Daniel:

It's a tough question.  Those of us who believe in FAIRNESS and ACCOUNTABILITY would really like to see the top 100 worst Rethuglican offenders in this administration (including about 20 who have jumped ratlike from the ship) "get their due."

For my whole life, I have opposed the death penalty.  I have considered it vindictive and unproductive and mostly (as you mentioned) way too KIND to the guilty, believing that a life in prison without any possibility of parole and with most of your basic freedoms removed is far superior to a quick and painless death.

The same holds for the Rethuglican crooks in this administration, except...

There would always be the chance they would get out, that some future Rethuglican nutjob President or Rethuglican dominated Supreme Court would grant them freedom (possibly, simply in return for $100Million bribe or something -- it's not like they haven't stolen a thousand times that).

They would go to some white collar, country club prison, and wouldn't have a chance of getting anally raped, beaten, and forced to toss somebody's salad every day.

In the past, I held very little hate for anybody. 

But these Rethuglicans, with their absolutely vile and hateful disgust for all the things I believe in (fairness, honesty, the Constitution, the Rule of Law, equality, etc.) have made me hate them with a massive solidity I didn't previously have.  I really WOULD like to see all of them dead, but only after they suffer a WHOLE LOT of pain and anguish.  I'm not a religious person, but I really do wish for a hell so that these Rethuglicans could spend eternity in it.

by Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 747 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 1:05:19 PM

  (0+)

I always appreciate your thoughts on things. 

Who among us has not felt hate at some time or another?  But it is like an acid on the soul and continues eating us until we let it go.  It's how things are, and maybe has something to do with finding a higher purpose. 

We have to look for light, especially in the dark of night.  Yea, the criminals might get out later, but it's a chance we'd have to take.  Well, if it came to that, all I can say is that I wouldn't want to be one of them, knowing how many people hated me!

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 1:27:41 PM

  (0+)

I got an email suggesting I take down the article, which my initial notice of the title had already gotten me thinking about. So, of course, I went to the article, seriously considering pulling it. Then I saw that YOU wrote it. That gave me a double take. You're not a crazy revolutionary. Not crazy, anyway.

So I started reading. I found one spot where a fix was needed-- the juxtaposition of the word assassination... with the elipsis, and the word, Cheney. 

I did a small edit, putting Cheney at the start of a new paragraph, and I think that fixed any problems that might be had with this very thoughtful article that, by my mind, strictly argues against assasination. It's okay to talk about the thought process, especially when it leads to conclusions that oppose violence.

So, instead of pulling it, I promoted it to a main headline.

Good writing on a topic that surely crosses many creative minds who don't rule out all the possibilities before evaluating  with morals, logic and reason.

by Rob Kall (954 articles, 4178 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2089 comments [50 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 1:41:12 PM

  (0+)

and I am a big fan of Mr. Geery.

by Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 1:58:34 PM

  (0+)

TOP TEN REASONS NOT TO ASSASSINATE.......

by Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 2:10:03 PM

  (0+)

Daniel,

The Hebrew prophets were also masters at WAKING UP their audiences by using sarcasm and irony and I applaud your article, which then led me to recall what I posted on the June 11, 2006 WAWA Blog, in which I quoted a heroine of mine, the Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laurette, Maried Maguire who wrote:

"This Peace Process has been long and arduous but one of its most important lessons is this:  Those involved in conflict resolution, must never give up hope.

"Another most important lesson for all of us is that violence, whether it is state violence or the violence of opposition, never brings long-lasting benefit but always brings long-lasting suffering and misery.  One of the most important lessons to come out of Northern Ireland is that violence, militarism, and para-militarism, do not solve deep ethnic/political problems.  They can only be solved through nonviolence, all-inclusive dialogue, and a will by people and politicians, to forgive and move forward to build a just and shared future together.

"To break a vicious cycle of violence, it takes courageous civil and political Leadership and people willing to take risks for peace.   Being willing to take the first step, to walk the extra mile, (as has happened on this peninsula) and especially to see the humanity of the other, to see their point of view, and recognize they too are afraid, and have grievances to be addressed, helps to humanize the people and situation.  Often this means that it is sometimes necessary to enter into principled compromise.   Diversity is a fact of life, and it is important we respect difference and create institutions that allow for representation and equal treatment of all sectors of our diverse societies.   

 "I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all. Some people will argue that this is too idealistic. I believe it is very realistic. I am convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let us remember that humanity learned to abolish slavery. Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence and war .... We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible."

 "If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future,
we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now,
in the present.

"While Governments can make a difference, in the final analysis it is the individual – that is each one of us – that will bring the dream of a nonviolent world to reality.  We, the people must think and act nonviolently.  We must not get stuck in the past as to do so will destroy the imagination and creativity which is so n a new future together.

"To change our world we need a spiritual and a political evolution. 

"The political steps are often very obvious:  uphold Human rights, and International Laws, demand our Governments meet their obligations under these Laws, support and reform United Nations, etc.,  

"However, all the legislation, resolutions, and fine talk will be of no use, if we do not as men and women evolve and become transformed, so that we, the human family, achieve a more enlightened and humane way of living together, and solving conflicts."-MM

St Augustine penned:  "HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-

  Godspeed on the EVOLUTION REVOLUTION!

http://www.wearewideawake.org/

by Eileen Fleming (172 articles, 101 quicklinks, 274 diaries, 650 comments [16 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 2:38:22 PM

  (0+)

Well, everyone at one time or another in their lives thinks about such things. I once wrote a poem to a particularly evil guy challenging him to a duel. I wrote in Celtic, Old English, Canterburian, in which I invited him and would pay for his flight, down to the only nation on the planet where dueling is still legal.

I told him I was an expert with revolvers at any range, especially at the Old Western, quick draw single action Colt thing, so he may want to choose epees, foils, or sabers. He read the poem and couldn't understand it. He was an English major and I thought they all had to learn the language before studying Chaucer, I had to, but apparently, he either forgot or was not a very good student.

The problem with what you are thinking is that we have to stoop to their level. I would rule it out because it is a permanent answer to a temporary problem. Cheney is a nothing. There are smarter ways to remove demoniacs, legally.

Anyway, there is always dueling, down Uruguay way. Maybe we should reinstate dueling for just such matters. Remember the great old Scaramouch film written I think by Raphael Sabatini. The original was with Ronald Coleman, and the remake in the 1950's with Stewart Granger. Both major parties had a duelist in parliament challenging one everyone who was not a Conservative, the other challenging all who was not Liberal.

I have personally participated in several duels over personal insults, and one or two over ladies, whose "honor" I was defending. They were of course monitored and not to the death, (the duels not the ladies) but the loser was honor bound to publicly apologize and pay a fee. We dueled with foils, epees, (with rubber tips in place on the swords) air guns, with soft pellets, shooting hoops one on one, fast pitch baseball and once auto racing on an old dirt track, even Kriegspiel a few times. In Uruguay, they use more lethal means.

I do believe that the reason Cheney is pushing the envelope by intentionally provoking people, is his cowardice. He will only be aggressive because he has power, take it away and he will grovel at your feet. Now, however, because he knows if anything goes to his hunting buddy's (Scalia) Supreme Court, he will win and he is looking for one more edge to declare Martial Law "Legally" approved by the Supreme Court.

We do need to find some way to change the makeup of that August Body and I suggest that there are legal provisions to end the reign of Scalia and a couple of others.

Cheney would be a nonentity if it were not for the timidity of the Dem's they are cowards. Besides I think his days are closely numbered.

by Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 95 diaries, 1317 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 3:12:28 PM

  (0+)

It's so Latin!! I'm part French and part Romanian. Would nerf duelling count?

