Posts Tagged ‘cheney’

Taking a cue from so many conversations going on across the blogosphere, I am discussing the prosecution of George Bush. 

The world knows what he did.  The American people know what he did.  We have a choice.  We can demand justice.  We can defend ourselves from enemies to The Constitution, both foreign and domestic.  It will not happen if we do not.  The overwhelming call to action at change.gov was for the prosecution of criminal behaviour from the White House. 

George Bush is what we got for pardoning Nixon.  Nixon was a megalomaniac whose paranoia was his undoing.  Bush is much worse: a mouthpiece for the corruption of power amassed in Oil & Defense industry executive suites.  But, the motivations for breaking the law of the land from the highest office are not important.  What is of utmost importance is this: precedent.  In this specific instance, the precedent of breaking the law of the land from the highest office.  It is the path to dictatorship. 

Is the United States of America is the world’s largest dealer of illegal drugs?  What about the world’s largest gun runner?  For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret ‘intelligence’ agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan.  We offer ‘aid’ and ‘trade’ to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition.  The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population.  The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans.  Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world’s largest debtor and blood merchant?

(Image courtesy of indiesocial.com)

I walked onto the train platform in downtown Chicago today.  A woman had just finished shopping at Macy’s and had several red shopping bags.  She was trying to put everything into one bag.  The wind picked up and blew some of the empty bags down the platform.  I took off running and stopped them from blowing out onto the street. 

Then, she yells to me that: "It’s OK!  They’re empty."  Then she sits down and waits for the train with her two bags full of stuff.  The 5 empty big red bags are just out there on the platform and she makes no effort to pick them up.  I told her that I didn’t want litter for a Christmas present, picked them all up and threw them in the trash (no recycling on CTA platforms…dammit!).

I condemn murder in all of its forms. This is a conversation about terrorists and attacks on civilian populations.

Last week’s brutal attacks of unarmed civilians in Mumbai got me to thinking about the nature of attacks on civilians. For many years, I accepted the given definition of ‘terrorists’ as people that are so filled with evil that they want to frighten and kill us all. There are always sociopaths out there to fit into this mold. I think that for the sheer numbers of civilians killed in targeted violence, sociopaths are not the only explanation. The large role of religious / dogmatic programming in targeted violence against civilians eliminates sociopathology as a cause because the sociopath has no conscience or care for his/her impact on society. For the most part, the religious killer is convinced that his/her morality is calling for the murder of civilians.

“The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard, it ceases to be anything more than “the gang in possession,” and its days are numbered.” (H. G. Wells, as quoted in the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.)

The enemies of democracy are the enemies of the rule of law.

“enemies both foreign & domestic…”

Our Presidents and our armed forces swear to protect the Constitution from this threat – with good reason. The Constitution is the rule of law and it is the one thing that can prevent tyrants, thieves and murderers from the ruinous world of their unchecked greed and brutality.

I would not want to be the paper shredder in Dick Cheney’s office.

That poor device is going to be running 24/7 from now until January 20, 2009. It probably started when CNN declared Obama the winner and has been going non-stop since. That crooked and devious thief is going leave behind a remarkably thin paper trail. When he’s done ‘clearing out’, his office will look like Christmas morning in Who-ville after the Grinch cleaned them out. Just some hooks on the wall, a few wires and little piles of dust here and there.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Image courtesy of Dr. Seuss"][/caption]

Eugene Jarecki has detailed his experiences with and assessment of dealing with John McCain on the Huffington Post today. He is the director of “Why We Fight”, a film that I posted already on this blog. I highly recommend watching it, if you have not already done so.

Mr. Jarecki was granted an interview on camera with Sen. McCain for his opinions on Defense spending and corruption. In an all-too-familiar fashion, Sen. McCain spoke of the need for accountability, then his staff scrambled to retract his words for fear of upsetting lobbyists.

“The code” is a good basic model of loyalty and works well enough in many instances. However, it is trumped by loyalty to the country.

We need some whistle-blowers and we need them now. Our country is in deep kim-chee right now and we need some real patriots to step forward and make secret information – public. I am not talking about the schematics to advanced weapons systems or Col. Sanders’ secret formula with 7 herbs & spices. I mean the secrets that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Miers, Gonzalez and their corporate sponsors are hiding from us and trying to keep hidden.