm", a norm acceded to by a tiny, exceedingly rich, ruling cabal, a "norm" established by the Democratic and Republican wings of a single party.

An update.

Americans Now Resemble Pre-War Nazi Germans

You see them at the supermarket aggressively pushing their shopping carts around, and you get this feeling that if you do not move fast enough they might just run into you. You detect an undercurrent of suppressed rage, hostility, and detachment as if they are on some other planet.

You feel the same thing when you are driving down the road, and you see them driving with one hand on the wheel, the other hand holding up a cell phone to their ear, wheeling their SUVs around just as aggressively and at the same time detached, like those people in the supermarket pushing their shopping carts around.

No-one smiles any more. No-one wants to talk about things that matter. If you want to discuss anything other than sports, sex, or Dancing with the Stars, no-one seems interested.

What is happening? Is it something in the water, or is Invasion of the Body Snatchers actually happening for real?

I do not remember people being like this. They are hostile, impatient, full of suppressed anger, abrupt, suspicious, and some even threatening.

Not so many years ago, you couldn't walk down the street without running into your friends and neighbors wanting to talk about anything and everything, and have a good laugh. People, I remember, used to communicate -- now they just glare at you, or completely ignore you.

No-one wants to complain about anything. No-one seems to be bothered by high taxes or inflation. They just look at you and roll their eyes like you are crazy if you dare to express your dissatisfaction with the status quo. And God forbid, do not mention the wars, that topic really gets people uncomfortable. It is as if you are asking some personal question. ...

Just how much debt will Bush leave to your children to pay back --unless, your children somehow become billionaires?

As percentage of GDP, "deficit is twice as large as it's ever been"

Billionaires for Bush

Bush Restricting Travel Rights Of More Than 100,000 Americans

Monday, September 3rd, 2007 by RLR
From True Blue Liberal
By Sherwood Ross

Citizens who have done no more than criticize the president are being banned from airline flights, harassed at airports’, strip searched, roughed up and even imprisoned, feminist author and political activist Naomi Wolf reports in her new book, “The End of America.”(Chelsea Green Publishing)

“Making it more difficult for people out of favor with the state to travel back and forth across borders is a classic part of the fascist playbook,” Wolf says. She noticed starting in 2002 that “almost every time I sought to board a domestic airline flight, I was called aside by the Transportation Security Administration(TSA) and given a more thorough search.”During one preboarding search, a TSA agent told her “You’re on the list” and Wolf learned it is not a list of suspected terrorists but of journalists, academics, activists, and politicians “who have criticized the White House.”Some of this hassling has made headlines, such as when Senator Edward Kennedy was detained five times in East Coast airports in March, 2004, suggesting no person, however prominent, is safe from Bush nastiness. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia has also been mistreated. And it can be nasty. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, described the “humiliation factor” he endured:“I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal,” Wolf quotes him as saying. And it gets worse than that. Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s foreign minister, said he was detained at Kennedy airport by officers who “threatened and shoved” him. And that was mild. Maher Arar, a Canadian software consultant was detained at Kennedy and “rendered” to Syria where he was imprisoned for more than a year by goons that beat him with a heavy metal cable. Read the rest of this entry »

From an Amazon reader review of John Perkins' "The Secret History of the American Empire.

In his first book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins lifted the veil on a world rarely seen by most people. He took us on a tour of the costs and consequences of American corporate hegemony, dispelling myths of the `free market', and forcing us to peer deep into our own souls. As Perkins states in his earlier works, "The world is as you dream it," so the question is, what will you dream?

Picking up where he left off, Perkins continues down the path of redemption. Once serving the masters of modern slavery, Perkins now works tirelessly to free those who have been oppressed by the corpratocracy. His thesis? Our planet cannot survive ruthless consumerism at the expense of the world and its people. When all the trees are gone, and all the oil is tapped, what will be left? Does your shirt still feel nice when you understand the suffering involved in its production?

The world John Perkins envisions is one in which personal participation is crucial, and power does not rest in the hands of the few. We have everything we need to create a sustainable global society. We have the resources, the technology, and viable social models. What we need now is a vision, and the inspiration to create such a world. In 329 pages, Perkins provides us with the inspiration to fearlessly question ourselves, and the power structures that exist around us.

Traveling through countries like Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Iraq, and Iran, Perkins paints a picture so vivid its life-altering. This is an amazing follow-up to Confessions, and I strongly recommend this book to anyone who still believes the `free market' benefits all, or anyone who is still waving a flag. This story is brutal, harsh, and real. But the good news is: life can change. We can change. Deep down we all share common values. We all want to live peacefully, we all want to prosper, and we all want to feel love.

If you wish to understand the world for how it really exists, and you seek the tools to help create positive changes, then you have to read this book.

As John says, "Today is the day for us to begin to truly change the world."

Additional resources

• The Meritocracy Myth by Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller, Jr. University of North Carolina at Wilmington
• We're Right, They're Wrong
• Wealth Inequality ChartsPublish Post
• War Profiteering and the Concentration of Income and Wealth in America
  

Discoveries

• Carl Jung - Matter of Heart

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