<G>

rob 

by Rob Kall (954 articles, 4178 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2089 comments [50 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 11:36:44 PM

  (0+)

I’m convinced Republicans have used assassination three times to change the course of history, John, Robert and Martin. Republicans have a huge edge in politics because they are bound by no laws of man or God. That and the fact they are apparently prepared to go to the mattresses if push comes to shove with Democrats. I say apparently because our Dem leaders are such chickenshit appeasers, we’ll never know if the Republicans, the real Republicans that is, not the Redneck Republicans, have the balls for a civil war.

That said, I call upon Odin to strike Cheney down.

.

by rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 3:20:05 PM

  (0+)

Assassination and even terrorism are never off the table when people are sufficiently desperate. That is exactly why the rule of law is so important and why it is not a good idea to take impeachment (a peaceful solution that shows that no one is above the law) off the table.

All of us die sooner or later and none of us want to leave the people we care about in a worse situation if we can help them by the manner of our dying. And by "us" I mean we members of the species homo sapiens, regardless of our nationality or religion or sex.

Terrorism and assassination are political acts. There is absolutely nothing new in that "insight" its jungle pre-law 101.

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 1308 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 3:24:03 PM

  (0+)

Don't forget Senator Wellstone and his wife and daughter and the Anthrax thing, as far as I recall only Libberal Democrats receieved the evil mailings.

by Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 95 diaries, 1317 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 3:27:35 PM

  (0+)

Hmmm...you don't suppose we could lay the Tylenol poisonings at their doorstep as well...?

by mlevans (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 9 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 10:40:57 AM

  (0+)

I'll come visit you at Gitmo.

by Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 3:56:39 PM

  (0+)

I loved this article, one of my most favorites I've ever read on this site. Thanks for allowing us the readers to accompany you on your mental journey.

by Todd Huffman, M.D. (80 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 109 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 6:08:51 PM

  (0+)

Dan, I love that Darwin quote. Excellent article.

Pete

by Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (144 articles, 1 quicklinks, 95 diaries, 1317 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 6:57:53 PM

  (0+)

It's not like we haven't grappled with these very same thoughts....

Dan brought it to it's rational conclusion.

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 8:39:39 PM

  (0+)

I never got to page two because page one didn't allow me to go there.

by Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 10:08:11 PM

  (0+)

If you can't access it, let me know what you DO get. We' need to figure if there is a problem and what it is. Obviously, others are accessing it.

by Rob Kall (954 articles, 4178 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2089 comments [50 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 11:39:01 PM

  (0+)

Sorry if that was not clear.    I think the headline is not appropriate.

by Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:55:01 PM

  (0+)

Having not read the second page, it is rather unfair of you to judge the entire piece. Daniel's neurons evidently began firing by the time he was halfway through writing, and his prose and ponderings nicely improved.

Is it the most well-written piece I've seen on this site? No, not by a long shot. But I nonetheless enjoyed it more than most writings/rantings read here, simply because of the nice job Daniel did of working through his nasty thoughts to their less violent and more hopeful conclusions.

Honestly, who of us have not thought similar thoughts in times of anger or despair? Who of us haven't wondered "What if...?" Daniel allowed us to join him along his personal meanderings into these deep dark woods, and showed us that the reasonable person can always find his way out the other side.

by Todd Huffman, M.D. (80 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 109 comments) on Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 at 10:39:49 PM

  (0+)

I can't think of anything that's gone wrong over the last 6 years, or anything we want to know for sure, but don't, that could not be remedied by water-boarding, stress positions, and perhaps the considered application of feces, all of course televised for our education and enlightenment. And of course we'd issue a few disclaimers; "we don't torture", and "enemy combatents don't have rights".

So that's my bottom line on this administration: We need a military coup to restore the constitution, and we need the Bush administration "processed", perhaps in Poland or some other appropriate and previously used venue. I want them to live. For a very, very long time.  And while the new temporary military government is at it, they can also process the entire Republican congress, and 90 percent of the dem congress.

The current system is so far beyond restoration by "civilized" or self-defining "legal"  methods as to be laughable.  

by Esbe (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 85 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:14:48 AM

  (0+)

Amen!

by siriusss (6 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 111 comments [6 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 1:04:33 PM

  (0+)

Well, hell! I"ve had fantasies about the guy's who  tailgate me, and the one's in front of me who are going too slow, and that ass on the phone who calle during dinner to try to sell me a vacation time share (see -- I got this button on the phone hooked up to a --- well -- you don't hear about it...).

Everyone has a range of emotions and thoughts,of course, and I suppose we all have fantasies to vent our anger at times. Remember when Yahoo news had a comments section? I once posted the Bush would be impeached, convicted of war crimes, and exiled to Ubekistan where he too would be boiled alive --- that post got SEVEN recommendations!! Nope -- I'm not the only one with such imaginings.

Remember that Tantalus filed machine on Star Trek where in the alternative universe the evil Capt. Kirk could make his enemies disappear? Well -- at a particularly frustrating time I drifted off into lists of politicians and neocons -- but the trouble was there are so many! I decided I would need a team of researchers to collect the names of all the hundreds who would have to be disappeared -- and that's not beginning to count the idiots who were still supporting Bush. Come down to it -- we would have to liquidate over seventy million people to get rid all the idiots and evil bastards. Wow! We'd need an awful lot of box cars and camps and ovens... not practical, I guess: even with a Tantalus field box it would three years of constantly pushing that button.

Come to think of it, if there ever IS a second coming that angel of death is going to be exhausted getting rid of all but 144,000 of us. His wings would fall off first! No wonder they got that video game to enlist the 'True Christians' who will be left behind as part of the strike force -- and even then... It would be easier to send the 144,000 to live on Mars and destroy  Earth.

See -- that's the danger -- one begins to THINK like them. Well -- not begin, really -- because if there wasn't already a lot of that kind of thinking (anti-thinking?) those bums would never have gotten into power to begin with. I got three Cheneys and a Bush, trying to pull a Hitler or Stalin (they're wild, you know) for a full house. Well, let's be real here: they are all Jokers (like the one in Batman). Excpet Cheney -- he's a Penguin.

But that's what we can't avoid, finally: it's the Jungian thing (or the Paul Levy thing, with his malignant egophrenia): it's a social disease --- no, not what like Mr. Fields my 7th grade phys-ed and health teacher tried to talk about on the last of school before summer vacation and got so red in the face --- I mean a cultural malignancy; an insanity of the collective consciousness. It's not jsut the ones who support Bush and war, of course -- there are always some of those around waiting for the immune system of the public psyche to go on vacation: it's everyone else who sends their immunity to such moral rot and their critical thinking off to doze on a sand dune beach in Palm Beach while the gangsters run the con game.

Yeah -- we all have that spark of violence and nihilism in us -- that lust for the Great Ring of Power.

If I only had a star ship even -- with phaosrs and transporters... or maybe even a death star.............

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:47:07 AM

  (0+)

Very good question, Dan. Why not ? And why not yet ?

My objections are trivial yet justifiable ;

Dan wrote : "To say it is "cowardly" to consider assassination is just plain silly, just as it was absurd to call the 9/11 hijackers cowards."

"The 9/11 hijackers..."?? As if we have any proof there were any.

Rob responded : "...I went to the article, seriously considering pulling it. Then I saw that YOU wrote it. That gave me a double take. You're not a crazy revolutionary."

Who are the OpEdNews "crazy revolutionaries" and why would this article be treated any differently had it come from one ? The word is what counts.

As for assassinations....all you have to do is to read the recently released (yawn) "Family Jewels" to see that assassinations are part of the American (scheme) dream. Why it won't work on the Dick or Dubya is beyond me. "They" were able to touché Ron RayGun.  

The message, the question is still valid ...no matter who poses it.

a crazy revolutionary

by Tony Forest (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 166 diaries, 1429 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 7:53:58 AM

  (0+)

Not. There's isn't one.

by Rob Kall (954 articles, 4178 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2089 comments [50 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 8:54:13 AM

  (0+)

nt

by Tony Forest (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 166 diaries, 1429 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 9:44:47 AM

  (0+)

Yeah.... We all have those moments when our patience runs thin.

We tire of evil running rampant, killing thousands of innocents.

We think "Let's just kill the bastards and be done with it". A very tempting

idea for some people. Then, our higher self takes over and says: I can't

do that. But our spirit still clamors for justice. What do we do? I like the

idea of imprisonment. How do we accomplish this?

By educating the masses, exposing error or evil whenever it occurs, and

by turning an apathetic society to an intelligent, discerning entity.

Even though we despair at times , we must keep working.

by Bob Gormley (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 1094 comments [65 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 9:50:26 AM

  (0+)

Pundit :
a person who knows a lot about a particular subject and is therefore often asked to give an opinion about it.

As near as I can tell, the louder and more you run-off at the mouth, the more money you make as a pundit. But I’m still confused as how you get to be a pundit in the first place.

Is there an entrance exam to test your knowledge, wisdom and sanity? Apparently not. So who chooses who gets to be a pundit. Do you get to throw your hat into the ring? Who do you have to impress?

Not that I’m considering it myself, of course, but any subject is my area of expertice.

.

by rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:00:36 AM

  (0+)

what a pundit was.  It's a stupid word if you ask me, but then I'm just a pundit.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:07:54 PM

  (0+)

I loved your essay, Daniel.  Good fun.

by rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 5:05:19 PM

  (0+)

I am not yet where Bonehoeffer was when he agreed to the assination plot against Hitler but this administration is pushing me to my limits.

The only thing that prevents me from agreeing with this article is my firm pro-life stance and call to love my enemies. Hopefuly even the current administration can be redeemed. It will take a miracle of Biblical proportion.

 John

Wixom, MI 

by wanderinwoodsman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:23:02 AM

  (0+)

But Bonhoeffer would have been for the exhausting of every other option first. 

American citizens still have a system that can work for them but they have to use it.  To my mind people should not even by considering assassination that have not already written to and spoken with their elected representatives and tried to listen to their views and to understand their reasons for not impeaching. It may be that they are wrestling with their own consciences and looking to their constituents for input. Give it to them.

Tell other people what you have done and what your representatives have replied to you. Keep a scrapbook of correspendence sent and received. Build up a history of activism and good citizenship.

Only when it becomes obvious through having tried all the legitimate options (writing, talking, protesting, lobbying representatives, smaller acts of civil disobedience, writs of mandamus to try to compell recalcitrant representatives to do their duty and support the constitution) should an American consider the most desperate final option in their consciences.

It is precisely because Bush-Cheney didn't try the other options first with respect to Iraq that America and the world is in the mess that it is in. Don't surrender to despair or inactivity but don't emulate Bush and Cheney's regressive counterproductive lawlessness either.

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 1308 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 9:10:33 PM

  (0+)

You say: "Talk, talk, talk; talk, talk, talk, but nothing seems to be changing. Some of us are doers and we get a little weary of all the talking, important though it may be." And I too have grown fed up with all the web talk. BUT, we have not yet run out of rational options to fix our nation. It took me awhile but eventually I came upon the Article V convention option for fixing out nation, and I hope that you too will seriously examine it at www.foavc.org.

by Joel S. Hirschhorn (141 articles, 50 quicklinks, 65 diaries, 546 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:31:57 AM

  (0+)

...the conclusion I came to is that this wouldn't work.

The Constitution, as written, is just fine.  Everything we need is in there.  Sure, there are some internal inconsistencies in the Bill of Rights, such as "freedom of the press" vs. "a fair trial" and such, but overall, THE DOCUMENT WORKS WHEN THE GOVERNMENT RESPECTS IT.

But this government doesn't.  This Rethuglican Administration (and plenty of the Rethuglicans and DINOs in Congress who let it happen) believe that the Constitution is just "a piece of paper" as opposed to a roadmap to a successful republic.

How would we change the Constitution to prevent Bush/Cheney and the like?  Anything too SPECIFIC (like nobody named Bush or Cheney can ever hold an office of honor or respect in the government) wouldn't really work.  And anything too general?  I think it's already in there!

Finally, the new ammendments to the Constitution would have to be approved by the state legislatures and then have enabling legislation created by a congress that has already showed it doesn't give a DAMN about the Constitution and finally, any conflicts would have to be arbitrated by a Supreme Court dominated 5-4 by Rethuglican loyalists who will choose party over country in every decision they make.

While I don't give it much of one, a physical revolution has a better chance (in my opinion) than a Constitutional Convention.

by Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 747 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:56:30 AM

  (0+)

we need is in there--including the convention clause.

a convention does not rewrite anything, it simply proposes ideas. the dynamic of the event, simply as a civic ceremony, will be profound.

i can tell you this, an article v convention is the last thing cheney wants to see happen.

by john de herrera (39 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 165 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 1:19:54 PM

  (0+)

I don't know where the arguments go from here, but I do know that the contemplation of murder is very much taboo for the soul.  Conspiracy and all the claptrap...

But honest philosophical discourse should never be discouraged.  And let's face it, the trouble this country is in very much deserves  it.  No matter how ugly the topic becomes.

Yea, tell that to Mann Coulter and Liz Edwards, eh?

by Kiko (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:31:59 AM

  (0+)

The idea of assassinating anyone, including detested warmongers such as George Bush and Dick Cheney, is repugnant morally and ethically, and must be condemned out of hand. Benjamin Franklin urged inclusion of the impeachment provision in the Constitution on grounds the only alternative would be assassination and, under those circumstances, he said, the accused would never be allowed a fair trial. And particularly because both Bush and Cheney have denied due process for U.S. prisoners, the effort must be made to see they are accorded a fair trial if impeached, and a fair trial for their war crimes, if they are ever brought to justice for them. Assassination means taking the law into your own hands. It's what the Gestapo did under Hitler. It was the chosen instrument of Stalin and Tojo. It's what the CIA does. It's what the Argentine generals did. It was employed by Mussolini and Castro. If you want to climb into bed with those kinds of people you're going to have a sleepless night.

by Sherwood Ross (222 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 155 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 10:40:26 AM

  (0+)

Offing your politicos is well within the American tradition, but it's also a way of making martyrs out of scoundrels -- a way of papering over their crimes. If there's one positive thing about BushCo's crimes it's that many issues that have remained out of American consciousness since the US embarkt on its long imperial quest have now risen to the surface. Whether or not these emerging issues will reach critical mass by the time the term is up is probably the question every non-American observer of the imperium is asking him/herself. We've been waiting a long time for Americans to wake up.

Reading Theodore Sorensen: A New Vision: The Speech I Want the Democratic Nominee To Give at CommonDreams yesterday I wondered just how many Americans read it the way I did, i.e., as instructions on how to get the empire back on track. O boy, just what we need.

If impeachment of Bush and/or Chaney would be as rigorous as Clinton's was, it could be a very useful process. Yet given the speed with which Clinton's impeachment was forgotten and its perpetrators given control of all branches of government and the MSM propaganda machine, I'm not confident that impeachment would be that much better than assassination.

by delia (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 112 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:22:27 AM

  (0+)

by mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 312 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:23:58 AM

  (0+)

several times.  I almost used it in the article.  Has the line been drawn and we just don't want to face it?  Read the responses here and it's pretty obvious we have no consensus.  Who decides, when and how? We're not in Kansas anymore, are we?

Thanks for the post.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 2:58:46 PM

  (0+)

A thoughtful, well reasoned article?  Anyone who uses a play on words to confuse a political revolution in which a government is overthrown, or a social revolution in which one social order is replaced by another, with the circular motion of the earth around the sun, using the fact that the same word designates both for their verbal trickery, is clearly neither thoughtful or well reasoned.

   You might notice that I said that after we elect a government that can make the United States a country where there really is liberty and justice for all, that the ruling class will try to prevent that government taking office through a military coup or other violent means.  If we fight against their coup, a good legal argument can be made that it will not be us who are attempting to violently overthrow the government.  Instead we will merely be performing our civic duty to prevent them from violently overthrowing the government.  Nevertheless, that will still be a violent revolution in which the present class society is overthrown.

   The pacifists who commented still haven't explained what we should do if the ruling class attempts to violently stop an actual democratically elected government from taking office.  You have the right to decide that you will never use violence to stop someone from killing you.  But if you refuse to act violently when violence is the only way you can prevent someone else from being killed, raped or robbed, then your pacifism is immoral.

   Robert Halfhill

by rhalfhill (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 327 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:56:30 AM

  (0+)

I didn't mean it as a cheap trick, I assumed we would all get the difference, as you clearly did.

My point is that there is a larger revolution that involves Homo sapiens working together around the world, and if we don't grasp that, sooner than later, we're doomed. Of course, we may need your revolution before that one can happen.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:01:16 PM

  (0+)

While tabling at the Minneapolis Pride Festival last weekend for www.ImpeachforPeace.org, over two days I personally heard assassination mentioned 15-20 times at the very least. People asked if they could donate to the "Lee Harvey Oswald fund", asked about arranging to go hunting with Cheney or feeding him a bacon cheeseburger with extra poly-unsaturated fats, etc. We joked that the "Assassination Support Booth" was down the lane, but of course let everyone know that we don't condone violence - especially murder - and most certainly do not support a violent overthrow of our government.

President Bush has signed an executive order granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.

The order was signed May 9 without any announcement, says Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column.

Titled, "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," it was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.

The order establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.

"Catastrophic emergency" is loosely defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. Population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

Corsi says the president can assume the power to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825

by Mikael Rudolph (50 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 79 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:09:14 PM

  (0+)

is out there. I wouldn't have composed the article if I didn't sense that pretty strongly. And I obviously think we need to consider how desparate things really are. Hopefully this article will make impeachment look good, even to Nancy. Thanks for the feedback.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:03:28 PM

  (0+)

2.  Everybody from rappers Zack de la Rocha and M1 to anti-war activist Malachi Ritscher (who committed self-immolation last Nov to protest the war) has talked about the pros and cons of the action in question.  Let's respect that it is a real thought out there among millions, in response to an even more reality about the damage being done to the world, making history in the worst ways, which our grandchildren will have to bear, if they make it.

3.  I love the "see you in Gitmo" comment.  We can't take that lightly, and frankly worse than Gitmo can and will happen if They think somebody is cultivating any serious following or planning around this idea.  So I urge all of us to use common sense about how and where we present these ideas.  And don't expect a tiny disclaimer to save your butt, and the same goes for humor, satire, and all other things too subtle for the war machine to decipher.

4.  Most importantly, most readers here are grappling with what CAN work and what SHOULD we do.  Let's not lose focus on that.

by Mars Caulton (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 88 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:34:01 PM

  (0+)

since January 20, 2001 , just so you know. If it was discussed before that, I do not know or hear about it. It was also attempted in Georgia, remember ?

by Katarina Olszkea (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 35 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:42:46 PM

  (0+)

I have been thinking about this topic for a while. Awhile back, I came to the same conclusion; assassination cannot be done without stooping to the level of the very people we are trying to stop.

At that very moment, Donald Rumsfeld came on the news. He was speaking of Guantanamo. Rummy smiled "They are Dead Enders" he grinned.

And the answer was before me. Truly, I had an Epiphany!

Dead Enders! All politicians in Washington are dead enders!

We could send them all to Guantanamo. After all, there is no torture going on there. Those water boards are really rafts. Those men with the force feeding tubes must be social directors. The food is great or so I am told.

We could even give them a public trial just like the one they gave Sadam.

Maybe we could even get the same judge. This would be perfect in the event they were convicted of treason. Death by Hanging is the punishment for treason. This Iraqi judge knows all about hanging and American justice.

Then they could all be marched into Congress for the hanging and Democrats could yell for Republican blood as if they were any better.

At the last minute activists from PETA could barge in, charging that hanging was cruelty to animals. We could watch them on CNN demanding that the sentence be commuted to life in a no-kill shelter. Guantanamo could be converted to a no kill shelter for international criminals

With a sigh of relief ,Congress who is as guilty as anyone in the executive branch, votes to lock the Bushies up with the "social directors" who will look after them until we can rehabilitate them and find them good homes.

Now we could feel good about ourselves. WE did not stoop to THEIR level.

But wait what right do we have to decide for mercy? We allowed this horror. Din't we abdicate our responsibility in 2000 when the Supreme Court issued their ridiculous ruling, voiding the Gore win? Americans should have stood up together demanding a rule of constitutional law. We allowed it then and we continue to allow it. Impeach? Why bother to impeach now unless we want to give the news hounds something to do besides run after Paris Hilton?

And what about the victims of these monsters? There are people still in Guantanamo. There are people still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. US soldiers .are still being maimed and mutilated daily. And don't get me started about Katrina and Medicare! Don't these people, the victims, have the most vital say?

If God is just, then the punishment cannot be meted out by us at all. We can demand a fair trials al around. We can give these monsters the advocacy they refuse the prisoners at Guantanamo. But the final judgment must be theirs, and theirs alone.

I think there is some heavy Karma here. It is not just a bunch of leaders in washinngton that are the problem.

Just a few random thoughts to say Hello!

Ann/siriusss

by siriusss (6 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 111 comments [6 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:43:03 PM

  (0+)

Assassination is a crime against society, a crime against democracy and a crime against God. That's enough reason right there to confine such thoughts to the deepest part of the Id and to imprison them there never to be acted upon.

by Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1760 comments [112 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 1:00:29 PM

  (0+)

If Jonathan Swift had written "A Modest Proposal" but called it "Lets kill all the impoverished babies and eat them in our favorite restaurants" Mr. Swift probably gets swiftly dispatched to the lunatic fringe by the majority of society, and dare I say, less people would read it as well, or claim to have read it when they actually didn't!

by Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:06:13 PM

  (0+)

metaphor: suppose you had a cfo of a company figure out how to cook the books and make off with a tidy sum every quarter. and then one day the secretary of the ceo pops her head in the door and says something like, "oh, and by the way, the boss is bringing in an outside audit; no problems, he just wanted some fresh eyes on the books; have them to me by next week?"

that cfo is going to get their ass in gear and fix things up, or he may find himself in prison.

an article v convention would have a similar effect on the u.s. congress--and make no mistake--it's the failure of the congress which has allowed the bush administration to do what it has done.

an article v convention is our only hope for a peaceable reformation, please join us: http://www.foavc.org

p.s. this article plays right into the hands of cheney because 1) he will never be assasinated 2) it justifies him and all the others of his ilk that they must forceably and violently oppress the people.

by john de herrera (39 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 165 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 1:32:39 PM

  (0+)

This is such rambling nonsense. Why don't you come to the point. Are you afraid? What is it you want to say? We know that time is running out. That Bush and Cheney will pull another 9/11 catasthope and then declare martial law is inevitable; then then assassination will be too late. We will be slaves living in a dictatorship. Blackwater's boys will be knocking at our doors late at night and dragging us off to concentration camps to torture and murder us. Say it. Like the Kamikazi pilot in Japan. There is but one alternative left. Forechristsakes say it.

by eagleeye (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 32 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 2:37:21 PM

  (0+)

In a parallel dimension just slightly removed from this, scientists and brain researchers are having heated debates about "the power of prayer" and even plain old "positive thinking." 

Sub-atomic physicists discuss a phenomena termed: "spooky action at a distance."  

The Pentagon spent millions to research and employ a technique called "remote viewing."

('google' these, get giga hits.)

Can remote viewers actually fiddle with the circuitry of a pacemaker - if enough of them do it at the same time?

by mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 312 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 2:43:52 PM

  (0+)

I interviewed one of the psychic scientists that developed this art. Although they made a million dollars developing the capability for the government during the Cold War, today they are teaching it to everyone as a way to cure people.

by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 11:33:11 AM

  (0+)

You're a coward like all the rest of us. We don't have the guts of a water louse. Just say it. Stop prevaricating. Assassination is our only alternative. We have little time left. Our Congress, the Democrats, have sold out. Soon Bush and Cheney will pull another 9/11 disaster and declare martial law. Then Blackwater goons will be everywhere. They'll be knocking down our doors late at night and dragging us off to concentration camps to be torture and murdered. Yes, like the Kamakazi Pilot, we are up against the wall. Like the suicude bombing in Palestine, we are left with one alternative. Period.

by eagleeye (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 32 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 2:58:29 PM

  (0+)

I'm a coward.  I think I said that in my article.  Evidently we both are?

Then again, I did take a bit of a chance writing this article, at least according to some of the commentators.

Also, I admit that there are times when I think "the line has been crossed." And other times when I think it hasn't.  In the last three weeks I learned of three people I know who had bears enter their campsite.  One packed up stakes and left.  The other grapped the cooler the bear was after and ran into his camper (and still suffers from a pulled shoulder).  The third pulled out a rifle and shot blindly through the camper door, and by luck or unluck, depending on your viewpoint, the bear's heart.  We all react differently and no one sees quite the same thing, as I think the responses here well illustrate.

Meanwhile, the frog slowly boils in the water.   

We ain't dead yet, and our demise does not yet seem completely inevitable. At least to me.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:16:35 PM

  (0+)

"...don't expect a tiny disclaimer to save your butt, and the same goes for humor, satire, and all other things too subtle for the war machine to decipher." I'm on my second life, with a heart transplant two years ago. The least I can do is write an article of this nature. The last shovel of dirt they throw on me will be to cover my middle finger. "Most importantly, most readers here are grappling with what CAN work and what SHOULD we do. Let's not lose focus on that." Agreed. 100%.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:06:47 PM

  (0+)

We are obviously free to take it or leave it, but I see myself here: "I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all. Some people will argue that this is too idealistic. I believe it is very realistic. I am convinced that humanity is fast evolving to this higher consciousness. For those who say it cannot be done, let us remember that humanity learned to abolish slavery. Our task now is no less than the abolition of violence and war .... We can rejoice and celebrate today because we are living in a miraculous time. Everything is changing and everything is possible."

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:22:04 PM

  (0+)

Daniel Geery's article is definitely worth reading all the way through. His "fantasies" on the first page are cleverly undermined by his contrary arguments on the second page. So read both pages and think about it.

We have all had these fantasies, especially when hearing news reports such as the one I woke up to this morning: "Five more American soldiers were killed and seven injured in a roadside bomb attack...." And on and on.

OR: "At least 75 Iraqis were killed, including women and children, by a bomb attack on a food market in Baghdad...." And on and on....

We are living in an age in which unspeakable barbarism is not called barbarism -- it's called "surge," or "defense of Islam," or "revenge on our Infidel enemies," or "justified by national security."

That anyone, of any religion, of any political persuasion would place a car bomb loaded with nails in Piccadilly Circus with the expectation of wounding or killling as many innocent humans as possible is completely wicked.

It is equally wicked, despicably wicked, to plot a war against another country for the financial benefit of one's corporate friends, to falsify evidence and lie, and then invade that country on the basis of lies. To waste human life, both American and Iraqi, in the pursuit of that war was, is and will continue to be wicked. No future historian will ever be able to claim this war was anything but wicked.

At the present time, the American government is controlled by those who believe that their ends -- their goals, objectives and wishes -- justify whatever means they use. Knowing that many of their ends would be unwelcome to most Americans, they have hidden them, or at least tried to.

If anyone were to embrace assassination as a way to rid ourselves of the extreme Machiavellians who control the GOP and the American government, that would make US like THEM -- we would be embracing wickedness, and in the end, we would become what we seek to destroy.

An immutable fact of life is that the means we choose to accomplish the goals in our lives come to define what we are. We become what we have done and how we have done it.

A student who cheats on exams in order to get into law school or medical school becomes a cheater and has to pretend to have knowledge that was never acquired. A job applicant with lies on his resume has to maintain those lies through year after year and job after job. The one who cheats becomes a cheat. The one who lies becomes a liar. ... And the one who kills, even for what seems like a laudable goal, becomes a killer.

And then when one's enemy is dead, that enemy is a martyr. We must be glad that Hitler was not assassinated, that his defeat ended in the ignominy of suicide. It is delusional to think that lives would have been saved and the future would have been better if Hitler had died in 1944. Instead the post-war years would have been crowded with unrepentant Nazis on the world stage, arguing their cause, not on trial at Nuremburg. I believe Bonhoeffer later reached the same conclusion. He did not object to his execution because he came to believe that he had been wrong to assist in an assassination plot.

It would be lovely if Dick Cheney would keel over dead. But then we would have to live through a state funeral which glorified all his wickedness.

It would be lovely if Dubya's airplane hit turbulence and crashed, killing all aboard -- but then we'd have to live through a whole bunch of state funerals and glorifying memorials, including one for Karl Rove, who will be remembered as the one person more than any other did the most damage to our civil liberties, our rights, our constitutional protections, and our ability to trust our most fundamental institutions of government. Election officials? Corrupted. Legislators? Corrupted. War powers? Corrupted.

And on and on and on.

How much worse it would be if they were to be glorified in death! Their supporters, few as they are, are powerful and they control most of what the American people see and learn, and because it is considered impolite to criticize the dead, anyone who sought to stop the glorification would be slandered and abused.

Evil comes in many forms. Look at Rupert Murdoch. Imagine Dubya's funeral as covered by Fox News and Murdoch's worldwide media empire!

No. We simply must continue to do what we have been doing -- communicating what is right and what is wrong, naming the evil, identifying the wicked, uncovering their motives, uncovering their methods.

Yes, it ... is .... so ... slow .... -- On a day-to-day basis, agonizingly slow.

But look at the progress over the past two-and-a-half years: It is widely acknowledged that both the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen. It is widely acknowledged that the invasion of Iraq was a horrific mistake.

Yes, I knew it in 2003. I dreaded it in 2002. I felt the weight of the lives about to end -- but enough Americans chose to embrace the propaganda that we were labelled traitors and worse.

Ask those same people now. I took a horrendous amount of ridicule from "patriotic Americans" in 2000 because I refused to vote for GWB and his cohort. Some of those people were at a military base in Germany. I would like to ask them now what they think of what I told them.

That young black woman who told me she was voting for BushCheney because "what have Democrats done for us anyway?" What does she think now that the Bush appointees on the Supreme Court have undercut decades of progress in desegregation and had the gall to cite Brown vs. Board of Education in doing so?

The military itself embraced the war against Iraq. The soldiers themselves were so propagandized that they were eager to enter the fight. Eager to vote for Bush and eager to fight.

Ask the soldiers now. Ask them what they think now -- now that so many of their buddies have died.

Ask the parents who waved their children off in their Humvees and Bradleys as they left the local national guard armory on their way to Iraq, telling the reporters "how proud it made them to know their children were defending America." Ask them now if their sons and daughters died defending America or enriching Halliburton.

Yes, it's been six and a half long years of fighting the good, non-violent fight -- but look at the bright side (yes, there is a bright side) -- for decades, starting with the John Birch Society and the Goldwater Republican movement, these so-called, self-styled conservatives have been claiming that they could run the government so much better. They blamed the government for doing this wrong and doing that wrong. They blamed the majority Democrats in Congress for failing here and failing there, and asserted boldly that they could and would do better.

After the breathtaking incompetence, the politicization of even the most lowly federal agency, and the catastrophic rise in the national debt, is there any thinking American who now thinks the GOP has done a better job of running the government, providing needed services, managing the federal budget, funding scientific research for the future, defending our country against attack?

Is there any thinking American who does not honestly believe we were better off when the Democrats were governing this country? [I'm not saying they were perfect; I'm just saying they were infinitely more competent.]

Well, only Fox commentators -- but guess what? Fox is losing viewers. Hannity on MSNBC has falling viewership, but Olbermann's ratings are rising. Olbermann's courage in speaking the truth as much as he can has been rewarded with ratings success, the only measure that the TV powers-that-be care about. Guess what advertisers want to buy advertising on what program?

Yes, it's slow. Damned slow. And heartbreaking for every life lost.

I will say what no presidential candidate can dare say:

Every one of those lives lost in Iraq -- American or Iraqi -- has been wasted -- carelessly, willfully, selfishly thrown away by BushCheneyRumsfeld et al.

Unfortunately, the waste of life won't end soon. And with every new casualty announcement, the ache in my heart becomes more throbbing, more piercing, more permanent.

But, history shows us that violence does not make things better. Violence is not an effective means for social change. In fact, violence against an oppressive government usually strengthens that government. Violence that targets innocent people through terrorist acts drives the rest of the populace into the embrace of the oppressors. Let me give just two examples.

1. Peru. I know Peru well. I've done field work there and have spent quite a lot of time living amongst Peruvians and working with them. Quite by accident, a friend and I witnessed some of the early history of Sindero Luminoso in Cuzco. During my travels there, I witnessed the results of the violence. Thankfully, I was not of violence myself.

The history of economic and political oppression and repression in Latin American is long and horrible, and it can't be recounted here. But that history does still live -- there is still a callous, unthinking brutality in the way Latin American elites control their countries. As a Peruvian friend said to me, the legacy of the Spanish Conquest is insidious and it lives throughout the society.

There have been times when I've witnessed things in Peru that made me feel that there was no option but to take up a gun and fight. I can easily comprehend how the people who must live with it day and day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime, reach such despair that joining a violent revolution seems the only way to change their country.

One of the major studies of Sindero Luminoso cited social advancement as a major reason why many lower middle class people supported Sindero. Sindero was not much supported by the desperately poor, but rather by educated people who saw themselves forever locked out of any meaningful status in their own country.

And guess what happened? There was a brutal civil war, complete with horrific terrorist bombings that killed women and children, massacres of peasants by both sides, many incidents of "desaparicidos" -- students, workers, writers, artists who left with Sinderistas, police or military escorts and never came back. When Sinderistas entered a highland village, they frequently massacred all the older men in the village and forced young people to join them -- they used child soldiers, just as are being used in Africa today.

Over time, the Peruvian population grew to hate Sindero Luminoso far beyond whatever resentments they had because of their social situation, and they began to cooperate -- enthusiastically -- in tracking down Sinderistas. It was that engagement by the population that eventually brought down the SL leadership and got them all sent to prison.

But, guess what? Peru is still and will remain a terribly unjust place. It is a country where "injusticia social" is a way of life.

When I was there, I would say to my Peruvian friends, "Well, you really need non-violent resistance. You need a Gandhi-like figure to lead a non-violent resistance. Nothing will really change until thousands of people march in the streets non-violently in support of their demands for justice."

And they laughed at me. Naive American woman. Ha Ha Ha.

That was before the non-violent revolutions in much of Eastern Europe. Now we have much more empirical evidence for the value and longevity of non-violent movements.

Look at the globe. Put your finger on a country. Was the revolution there violent or non-violent? Which succeeded and which failed?

The slow, steady work of non-violence takes a great many years to show results -- but the results when they come, be it in the Ukraine or in Czechoslovakia or Poland or even the Soviet Union, come quickly, like an overpowering tsunami, and not even the most brutal Ceaucescu can withstand it.

2. On the other hand, there are the Palestinians, who have been entirely dedicated to violent action against Israel for over sixty years. The horrible back-and-forth of killing and killing and bombing and bombing. What has it accomplished?

Destruction and Death. Destruction and Death. And unending war.

I firmly believe that if the Palestinians had taken up non-violent action when they were first ejected from their homes -- if, instead of taking up the gun, they had laid down in front of the tanks, even allowing themselves to die rather than take the lives of others, there would now be a Palestinian independent country, negotiating such issues as water rights and property rights with an Israeli government. There would have been an independent Palestinian government that would now be about 40 years old, almost as old as Israel.

The insistance by Palestinian leaders that their only option was violence has doomed generations of Palestinians to poverty, despair, fear, and death.

Yet, they continue to fight and there is no end in sight.

As difficult as it may be to stay the non-violent course -- to write, to educate, protest and object nonviolently -- we must continue, because the alternative is unending war, global catastrophe, and very possibly the end of human existence. Will future paleontologists be able to figure out what killed our species off? Or will they know? Will there be a written history that will tell them how we managed to destroy ourselves?

Over the past six-and-a-half years, in American after American, what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the angels of their better natures" have awakened. We now have 70% of the American public thinking as we do on the Iraq War, yet in 2003 we were a vilified minority of just 15 or 20%. Things have changed. And if we keep doing what we're doing to the best of our ability, things will continue to change.

I do not ever want to turn on the tv and find out that the funeral for GWB or Cheney is going to be broadcast worldwide, horse-drawn casson and all. No. Let their funerals be as insignificant as Richard Nixon's. Or even less so.

At the same time, if Cheney and GWB try to institute their continuous governance by manufacturing a national emergency before the next president can take office, we must be prepared to lay down our lives. We must shut down every city in the U.S. with prone bodies filling the streets. We must be prepared to die under the wheels of a Rumsfeldian Humvee because only by sacrificing ourselves can we save our children and grandchildren from a home-grown Stalinism made far worse by the power of contemporary electronic media. 1984 was a picnic compared to what the Neo-Con cabal would like to give us.

Instead of fantasizing about assassination plots, we must begin to seriously plan for non-violent self-sacrifice. That is what takes real courage. That is what makes lasting change.

by S. E. Hoffman (2 articles, 6 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 28 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:43:17 PM

  (0+)

Any assassinations would result in a certain amount of chaos. Who is best organized to take advantage of chaos? Who creates chaos as a way of seizing power and manipulating the public, in Iraq, or here?

Do we see people demonstrating in Washngton every day? Targeted boycots and general strikes? Crowds banging pots and pans in the streets of the cities? There is very little organization among those who want the resroration of sanity-- and there are still a great may who don't even know what is going on?

So who will gain the most from trying to assassinate politicians? The fascists. They will gain more power from it, and just put in someone else to play the frontmen.

Nope -- assassination is bad tactics and strategy. It's capital punishment without the decision of the majority or the legitimacy of law or order. Assassination by a state, such as the CIA assassination, were backed by a larged organized program of other actions to take over whatever nation they were going after, and even then they didn't always work out. The US resistance has nothing close to that -- and if it did there are many other orderly and peaceful ways to get the job done.

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 3:49:02 PM

  (0+)

Well, agonizing over choosing between either these saintly, fat, smug, protagonists and any one of the thousands of innocents whom they are causing to be brutally murdered as casual 'collateral damage', or of any one of those whom they are planning to have similarly slaughtered in the near future - well, I don't find there is any choice.  Do you?

Tough, lads.

by Geraldo (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 105 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 4:09:18 PM

  (0+)

...I want to thank you for bringing up the "A" word. I have been wanting to pose a question here for some time, but have been afraid of allowing my freedom of speech to come close to that particular precipice.

That question is simply, why the f*ck hasn't DUBYA or Dick(LESS) tasted lead projectiles yet? Hinckley went for it with Ronnie Ray-Gun, and for better or worse, Old Ronnie was a popular president. If this bastion of popularity can have his skin breached by a high speed piece of lead, why not the dud-namic duo in DC?

As to your article, I am forced to agree with you for the most part. While I won't shed a tear when I hear of the death of DUBYA and Dick(LESS), having either of them taste lead before they get their asses hung out to dry would be letting them off easy for their crimes and transgressions. They should really have to sleep on the concrete floor of a federal detention center for all they have down wrong. I also like the idea of putting them somewhere where they can taste endless public humiliation for their misdeeds.

Clearly, DUBYA and Dick(LESS) have done much that requires punishment. While they are technically innocent until proven guilty, the evidence of their guilt is everywhere you look. Assassinating either or both of them would allow them to get off scot free. Personally, I'd prefer the scenario I personally put forward, that they both be sentenced to death for treason, as per the constitution.

Well, I guess it's time to wait for the FBI to come knocking now.

Blessed be!
Pappy

by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 5:38:06 PM

  (0+)

Is there an entrance exam to test your knowledge, wisdom and sanity? Apparently not. So who chooses who gets to be a pundit. Do you get to throw your hat into the ring? Who do you have to impress?

Yeah, no shit! I consider myself a renaissance man. I have an opinion on pretty much every subject that falls into discussion in a political web site. My writing is arguably as good as the writing of some TV shows and newspapers...and in some cases better. I say that not only of myself, but of some of the other numerous writers here whose material has helped me feel less like I am stuck on some alien planet. I'm sure lots of us could do just as good a job of punditing as the schmucks doing it in the lamestream media. And I could do it while sitting behind my harp. Hmmm...that might not be a bad idea...COPYRIGHT!!!!!!

GRIN

Blessed be!
Pappy

by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 6:03:16 PM

  (0+)

Nope , He's right.

Just who would gain from new Armed militias roaming the streets of America and gun skirmishes with their Black Booted brothers?

Why the same people who gain from the War Culture right now.

Militias would need Guns and Ammo, Someone is going to give them Guns and Ammo for free? No, but the violence industry will only be too happy to sell to both sides in this new American Civil War just like they did in the last one.

And of course Militias would need financing, so the banker will be ready to step in and help, and Insurance will be there to provide for the familys of a slain Militia man. Not to even mention Transportation and Medical supplies. All who are doing quite well in the current cause of all this moral outrage. And they would simply continue to live in their ever increasing prosperity behind the walls of their gated communities while Chaos reigned in the American Streets.

Each bullet fired is a notch up on someone's bottom line.

Yes and Media would thrive in the New American Civil War. Heros from both sides would revel in their News Reels.

No the answer is so simple. I've said it before.

Stop cooperating with the violence culture.

But that's just too easy. It's more glamorous to kill or write popular articles on killing I suppose.

by "Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 338 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 7:10:03 PM

  (0+)

I find this whole idea of assassination; another type of warfare and a part of politics a very good clue to didactic behavior. Was Jesus on the mount considering the topic? Hardly! In fact our worries for the future are futile attempts to try and see if we do have some control over our lives. I think it is something we have no control over. You know if there is a God and Jesus what do we have to fear? We certainly do not have to worry about assassinating anyone. God makes sure our life clocks run out at some point. The fact is life after death in the sense of our spiritual memory is the quest we hope to accomplish..In fact this is one of the parts of life we really have no control over, because we are dead physically, yet it is carried on through time as yeah...that was the good guy/gal. My favorites Ghandi, Jesus, Dr. King. Not many but indeed they are remembered for their good. People like Hitler, PolPot, Stalin, you know the type who kill innocent people, and now  Bush and Cheney I think who have joined the list. Bush and Cheney will not be savored in the hearts of men. What need to assassinate? It does not change things really. In fact better to let them live to really show their colors, so they are forever cemented to their bad deeds and death physically, and spiritually. So I think this is why I think to Assassinate is really the wrong thing to suggest.

We can not blame ourselves for their bad behavior, nor believe it is our fault when people follow them to do those deeds. All I know is that I can never accept their ideas in attaining freedom. Freedom can not be gotten through force, murder, violence. I do not think anyone can believe that! In fact throughout history America has been at war. It has never had real peace. So it follows its lie. It must fight to have peace. Sadly it never comes. They just can not give up the idea that they need a gun and they need to control in order for them to say they are in charge and power. Their lives always end in failure as all the big empires have proven in the past. Do not fret the time is at hand, the lord is always there, he knows the good, he knows the bad.Let him sort it out, as we follow him into life everlasting.

by Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments) on Friday, Jun 29, 2007 at 7:45:25 PM

  (0+)

Peace is the way.  I agree.  Though I don't always feel it!

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 915 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 8:01:27 AM

  (0+)

Because criminals and vicarious murderers are so well-organised by their masters that they are coccooned by the 'panoply of State' as 'Presidents', 'kings' and 'Prime Ministers', it makes them no less criminals and vicarious murderers -

So think of their removal as justified execution for the crime and cruelty they have enabled.

But you should be looking at the few evil individuals who promote them to the comfort in which to exercise their criminality free from possibility of interference. These are the real villains who should be taken down by any means. - Don't know who these are? You should, you know. You have been told often enough.

And if the opportunity afforded by the blessed absence of all these vermin is properly managed, we can prevent the possibility of any recurrence by annulling what motivates and enables all such ills - money.

And that's not hard.

by Geraldo (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 105 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 5:05:09 AM

  (0+)

And strangely, I had answered earlier. I hadn't thought of submitting this to OpEd News, but I haven't even gotten a nibble via my own blog. I present you the No Stupid Rules Amendment.

by Bob King (3 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 8:07:28 AM

  (0+)

Many on the left abhor violence and rightfully see it as the original sin, which of course it is, but you also have to let you mind sweep the cycle of violence to determine the original and very often, continuing source of the violence. Some people are more likely to threaten and carry out violence than others. People with power threaten to use it, and do use it a lot, people without power don’t.

Sometimes the many without power, seize power by violence. That’s called Revolution, or even Justice.

What’s your definition of violence?

.

by rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 9:48:28 AM

  (0+)

Thank you very much for the writing and sharing of this well-reasoned and insightful article. My own mind also has tended in this direction when frustration continued to build over inaction aimed at solving these problems. The point you make concerning these evildoers needing to be held, studied, and forced to see how history paints them I found especially appropos. Frankly, I would like to see the entire lot of them gift-wrapped and dropped off at the front doors of the Hague, and Mr. Cheney unquestionably deserves to be the bow on that package. Anyway, thanks again, and I hope you get to see that video; it sounds as though it will be well worth the watching. Peace, Morgan L Evans

by mlevans (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 9 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 10:38:02 AM

  (0+)

Thank you very much for the writing and sharing of this well-reasoned and insightful article. My own mind also has tended in this direction when frustration continued to build over inaction aimed at solving these problems. The point you make concerning these evildoers needing to be held, studied, and forced to see how history paints them I found especially appropos. Frankly, I would like to see the entire lot of them gift-wrapped and dropped off at the front doors of the Hague, and Mr. Cheney unquestionably deserves to be the bow on that package. Anyway, thanks again, and I hope you get to see that video; it sounds as though it will be well worth the watching. Peace, Morgan L Evans

by mlevans (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 9 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 10:39:29 AM

  (0+)

apparently there's an echo in here.

by mlevans (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 9 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 11:00:54 AM

  (0+)

Now, i've been trying to get this very point across for years but i get stepped on by the editorial staff. I wonder why this is. tedbohne

by tedbohne (87 articles, 103 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 119 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 12:50:34 PM

  (0+)

Now, i've been trying to get this very point across for years but i get stepped on by the editorial staff. I wonder why this is. tedbohne

by tedbohne (87 articles, 103 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 119 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 12:51:04 PM

  (0+)

If they'd simply IMPEACH them, there'd be no reason for talk about assassinations.  Congress doesn't have the balls of a gnat.  WHAT are they afraid of -- an honest, intelligent executive branch?  Come to think of it, when's the last time we had THAT?!?

by Lyn (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 4:25:13 PM

  (0+)

Missed the Nolte video? Suggest I, that you get all of the Silence of the Lambs movies, ... including the first one off of which the others were spawned.

by Dale Hill (59 articles, 0 quicklinks, 107 diaries, 350 comments) on Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 at 4:25:14 PM

  (0+)

Daniel,

Loved your article and I can relate to where you are going with this. I walked around for better than a month wishing I could just get within 1,000 yards of the numbnuts in charge that need REMOVED from political office. Then the action process took place. What honor would there be to an assassination?

That would be the very low level stoop that King Bushit / Prince Cheney would perform and do so well. SHOOT PEOPLE IN THE BACK ! I really liked Pete the Prof's idea of a duel. At least there is honor to that. And I like Pete, am quite skilled in the old west art of quick drawing w/an old fashioned single action six shooter, and what better a way to settle a matter of what I call honor, than to at least give the spineless back shooters a fair chance to fire the first shot. Have they done that for anyone else ?

And to all the peace loving, non violent supporters that don't want a violent over throwing of our government, I hope your process' would work. But I seriously doubt it. What have we been hearing for how long now? And all they have done is give themselves more power, more laws to take more of our lives, rights and libertys away, and could care less.

Don't get me wrong, because I really wish there was a peaceful, non violent solution to this situation we all know about. I just think if it was possible, it would have already happened by now. But when Congress tells the American people they will stand up for our Constitution, our rights, our freedoms, and what the American people want their leaders to do, then get behind the closed doors and kiss Bush/Cheney's asses... Enough is Enough!

How many times have our Representatives backed up on the American People already? I couldn't help but think while reading an article on Francis Scott Key as he wrote the Star Spangled Banner, while imprisoned in a British stronghold, what the Patriots went through to give us this wonderful country and government we have, and what they gave up in the process.

So while all the non violent peaceful folks here don't want to hear about the A word, or violent over throw word, have another word from someone that knows nothing but a straight shot and a picture of just what it is, and not one painted that's all pretty for everyone to hear and read, if so, you'll need to probably go to the Lame Stream Media outlets and hear and read what they want you to hear then....

How about the Quick Draw Word ? I'll give George and Dick the choice of their own revolvers, the sun in their backs, and a head start, time enough for the CNN cameras to get good and close up, cause I wouldn't want this blood, guts and gorry starved society to miss out on a single bloody detail. Especially the details about how this is OUR country, OUR government, OUR constitution, and OUR RIGHT, if the American people no longer have any confidence in our governmental system or our leaders, to be physically removed from office if neccessary !

And the details to let all other governmental leaders know, you don't want to allow the checks and balances in place now keep you in check and balance... the American People have other Checks and Balances.

So if all the Non Violents want to label me as a violent extremist now, that's fine with me. I seriously doubt, [ and I challenge anyone here ] if more than 1/2 of 1 % here would actually take a stand, Stand for what is right, stand against those who oppress us, and fight for their rights as an American citizen. Especially if it came down to violence to achieve the goal.

I imagine we'd only see more bitching, nagging and ragging about how there just can't be any violence. If we want to stop all the violence, then we have to stop those performing the violence with someone else's hands. Wouldn't it be lovely if we all lived in a perfect world where there was no violence.

But coming from a rancher that lives out west in some of the wildest, most violent environments there is in this country, if a pack of wolves or a mountain lion comes and kills my cows, I go after them. Right now, I only see the most viscious pack of wolves I've ever seen, eating the heart right out of our country. It's only obvious and logical that something like the A word or now QD word manifest and take it's place in history.

And in closing, I can only think of 7 words that I use most frequently now a days... GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH !

by Danl Wiz (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments) on Friday, Jul 6, 2007 at 12:06:09 AM

  (0+)

Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was a genuine hero! Unfortunately, we are living in a time when such heroes are a rarity. Had he succeeded in doing in Hitler the cost of the war in Europe would have been significantly less and he would be revered, a household word.

Today we are saddled with a situation that our founding fathers could never have foreseen; an administration so vile and corrupt that its principals ought to have never made it past prison, a Supreme Court with no interest whatsoever in justice or the law, a congress with its hands tied by political indebtedness and ineptitude. The system is so out of balance that there is no legal means to rid ourselves of the likes of Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rice, Rove, and the rest of those rotten scoundrels.

If we cannot get rid of them through legal means we have few options. We can wait to see how much damage they do to our nation and the world over the next 18 months. This is an option that is risky at best and most likely, in the worst case, an invitation to some sort of real global disaster.

We have the option of extralegal means. Not a day passes by that I don't wish that some grief crazed parent of an Iraqi casualty or some poor SOB fraught with PTSD doesn't go off the deep end and start eliminating several of these immoral power-hungry thugs. Assassination is not such a bad thing in the context of good versus evil.

Before people get all teary-eyed and start wringing their hands over the "wrongness" of purposely removing these parasites from our midst we should remember that they are a vile and evil lot; no better than the Hitlers, Stalins, and Tojos of the world. These are people who have conspired to commit acts of war; not one of whom would ever consider dirtying their hands fighting in such a despicable endeavour. These are people who believe that freedom belongs only to the elite. These are people who steal, lie, cheat, invade our privacy, murder, and torture; and when they can't do the dirty work they'll get someone in one of the "-stans" to do it for them. These are people who have brought us extraordinary rendition. These are people who have purposely destroyed our way of life.

Removal of this sort of trash is nothing more than good civic action.

by RitaB (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jul 6, 2007 at 12:39:14 AM

  (0+)

It works for me!How about a big time coup?

by Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 327 comments [15 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jul 8, 2007 at 1:39:51 AM

  (0+)

Each day I read the news (after having dug it out of the trash bin of blithering idiocy) and I think, "Gee, I'd like to strangle someone, but who?" Then I calm down a bit and realize that illegal strangulation benefits no one. Without impeachment and trial, no actual cleansing of the system is possible. Making Bush/Cheney martyrs in they eyes of those who think only what they are told and of those who tell them, will only result in their being replaced by more cautious criminals. They must be made examples.

The question was asked today (07/22/07) about whether we should end the war in Iraq or impeach the President. To this I ask, do you walk to work or take your lunch? Yes, we must end the war in Iraq AND we must impeach Bush, Cheney and anyone else who has broken their Oath of Office. That alone, is sufficient grounds. To suggest. as some in Congress have, that the Congress has more important things to do or that if the impeachment fails, it makes Bush stronger, is absurd. First, the Congress can never get on with its legitimate business as long as President Bush is in office to veto vital legislation and require the Congress to waste its time in overriding his vetoes and dealing with his illegal activities. Second, the ONLY thing that makes President Bush strong is the willful abdication of congressional responsibility (for example, signing bills they haven't read, such as the "patriot" act or not challenging presidential edicts). This is true now and it will be true whether his impeachment is successful. Congressional responsibility at this level of importance is not subject to triage. They are elected and paid to deal with it all.

If we don't insist, in every possible manner, that our representatives do their jobs, we are complicit in their failure.

It was said (I'll have to look up by whom) that a corrupt government is the result of a corrupt populace. This is as true today as ever. We have mostly ignored the criminal corruption of our elections and let the perpetrators in Florida, Ohio and several other locations go free. We have not taken steps to insist that our elections are monitored honestly and thoroughly. We are allowing public officials to blatantly violate their oaths of office to "uphold, protect and defend the Constitution..." I took that oath in the military and as an employee of the federal government and I'll bet a lot of you did too. I don't see that as a promise that expired at my retirement.

Finally, as of today (07/22/07) 3,632 US troops, 163 British troops, 129 of the other coalition forces, 116 self-inflicted (suicide) US troop deaths, 35, 638 injuries and over 70,000 Iraqi fatalities have occurred, all as the result of VICIOUS LIES to the Congress, the American People, the United Nations and the rest of the world. Perhaps the next President will pardon Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the other "fools who followed them", but, by God, let's at least make them have to do it.

by davidyates (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Monday, Jul 23, 2007 at 1:25:26 AM

  (0+)